Ziv: Parashat Bamidbar

And I will betroth you to me forever…

This week, we begin our reading of the book of Numbers which tells of the long crossing of the desert (internal and external) by the children of Israel, before arriving in the land of promise. In this crossing full of dangers, one has to be ready for combat, which explains why this book begins with a census : it is necessary to count and organize the men capable of carrying arms. This is also the second name of this book in Hebrew : “Sefer HaPikudim” - the book of the censuses. A commentary explains that these censuses manifest divine protection : in spite of all Pharaoh’s attempts, the attacks of Amalek, and the difficulties of life in the wilderness, the people is not annihilated, it was able not only to resist but to grow… the Midrash also says that the One who guides His people wished to count all His children one by one, to make sure none were missing, like a man carefully counting his precious stones from time to time.

The book is also called simply : in the wilderness, “BaMidbar”, which in Hebrew, recalls another word, “davar”, the Word - the act of speaking. Indeed, this parasha is always read on the sabbath before the feast of weeks - Shavuot - during which the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai is celebrated, the giving of the ten commandments - the ten words. The Torah was given in the wilderness to a people barely out of slavery. The wilderness and the word of revelation - the words that sealed the covenant - are therefore linked, and this is what the reading of the Haftarah shows us : in it we read, together with the prophet Hosea of the renewal of the covenant which was broken : “I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:14). The vastness of the wilderness forms a remarkable contrast with the sophisticated constructions of the Egyptian civilization. Nothing is organized or constructed in the wilderness, which recalls the world before creation, the formless and empty Tohu-VaBohu. The word sounded in order to bring out light and life, ten words of creation… Ten? A simple count only shows nine… A tradition says that there was a need for a tenth in order to create what was before the light, and this word of origin is “Bereshit” - in the beginning. These ten words of creation are heard in echo in the ten words of the law received on Mt. Sinai, words that come to put structure into chaos by introducing limits : light is distinguished from darkness, day from night, just as we distinguish between what is permitted and what is not - and this distinction, this ordering is a source of life, just life the Torah. Shabbat Shalom.