Image from amazon.com
[In addition to the commentary from Pentateuch & Haftarahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz, we are adding commentary from The Torah for Dummies by Arthur Kurzweil which he calls “A Reference for the Rest of Us!” This book, while teaching Torah, also updates readers on rabbinical interpretation of their Scriptures, thereby giving us a glimpse into one major world religion— Judaism. We figure, the more we learn from as many Jewish sources as we can get our hands on, the better for all zealous learners like ourselves who can avail of the trails already blazed by Jewish resource persons like Kurzweil who is helping “dummies” — as in clueless gentiles — to understand the Hebrew Scriptures which has been retitled in the Christian Bible as “Old Testament,” unfortunately. For a downloadable ebook, please go to amazon.com.—-Admin1.]
———————————————-
Like each of the other books in the Torah, the book of Numbers has a different name in Hebrew: Bamidbar (bih-mid-bar; in the wilderness). It’s somewhat understandable that the Greek translation is “the book of Numbers” because the book begins with a lengthy census of the Children of Israel in the desert. But the book of Numbers is really an account of the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering from Egypt to the Promised Land, the Land of Israel.
The trip didn’t have to take as long as it did. If the Children of Israel had followed a straight route, the journey would have taken far less time. But the 40 years in the desert . . . transformed the Children of Israel into a nation capable of defending itself and establishing itself as an organized group. The trials in the desert (of which there were many) forged them into a nation with a deep commitment and faith and obedience to God. Also, enough time passed in the desert for a new generation to be born — a generation without the slave mentality that those who left Egypt unfortunately couldn’t fully shake.
Image from patternsofg-d.com
Counting the Children of Israel
The book of Numbers begins with a command by God to Moses and his brother Aaron to take a census of the Israelites. In the following sections, I explain the results of the census of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and tell you about an exception to the census: the tribe of Levi.
Organizing the Twelve Tribes of Israel
The purpose of the census was to count those members of each major family (sometimes called a tribe) who were qualified for military duty, defined by the Torah as all males over age 20. Each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel descends from one of the 12 sons of the patriarch Jacob, whose name was changed by God to “Israel.” The sons of Jacob/Israel were literally the “fathers” of the tribes, as each tribe bore the name of one of the sons. When the Children of Israel left Egypt, they did so as tribes — that is, as huge family groups each of whom descended from one of the sons of Israel. When the Children of Israel arrived at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, they camped around the mountain as tribes. When they finally arrived in the Holy Land, they settled in separate areas as tribes. Each tribe had its own flag, traits, special abilities, and other distinctive characteristics.
Each tribe also was organized patrilineally, or by the father, during the census. My last name, for example, is Kurzweil because it’s customary to take the last name of your father, who took the last name of his father, and so on. This is exactly how the census and the tribes of Israel in the book of Numbers were organized — by the father:
“Take a census of the entire community of the Children of Israel and do it following the paternal line” (Numbers 1:2).
Here’s the result of the census:
- Asher: 41,500
- Benjamin: 35,400
- Dan: 62,700
- Ephraim: 40,500
- Gad: 45,650
- Issachar: 54,400
- Manasseh: 32,200
- Naphtali: 53,400
- Reuven: 46,500
- Shimon: 59,300
- Yehuda: 74,600
- Zebulun: 57,400
The total came to 603,550 male Israelites over 20 years of age divided among 12 tribes. In Jewish literature throughout the ages, this number is often rounded to 600,000.
It has been taught that the word “Israel” which actually means “a person of God,” can also be an acronym for the phrase Yesh Shishim Ribo Otiot LaTorah, which means “There are 600,000 letters in the Torah.” In Chapter 14, which covers writing a Torah scroll, you see that this claim isn’t literally true. There are actually a little over 300,000 letters in the Torah. But Jewish spiritual tradition suggests that the figure of 600,000 comes from a special way of counting not only the letters but also other marks that appear on a Torah scroll. The Jewish people are taught to see themselves as “letters in the Torah.” In Chapter 14, which covers writing a Torah scroll, you see that this claim isn’t literally true. There are actually a little over 300,000 letters in the Torah. But Jewish spiritual tradition suggests that the figure of 600,000 comes from a special way of counting not only the letters but also other marks that appear on a Torah scroll. The Jewish people are taught to see themselves as “letters in the Torah” and as part of a whole. It’s a goal in life for each Jewish person to find his or her own letter —that is, his or her own special task that belongs to nobody else.
