Bemidvar 5773 English

By Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky,
B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

Published in 5768

The Center of Our Lives

The second chapter of the book of Numbers specifies how the camp of the children of Israel was to be set up in the wilderness. The Mishkan (Tabernacle) was in the middle. All around it, Moses, Aaron and his sons, and the rest of the Levites would gather. A little farther away, on each of the cardinal points, a group of three tribes would settle, each one carrying an identifying banner. This arrangement had to be strictly maintained when camping as well as when traveling.

It is clear that the camp was arranged from the inside out, following a decreasing order in holiness or religious importance. At the center, the house of God and His Torah; surrounding this, those who were responsible for teaching and watching over the keeping of the words of the Torah; and, still farther away, the people to whom the divine message was directed.

In his introduction to the Book of Numbers, Nachmanides builds an analogy between the camp arrangement and the stage of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, comparing the verses that describe both events, in Exodus and Numbers. According to this analogy, the Tabernacle was something like the continuation or extension of Mount Sinai during the journey through the wilderness, as if that ineffable moment of revelation and encounter between the human and the divine could be symbolically represented each and every day throughout the forty years of pilgrimage between Egypt and Canaan.

What catches our attention in Nachmanides’ interpretation is, of course, the fact that the Mishkan was located in the center of the scene. I would like to propose some teachings which I believe could be learnt from this strange geometrical order:

The Torah must constitute the center of our lives. Our daily thoughts and actions should revolve around our tradition. Helping our congregations, praying at the synagogue, observing the Jewish commandments, bringing our children to the Jewish school, forming a Jewish family, taking an interest in our fellow Jews in Israel and the world, studying Judaism, etc… all these activities should be the most important in our everyday life. If taking our kids to a ballet lesson or to the Jewish school makes no difference to us, the message we transmit is too clear for us to expect our children to continue being Jewish in the future. Only when the Torah settles in our hearts can we shelter it.

Jewish teachers and leaders must place themselves as close to their congregations as to the study and cultivation of tradition. If Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the Levites had settled within the Mishkan, we would have said they lived in an “ivory tower”, concerned only with knowledge and theory. But if, to the contrary, they had settled among the common people, then we would have said they were popular leaders, lacking a solid source of inspiration. We need Jewish teachers and leaders who know how to be close to their people, but who can also develop strongly their own spirituality, the intellectual and moral bases which will transform them into outstanding rulers.

The people’s location, equidistant from the Torah, symbolizes, in my opinion, the need for spiritual, study, and recreation Jewish frameworks to be always at the disposal of every Jew. Economic and logistic resources should be used in order to allow each and every one of us the opportunity of living meaningful Jewish lives. On the one hand, we should all strive to get close to the Jewish centers, and on the other, those of us who already have the pleasure of living within those institutions, should make an effort to bring in those who are currently outside. In Judaism, no one has more rights or responsibilities than others; we all are surrounding the Torah.

May we be able, in our time, to reconstruct the image of the Hebrew camp in the wilderness, in each one of our Jewish institutions. May the Torah be the center of community interests, may teachers and leaders approach the people without having to sacrifice their own spiritual and cultural development, and may we all irrespectively have access to Jewish experiences and activities which can serve us as inspiration and guide.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabino Rami Pavolotzky