This week we finish the fourth book of the Torah, b’Meedbar (Numbers). The final parsha (weekly Torah portion) is called Mas’ay which means travels, and the parsha starts off by reviewing 40 years of travels by the children of Yisrael. At the end of this review, we read that haShem (god) once again talks to Moshe (Moses) telling him to tell the people something. This time it is what to do when they cross the Jordan river: remove the people living there, destroy their religious artifacts, and settle the land. We then read of the details of how the land will be divided followed by a warning that if the current residents of the land are not removed, they will cause problems for the people. After this warning, haShem details the boundaries of the land. Moshe then passes the info along.
HaShem then says that the children of Yisrael need to provide cities and space around the cities for the tribe of Levi. Six of the cities will be cities of refuge for killers, along with 42 other cities. We then read when killers can find safe haven in these cities of refuge, and when not. This section of the parsha ends with haShem saying not to make the land tamae (mixed) for god itself is living within the people who are to be living on the land.
The parsha ends with a clarification of the rules of inheritance when a man dies with only daughters.
Given some of the parshas we have read, this one does not seem to have much in it. One could say the same thing looking at a lake or the ocean. However, if you go under the surface, there is a whole other world that you would never have guessed just looking at the surface.
Now, I don’t plan on showing you all of this world; I am just hoping to give you a glimpse through an open door, hoping one or more of you will be open to taking a step in and looking around for yourselves. You see, there is a lot here under the surface. For example, the retracing of the journey by the children of Yisrael, from Mitzrayim (Egypt in Hebrew which translates into narrows) until they are about to enter the promised land, is really a journey through the stages of life. Leaving Egypt is the birthing process for example. I was considering translating each place and connecting it to the stages of life, but that is not what is calling me today. I have a different map I want to share. I did want to mention this to you, just in case any of you might want to check it out on your own. 🙂 And if you do, please comment below what you discover!
Before I get to my map, I also wish to point out that there are 42 places the people go, and there are also 42 cities that are given to the tribe of Levi (excluding the cities of refuge). I haven’t found the connection; if anyone has any ideas, please don’t hesitate to tell us in the comment section (or just me if you are shy). A further connection to this number 42, for those of you who haven’t read, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is that the number 42 is the answer to, “Life, the universe, and everything.” This comes out early in the book, and the rest of the book, along with its successors is about trying to figure out what is the question. One of the guesses to what the question might be is, “What is seven times six?” This is the jumping off point for what I wish to talk about.
Before I begin, I wish to review a little bit of the Jewish mystical tradition. When haShem created this world, he created ten channels for his energy to come into this world. These are the ten spherot (circles) that make up the tree of life. The lower seven of these manifest as character traits in each and every person. These seven are chesed (loving kindness), gevorah (strength – which is needed to hold back or be disciplined), tiferet (the balance of chesed and gevorah which produces beauty), netzach (confidence and complete control like a conductor of an orchestra), hod (surrender or gratitude to haShem – the conductor of the symphony of the universe), yesod (foundation or the funnel that everything goes through to get to…), malkut (kingship and also this world, the world of action). The other three spherot: keter, chochmah, and binah, have to do with the intellect and beyond.
Now, after the first day of Pesach (Passover) we are told to count the omer (sheafs of grain) for seven weeks (49 days), and the 50th day is the holiday of the harvesting of the first fruits. Pesach is a new beginning, and the 50th day is a time of harvest. The question is what are we harvesting?
The answer is anything we want. We have 49 days, or seven times seven days to improve ourselves. In the Jewish family tradition, we have a way of doing this. As I said above, the lower seven spherot are character traits. Each week, we work on one of these character traits. And since all the spherot are contained in each sphere, each day of each week we can work on a different aspect of that character trait. The first day we work on the chesed of chesed and the last day we work on the malkut of malkut.
Now what does all this have to do with our parsha? Well, where does our parsha start? It starts with us leaving Egypt, the day after Pesach. So, it is right in synch with our counting of the omer. Essentially, we are being shown that the journey the tribes took through the wilderness, from birth to entering the promised land, is parallel on the nation-wide level, to what we do on a personal level when we count the omer. Each place the tribes stopped corresponds to one of the days of the omer and also shows the character trait that was worked on at a national level. Will I describe this? Today, I leave it as an exercise for you to do. Maybe, another year I will spell it out. 🙂
I do hear the smart-alec in the back, the one with the hat pulled over his eyes saying, “But there are only 42 places, and there are 49 days in the omer. This doesn’t add up!” And you know what? He’s right. The missing week, is the final week of the omer. It is the week of the sphere of malkut. What is malkut?
Malkut is the kingdom. It is also this world, the world of action. It is about taking and applying and owning all the other character traits that you have worked on and improved. And it is found in the 6th book of the Tenach (Hebrew for bible), the book of Joshua. The missing 7 locations are the seven years that it takes to conquer the land. The land is the kingdom, it is malkut. In order to win these battles, the character traits that we learned along the way, at each stop, must be internalized, and put into practice. And at the end of the seven years, we harvested the fruit of our labors by having a place to call home.
It is strange to have a parsha like this as we are approaching the day that we lost both temples (the 9th of Av). But what I find is that to make room for the new, you must destroy the old, that which no longer works. And that is what is going on during the 3 weeks leading up to the 9th of Av (Aug 5 this year). For shortly after, we start preparing for a new beginning, a new year. This parsha is here to remind us of what we need to do, after we have cleared the space, to start our new year off in a good way. For the 50th day starting the day after the 9th of Av is Rosh Hashanah (the new year or literally, the head of change).
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.