Appointing the Levites to serve in the Tabernacle
The only people not counted in the census were those from the tribe of Levi, who were put in charge of the Tabernacle and its holy items. (The Tabernacle was the portable holy space set up each time the Israelites stopped their wandering in the desert . . . .)
The beginning of the book of Numbers says,
“Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel
according to their families,
according to their fathers’ household”
(Numbers 1:2).
After the Torah gives the numerical result of the census of each tribe, it says,
“The Levites according to their fathers’ tribe were not counted among them” (Numbers 1:47).
The text of the Torah goes on to say,
“God spoke to Moses saying, ‘But you shall not count the tribe of Levi, and you shall not take a census of them . . . you shall appoint the Levites to be in charge of the Tabernacle’” (Numbers 1:48-50).
- Kohanim (ko-ha-neem; priests) were the priests who served in the Tabernacle and performed the ritual sacrifices.
- Leviyim (leh-vee-eem; the priests’ assistants) took the Tabernacle apart before the Israelites traveled, carried the parts of the Tabernacle as they traveled, and constructed the Tabernacle when the Israelites stopped. The Leviyim also sang every day in the Tabernacle.
Image from rastafarirenaissance.com
When the Tabernacle was built, each tribe had a specific spot around the structure of the Tabernacle in which to set up camp. The Torah provides detailed instructions as to how the Tabernacle was to be set up at each rest stop:
- The Tabernacle was built in the middle.
- The Levites set up their tents around the Tabernacle.
- The other families set up their tents around the tents of the Levites in a precise formation detailed in the Torah.
- A special flag assigned to each tribe by God was displayed.
The Torah doesn’t give reasons for the arrangement of the tribes in their precise configuration, but Torah commentators throughout the ages have weighed in on the issue and have come up with many ideas, from the mystical to thoughts about the creation of order itself. Some commentators point out that the beginning of the Torah speaks of the original chaos of existence and that the precise details of the layout of the camp of tribes suggest that it’s a task of humankind to bring order to the world, to harness its energy and elevate it.
Looking at a Few Important Laws
The Torah has a habit of sticking important commandments and laws in seemingly strange places. Right in the middle of one subject you can find a divine edict that appears to have little to do with the surrounding text. But every detail of the Torah has divine intention; nothing in the Torah is left up to chance. Many commentators throughout the ages have offered insights to explain why it is that, on the surface, some passages don’t seem to fit, but when you look at them on deeper levels, the connections are meaningful.
A good example of this characteristic of the Torah is the number of important teachings that appear in the book of Numbers right after the census. I review some of the most prominent and important ones in the following sections.
Confessing sins
The Torah teaches the importance of confession. If you do something wrong to another person, you have to make it up to the person by abiding by the instruction of Jewish law. For example, when something is stolen, in some cases the thief has to pay double the value of the object. But he also has to confess, out loud, to God.
The book of Numbers says,
“He must confess the sin he has committed” (Numbers 5:7).
The great Jewish sage Maimonides defines the process of confession in his writings. According to Jewish law, that process has three essential parts:
- Acknowledgment of the sin
- Remorse for the sin
- Resolution that the sin will never be committed again.
Every infraction of the Torah deserves confession. If you gossip, steal, desecrate Shabbat, eat non-kosher food, lie, slander, worship idols, embarrass someone publicly, fail to give charity, judge someone too harshly, commit adultery, and so on, confession is essential.
