This week we get to re-visit a very strange parsha (weekly Torah portion). It is called B’ha’alotcha which means, “When you raise up,” and is referring to the candles of the menorah. This will make more sense if we begin at the beginning of the parsha, which starts with… you guessed it… haShem (god) speaking to Moshe (Moses).
This time he is to tell Aharon that when he raises up the candles, towards the face of the menorah (candelabra) the seven candles will shine. And of course Aaron did this just as he was commanded. We then get a recap on how the menorah was made. This is followed by the purification of the tribe of Levi, which includes all the people laying their hands on the Levites (the same way one would for a sacrifice), and our being told that haShem took them in place of the first born, giving them to the cohanim (priests) in order to serve the service of the children of Yisrael in the tent of meeting. At the end of this passage, we find that a Levi can only do this service if he is between 25 and 50.
Next we read that god spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year after leaving Egypt, on the first of the month, telling him to tell the tribes to prepare for Pesach (Passover).
This is a pretty busy time. We have Pesach preparations going on while the mishcan (tabernacle) is being set up for the first time and Aharon and his sons are involved in a seven day initiation ritual in order to become priests, and for 12 days we have a different tribe bringing an offering for inauguration of the mishcan. Wow, a lot going on here. And on top of all this, we have some folk who come to Moshe because they are tamae (a mixed state) and so they cannot participate in Pesach and they want to; so, they come and ask Moshe if there a way. Moshe asks god and god provides a way: a second Pesach during the full moon (the 14th) of the following month. And this is not just a one-time event, it will be available every year for those who cannot participate in Pesach at the full moon of the month of spring.
We now read that when the mishcan was complete, the cloud of god rested on it, and when it (the cloud) rose, the tribes would travel, and when the cloud rested on the mishcan, the tribes would camp. God then tells Moshe to make silver trumpets to signal the tribes to come and to go and for special times. And finally, on the 20th of the second month, the cloud lifts and the children of Yisrael begin their first journey. It is here that we read of a strange conversation between Moshe and a guy named Chovav, the son of R’u-ayl the Midianite who is also Moshe’s father in law. Moshe asks him to stay and join them on their way to the promised land and of the good that god will give the tribes, he will also benefit from. Chovav’s answer is that he will not go, instead he will return to his land and his birthplace.
And we now come the upside down nuns (nun is a Hebrew letter) which is followed by the people complaining and god getting angry and the people craving food instead of the mon (manna) and Moshe complaining to god that he can’t carry the people himself. God answers Moshe by sharing Moshe’s spirit of prophesy amongst 72 of the elders. Then god provides meat and we read the results of that. Finally, we end with Miriam and Aharon complaining about Moshe, and Miriam getting Tzara’at for seven days, and then the people start on their journey.
So much is here, I wish I could give more than this summary, and I wish that we could talk about all that is here. Alas, we don’t have the time or space, so I will just hit on one or two things. The first thing is a theme that came up at the Shabbat evening meal I was at a while back.
We were struck by all the complaining. What was that all about? We then had the realization that the people, Moshe included, must have had a let down.
I don’t know how many of you have had to organize and put on a big event or performance. There is a big buildup and excitement that climaxes with the event itself… and then there is the big letdown that hits afterwards and you feel depressed. I think this is what the children of Yisrael went through. They have spent the better part of a year preparing to build the mishcan. Then they build it and inaugurate it and the priests get initiated and they prepare for their first Pesach in the desert, and then…
nothing. It is all over. What now? We sit and wait. They sit for a month after that first Pesach.
So, it makes sense that they would be a little down. And so they start to complain. Even Moshe and Miriam and Aharon, the big three, are not immune. And what happens? Each time, god comes down hard on them. Why? Why would god be so hard-nosed when the people act in such a predictable and normal way? It cannot be because god expects them not to act human because god doesn’t get upset with Moshe when Moshe complains. Rather, he responds positively to Moshe’s complaints. So, why does god get angry with everyone else?
I think the reason that god does not get angry with Moshe is because Moshe’s complaint is that he does not think god is helping him do the job god wants him to do. At the end of the parsha, we read that Moshe is the most humble man.
Put these two ideas together and we see a man not complaining about not getting what he desires, but complaining because he feels a lack of support. The result is that god gives him support.
Everybody else is complaining about lacking some desire. They want another high now that they are coming down from the high I described above. God gets upset because he wants us to learn that while there will be highs and lows, we can’t forget what we have, what we have done, and what we need to do; this is the way out of the depression. The way the people complained showed a lack of this, and god shows that this lack, along with the downer, creates a spiral for more and more cravings that will lead to overdose and death.
The second idea I want to touch on has to do with the conversation between Chovav and Moshe. It hearkens back to the beginnings of Abraham, when god said, “Go to the place that I will show you and away from your homeland and the land of your birth.” Here, we have Moshe asking Chovav to go to this same place with promises of sharing in the goodness that god will give the tribes, and Chovav declines saying he is going to return to his homeland, the land of his birth. Why does Abraham leave his homeland and the land of his birth, while Chovav returns to the same?
To answer this, I think we need to see how each got to his conversation. Abraham spent a lifetime searching for god. God finally comes to him and is essentially telling him to leave his old life and ways behind. God is giving Abraham a test: ok, you found me, now am I really what you are looking for? Are you really willing to change your way of being and follow me? Go to yourself and find out, and if so, then I will take you to your land, your place.
Chovav’s trip is a little different. His full name is Chovav ben R’u-ayl which means, “Affection or love, son of they-shepherded power,” and he is the brother-in-law of Moshe, the most humble man. Moshe marries into the family that shepherded power, but remains humble. Chovav is the love that is the offspring of collected power. In a way, he is the antidote to the depression described in the parsha: he is the happiness/satisfaction that comes after a person has directed his energy/power to completing a major task.
This is why Moshe asks him to stay with the tribes. Moshe knows the danger of the letdown after all the work the people are doing, so he asks the energy of satisfaction for a job well done, to stay amongst the people, hoping the inducement of future wealth will persuade it. Chovav, however, is about being satisfied now and is not about looking at some future goal; so, he refuses the offer and leaves. The result of this is the depression and craving that we read about right after this conversation.
What can we learn from this? Perhaps the lesson is that after we marshal/shepherd all our energies to a big event (and what could be bigger than bring god into the world?), we need to stop and enjoy the fruit/offspring of our work before we worry about the next task in life. If we don’t, then we will just fall into depression feeling like we aren’t up for the next task, and craving what we had in the past until that craving consumes and overwhelms us.
Why the similarity between Chovav’s conversation with Moshe and Abraham’s conversation with god? To show us when to push on (Abraham): when we are being challenged in the middle of our work, and when to not push on (Chovav): immediately after finishing a major effort. As it says in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3:7: a time to be silent, and a time to speak. (and speaking, as we have discussed before, is about creating or working. Hence, silence is about sitting and enjoying what you have done.).
May all our work help to bring haShem into the world, and may we also learn to take time after each project to enjoy what we have done and to enjoy having more of haShem in the world, before we start on our next big project.
If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.