This week’s Torah Portion “B’ha’alotcha” (Numbers 8 -12) is all over the place, and includes the actual preparations for moving the entire Israelite encampment, something that will happen over and over again for the next many years. But the Israelites don’t know that yet, and they’re impatient, and hungry and they complain. So they get what they asked for, sort of, and then it’s another topic and another difficulty, and well, to cut a long story short, they wind up actually getting it together and moving, with the Ark of the Covenant at their fore, until they camp again. That doesn’t sound like the way an army would approach the task of guarding a precious object while travelling with thousands of people, including children and the elderly, does it? I for one am not convinced that our narrative, which describes the Ark at the forefront of our progress was necessarily describing a historical situation, rather than how we felt about the protection our covenant with God provided us.
In this week’s portion we find a highly unusual scribal item: two enlarged and inverted letter nun are placed before and after the announcement “ויהיה בנסע הארון ויאמר משה: קומה ה' ויפוצו אובייך וינוסו משאנך מפניך"
(Which has a very catchy tune when sung just before the Torah scroll is taken from the Ark when it is read in synagogue.) The Ark in the Torah, a kind of box threaded onto poles in order to transport it without physical contact was equated with the Ark in the Synagogue, which is kind of cabinet to hold the scrolls upright so they don’t deteriorate. Do they have the same role? Does the Torah scroll remind us of God’s protection in precarious situations? Does the sight of the scroll being lifted imbue us with confidence that we are, and will be, protected from our enemies? I’m not so sure.
What I did notice however, when studying this portion, was that these are not a description or a narrative: this is a Divine Declaration: God is reminding all of Israel that it is Moses who speaks when the Ark is lifted so that the People may travel onwards. Unexpectedly it is Moses who calls upon God to GET UP ALREADY to disperse our enemies and cause those who hate us to cower before God’s face. We can’t expect to survive the journey across the desert without God’s help, but we need to ask for it! That is something that hasn’t changed in all the intervening years: in order to change we need to act differently, either alone, or with help. I posit that our community is reinforced by our acknowledgment that sometimes we need help. Sometimes the challenge seems unsurmountable, but if we shift our perspective to include all the other people looking at that same challenge, it will seem less intimidating.
As I prepare to conclude my time with you in Cheshire I urge you to continue to ask for what you need from your TBD community, whether you are facing a personal challenge, or want to get back to socializing with other members, if you have a kid in Religious School or just kind of want to remember what Shabbat sounds like, take the initiative and join in. You have a wonderful community full of openness and cooperation, the more you are part of it the more we are all enriched.
Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Leah Benamy