Addressing Adultery
Like it or not, polygamy was practiced in ancient times. Specifically, it was the practice of one husband with more than one wife, not the reverse. Suspicion of adultery, therefore, meant suspicion that a wife was intimately involved with a man other than her husband. In Numbers 5:11-29, the Torah outlines what’s done in the case of a suspected adulteress.
The central part of the process is this: A priest created a special mixture that the suspected woman had to drink. If she was guilty, the drink caused her belly to burst and her sexual organs to rupture. The suspected woman was allowed to refuse the drink and proceed to dissolve the marriage. It’s likely that a woman of faith who was guilty wouldn’t want to drink the formula and would probably confess.
Throughout the ages, commentators have offered a variety of ways to look at this process, most of them focusing on the importance of the sanctity of marriage. The procedure has traditionally been seen as one involving divine intervention; it worked by way of a miracle. But the fear that the ritual procedure would actually work surely served as a deterrent.
The laws of the Nazirite
Numbers 6:1-21 presents an interesting option for someone who wanted to enter into an intense state of discipline, constraint, and spiritual devotion. The category is known as nazir (nah-zeer; separated or consecrated), and the person who made a vow to be a nazirite had to commit himself to do the following for at least 30 days:
- Abstain from wine
- Refrain from cutting one’s hair and beard
- Avoid dead bodies and graves
Jewish tradition teaches that the primary purpose of entering into this state is to combat sexual temptation. But becoming a nazirite was also part of a process of fighting pride as well as acquiring spiritual gifts and even the power of prophecy (according to some).
The Priestly Blessing
One of the most well-known passages in the entire Torah is the Priestly Blessing. In the book of Numbers, God directs Moses to tell Aaron and his sons (all of whom are priests) to bless the Israelites with the following words:
May God bless you and keep you.
May God shine His face upon you and be gracious to you.
May God direct His providence toward you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-27
Jewish tradition teaches that the priests held their arms up over
the people as they blessed them. They also held their fingers in a special way and brought their hands together. When the fingers of each hand are positioned properly, they form the Hebrew letter “shin,” which is the first letter of Shaddai (shah-die), a name for God that implies God’s infinite power and strength.
Do you remember how Star Trek’s Mr. Spock held his hand when he gave the Vulcan sign and said, “Live long and prosper?” Leonard Nimoy the actor who played the part, based this hand configuration on the blessing of the priests as taught in Jewish tradition.
A numbers of laws are connected to the Priestly Blessing, including the following:
- While customs vary, the blessing is part of the daily liturgy and is also part of the liturgy of most major Jewish festivals.
- A priest must not be under the influence of alcohol when he recites the blessing.
- Many parents recite the blessing each Friday evening at the Shabbat table to bless their children.
Witnessing Some Wild Events in the Desert
The book of Numbers records many incidents that took place as the Children of Israel traveled through the desert during the 40 years of wandering. It’s understandable that an experience like wandering in the desert for so many years could provoke rebellion and impatience. Much of the book of Numbers describes these kind of incidents, all of which were ultimately designed by God to strengthen the Israelite’s faith, resolve, and trust in God.
God was grooming Israel not simply to be a nation
but to be a holy nation,
steadfast in its faith and dedication to God
and God’s commandments.
Complaining about manna
One incident occurred when some of the Israelites complained that they were fed up (no pun intended) with eating manna everyday. Even though the manna was delicious and one tradition says that it would taste like anything one wanted it to taste like, some of the children of Israel wanted meat. They said,
“We also remember the fish we ate in Egypt, along with cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.”
Moses spoke to God and told Him that some of the people were complaining bitterly. God told Moses to tell the people to prepare to receive all the meat they wanted. In fact, the Torah says,
“God is going to give you meat and you will have to eat it. You will not eat it for a day or two, nor five nor ten nor twenty days. You will eat it for an entire month until you are stuffed and sick of it” (Numbers 11:18-20).
And that’s just what happened. The Torah records that lots of people became ill and died.
The journey in the wilderness for 40 years was designed by God to forge the Children of Israel into a spiritual nation steadfast in its faith and trust in God. God’s reaction to their petty complaints served, as most good punishments should, to strengthen the people and to show them that the best approach is to trust in God.
Miriam’s sin and punishment
A brief but important incident involving the siblings of Moses, Miriam and Aaron, is recorded in Numbers 12:1-15. Miriam spoke privately to Aaron about Moses, questioning the state of Moses’s marriage and also questioning whether Moses was the only one to whom God spoke. This gossip was punishable by God, so God punished Miriam by giving her the condition known as tzarat (a punishment for evil speech and gossip in particular).
Aaron pleaded with Moses, asking him to pray on behalf of Miriam. Moses said, El nah refa nah-la (O Lord, make her well). Moses prayed, and in a week Miriam was cured.
This story isn’t an illustration of a cruel and harsh God but rather of the process of purification, discipline, and the highest standards necessary to prepare the Jewish people for their task and role as a priesthood for the world.
The report of spies to the Holy Land
The Torah indicates that God’s intention was to get the Children of Israel from Egypt to the Holy Land as soon as possible, but entry into the Promised Land took preparation, from the hardships in Egypt to the trials in the desert. After all, the Promised Land is unlike anywhere on the earth; for the Jewish people, it’s the focal point of physical life.
When the Israelites were getting close to their destination, God instructed Moses to send out a group of men to take a peek at the Promised Land. Moses gathered on representative from each of the 12 tribes and gave them the assignment to find out the following;
- What kind of a land is it?
- Are the people living there strong or weak?
- Are they few or many?
- Are their communities open or fortified?
- Is the land good or bad?
- Is the soil rich or weak?
- Are there trees?
- Bring back some samples of the fruit growing there.
The men set off to investigate the Promised Land. The Torah describes their 40-day journey in Numbers 13:1-14:10. When they returned, they issued their report to Moses, Aaron, and the entire community; here’s what they found:
- The land is flowing with milk and honey.
- The fruit is terrific.
- The people are aggressive types.
- Their cities are fortified.
- The people are giants. we felt like tiny grasshoppers.
When the people heard the report, they shouted, complained, and wept. As was their practice, they complained to Moses and told him that they wished they had never left Egypt. They wanted to know why God would bring them to a place where they would be killed, and they even considered deposing Moses, appointing a new leader, and going back to Egypt! At this point, the Torah says that Moses and Aaron “fell on their faces” (Number 14;5).
Two of the 12 spies spoke up gave this minority report:
- The land we explored is fantastic.
- If God brought us this far, we can enter the land.
- It is indeed flowing with milk and honey.
- Don’t rebel against God.
- Don’t be afraid of the people who are there.
- God is with us — don’t be afraid.
The community didn’t much care for this report and threatened to stone the two spies to death.
By this time, the Torah indicates, God was growing impatient.
“How long shall this nation continue to provoke me?
How long will they not believe in Me,
despite all the miracles that I have done?”
(Numbers 14:11).
Moses pleaded with God to forgive the people, and his words included one of the most important descriptions of God:
“God is slow to anger,
great in love,
and forgiving of sin and rebellion”
(Numbers 14:18).
Moses was successful in convincing God to forgive the Israelites’ rebellion. But God said,
“I will grant forgiveness as you requested . . .
but I will punish all those who tried to test me . . .
They will not see the land I promised to their ancestors”
(Numbers 14:20-23).
The only exceptions were Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who issued the minority report. They saw the Promised Land. The rest of the Children of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years and eventually died. Only the children and grandchildren, who weren’t in Egypt and weren’t part of all the rebellions against God in the desert, entered the Land of Israel.
Who does Moses think he is?
Korach’s rebellion
As the book of Numbers makes clear in verses 16:1-35, things didn’t go smoothly for Moses, and Korach’s rebellion was just one more headache. Korach was a great grandson of Levi and therefore a great grandson of the patriarch Jacob. He was also a wealthy man who decided to gather some followers and stage a rebellion against Moses. Why? Korach challenged Moses’s leadership and expressed the desire to be the High Priest. He said to Moses,
“All the people in the community are holy . . .
why are you setting yourself above everyone else?”
(Numbers 16:3).
The Torah says that Korach had 250 followers, and among them were some of the most well-known leaders of the Israelites.
The great Torah commentators are actually somewhat sympathetic to Korach. After all, Korach wanted to serve God and wanted to participate more fully in the spiritual activities in the Tabernacle. But someone else got there first when Moses selected Aaron to be the High Priest at the direction of God.
In the face of Korach’s rebellion, Moses prayed for divine guidance and told Korach that he and Aaron should both bring pans of fire and burn incense at the altar. They did as Moses had instructed, and ultimately the ground opened up and swallowed Korach and his cohorts. Then a fire descended from heaven and destroyed all the people who supported the rebellion.
The Torah reports that the entire community protested so much that God was about to destroy them too. Aaron offered a sacrifice, and although 14,700 people died, the plague against them stopped.
The great Torah commentators have a lot to say about Korach and his rebellion. They make a major point: Korach acted based on jealousy and ego, not on a pure desire to do God’s will. The moral of this story from the book of Numbers is made clear in the famous book of the Oral Torah called The Sayings of the Fathers:
“Any controversy which is for the sake of Heaven will endure: and that which is not for the sake of Heaven will not endure. What is a controversy that is for the sake of Heaven?
The controversy between Hillel and Shammai.
And which is not for the sake of Heaven?
The controversy of Korach and all his faction” (Avot 5:17).
In other words, there’s nothing wrong with questions or challenges of authority — as long as the motives are pure.
Getting water from a rock
The book of Numbers relates that at a certain point the Children of Israel didn’t have any water (Numbers 20:2-12). The people once again “gathered against Moses and Aaron” (Numbers 20:2). As they had in the past, the people demanded to know why Moses brought them into the wilderness from Egypt, where they had enough to eat and to drink, to the desert, which they described as a “terrible place” (Numbers 20:5). Moses and Aaron prayed to God for guidance.
God told Moses to take the staff and gather the people. God then instructed Moses to speak to the rock and promised that water would come out of the rock; God said that the rock would provide enough water for the people and for their animals. Moses angrily said to the people,
“Listen to me, you rebels.
Shall we bring water from this rock?”
(Numbers 20:10).
At that moment, Moses lifted his hands and struck the rock twice with the staff. A great quantity of water began flowing from the rock, providing the community with plenty of water.
But God didn’t tell Moses to strike the rock in anger; God asked Moses for faith. As a result of the anger that Moses expressed by striking the rock, he and Aaron were punished. God said to them,
“Because you did not believe in Me . . .
you will not bring this congregation
to the Land that I have given them”
(Numbers 20:12).
This episode in the Torah has great significance, not only as a story about the importance of having faith in God but also as an illustration that Moses was just a human being. Unlike other religious traditions in which followers end up revering and even worshipping their leaders, in Judaism, Moses may have been the greatest prophet and teacher but he also was mortal, imperfect, and punished for his errors.
The death of Aaron
The death of Aaron, brother of Moses, High Priest, and ancestor of all priests forever, seems like an aside in the Torah text. Numbers 20:27-29 says,
“Moses did as God commanded
in full view of the whole community.
They went up Mount Hor.
Moses stripped Aaron of his robes
and gave them to Aaron’s son, Eleazar.
Aaron died there on the mountaintop.
When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain,
the Israelite community saw that Aaron had died
and the people mourned for thirty days.”
And that’s about it. The rest is up to the Oral Torah (known as the Talmud); which fills in the blanks and helps you to picture the scene. One well-known story from the oral tradition teaches that Moses woke up early and approached his brother Aaron. Moses told Aaron that during the night he (Moses) was studying the story of Adam and Eve and was thinking about the fact that Adam brought death into the world through his sin. Moses told Aaron that death was inevitable for both of them and asked Aaron how much more time he thought they had. Aaron said that he didn’t think they had too much longer to live, and then Moses told Aaron that god said it was Aaron’s time to die.
Judaism is a tradition that considers life to be sacred and holy, and yet it faces death realistically. When God decides that it’s a person’s time to die, it may be sad for those left behind, but it’s different for the deceased, whose soul continues on beyond the body. (Jewish views on death).
Balak and Bilaam
Belief in angels is an important part of Jewish life. The Torah story of Balak and Bilaam is partly about an angel (Numbers 22:1-24:25). After almost 40 years in the desert, the Children of Israel were finally close to the Promised Land. The rich and successful King of Moab, Balak, felt threatened by Moses and the Israelites because they’d successfully battled a few kings during their wandering. Balak contacted Bilaam, a prophet, and told him to curse the Children of Israel. Bilaam refused after God told him not to do it. After repeated orders from Balak to curse the Children of Israel, Bilaam continued to receive prophetic messages from God to refrain from cursing the Israelites.
Bilaam traveled to see Balak, but on the road his donkey suddenly stopped, refused to continue, and veered off the road. Bilaam beat the donkey until it began to speak, telling Bilaam that it had never failed him, so the beating wasn’t justified. The donkey said that it stopped moving because it saw an angel standing before them wielding a sword. Bilaam then saw the angel a well and knew that it was sent by God. Had the donkey not stopped, Bilaam would have been killed by the angel’s sword.
Like every story in the torah, the episode of Balak and Bilaam is rich with meaning. One of my teachers says that a major moral of the story of Balak and Bilaam is that everyone ultimately answers to God. Balak used his position as King to attempt to pressure and use a prophet of God for his own evil reasons. Jewish tradition addresses the question of why good things happen to bad people in different ways. The Torah utilizes the story of Balak and Bilaam to remind the reader that the sinner will ultimately fail, even if he’s a king with everything going for him today. A benevolent God will give him enough rope and then exact a penalty. Napoleon met his Waterloo, and Bilaam was disgraced by his she-ass.
One of the most well-known verses in the Torah comes from Bilaam (Numbers 24:5). When Balak sent Bilaam to the top of the mountain to curse the Israelites, God caused the opposite to happen: Bilaam saw the Israelites and said, Ma-tovu oha-leicha Ya’akov; (How good are your tents, O Jacob). These are the very words that Jews recite whenever they enter a synagogue to pray.
The boundaries of the Holy Land
Near the end of the book of Numbers, the Torah defines the precise boundaries of the Holy Land. Needless to say, the impact of these verses continues to reverberate today. After centuries, the Jewish people have reclaimed the Holy Land, and in 1948, with the support of the United Nations, the Jewish people established the modern state of Israel. Some Jews have lived in the region throughout history, but since the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Jewish people have mostly lived in exile. But they’ve held onto the dream of returning to the Holy Land promised by and given by God as recorded in the Torah.
Chapter 34 of the book of Numbers provides the exact details of the boundaries of the Holy Land. The Torah begins by defining the extreme southeast border, then the western boundary, followed by the north, east, and south boundaries. One of the reasons the precise boundaries are important is that there are some commandments in the Torah that are only applicable for people who are actually in the Holy Land. One example is the Sabbatical Year. In Leviticus 25:1-6, the Torah states that God says,
“When you come to the land that I am giving you,
the land must be given a rest period.
For six years you may plant your fields . . .
but the seventh year
is a Sabbath of Sabbaths for the land.
It is God’s Sabbath during which
you may not plant your fields
nor prune your vineyards . . . “
This is just one of many Torah commandments that’s dependent on precise knowledge of the boundaries of the Holy Land. Of course, the precise boundaries also have profound political implications. The Holy Land is the ancient homeland of the Children of Israel. Since the time when the Jewish people were conquered and banished, Jews have been well-known victims in the lands of other people. The worst chapter of Jewish history occurred a mere 65 years ago during the Holocaust, when one out of every three Jews in the world was murdered. Today, the Jewish people have reclaimed their Promised Land and have a security that they haven’t known for many centuries.