Bamidbar
Thoughts on the Weekly Reading
by
Rabbi Ze'ev Haim Lifshitz

Parashat Bamidbar


Fata Morgana - The Desert Wanderer's Mirage?
OR
Hitbodedut - The Private, Solitary Worship?

A solitary desert wanderer has nothing in common with the monastic who secludes himself in a monastery, nor does he share any common state with the prisoner in solitary confinement in his dank cell. The prisoner feels that human beings have severed him from his freedom. The solitary monastic feels that his solitude is due to his own freely chosen aspirations. Therefore he willingly secludes himself.

The lonely desert wanderer is different from both of these. Jeremiah, the prophet, longs for the desert, wishing to have been a remote inn, where he would be free to mourn, in solitude, the betrayal of his people.

A desert is beyond place and time: Infinite wide spaces, empty of flora, fauna, or humanity. It is boundary-less, border-less.

It is not like being lost in an evergreen forest, which can bring one to despair yet also to hope. The forest is fraught with risk, but also with surprise. From behind one of the trees in the thick of the gloomy forest, a wild beast of prey might suddenly leap out, but a forest keeper could also appear suddenly, and extend a helping hand, not to mention the abundance of edible fruits that hang from the trees.

The one imprisoned in the cell is also not completely solitary. He lives the bustling life that transpires beyond the walls, and is filled with sorrow, and with hope that the torment he is living will end one day.

All of these exist inside a place and within a time. The sensation experienced by the one who is lost in the desert is different in that it is a condition beyond place and time. Not for naught did the Children of Israel wander in the desert for forty years.

Another group that freely and willingly chooses to seek solitude is represented by the matmid, the "incessant one," the one who creates and innovates in Torah, who encloses himself within his own creativity. These are the mitbodedim, the solitude-seekers who are enveloped in ananei hakovod, the clouds of glory. The dimensions of place and time are chosen by them, and created by them. They do not suffer. Their hitbodedut - in which they create tehir own solitude -  expresses their own relating to place and to time.

We must emphasize that place and time do also exist in the previous example cited. The hidush, the radical innovation inherent in the manner by which these matmidim, these "incessant ones" - incessant in their perseverence in Torah study - relate to place and time is that they themselves create their own entirely new way of relating, yesh miyesh, "one state of being arising out of another state of being," using the materials they have been given.

Contrast this condition with that of the solitary wanderer in the barren desert, whose existence is not measured by place or time because these do not exist in his environment.

And lo and behold: It is precisely in this place-that-is-no-place, and at this time-that-is-no-time, that the Creator chooses to endow the People of Israel with the Torah, which creates a dimension of height, independent of the earthly dimensions of place and time.

For this reason, this week's Torah portion, Bamidbar, grants the Jewish people a private and personal dimension in the midst of the larger group of humanity. This is the dimension of depth, the dimension of a personal point of departure, of one's personal extraction. It is meant to provide every individual with a point of contact, with a hold on reality that provides and serves as an individualized, personalized point of departure. This endows every single individual with intrinsic, inalienable value.

The Torah discusses the net worth of the individual in the previous week's Torah portion, Behukotai which concludes the Book of Numbers, Vayikra: An individual is worth no more than twenty shekels. And this is when he is in his prime, between the ages of twenty and sixty. Before and after this, his value drops much lower. We can easily imagine that such an individual, when seeking seclusion, is really needing to be related to.

Thus we find that before any relating to any place and time, one must first relate to the other human beings who are like oneself.

Relating to genetic extraction is more than just relating to a biological fact. It means relating to a community, to family origins. It reflects a value that is an eternal value, shel kayama, far more lasting than any mere relating to place and time, which is a purely technical/external involvement that risks obscuring the value of the individual, and contributing nothing at all to his unique worth.

This week's Torah portion deals with relating to the dimension of depth, to the personal individual source, to origins and extraction.

From here we learn the value of identifying with our own ethnic group, which holds more, far more content than any other relating to any other dimension.

From here we learn the value of tefilah betsibur, praying together with a congregation, because the individual prayer rises through the prayer of the congregation, even when that individual prayer has been deficient.

From here we learn the value of the individual, who merits the [heavenly] attention that has been generated by the group.

From here we learn of the need to relate to and identify with our ethnic group, our community, and our nation.

The Post-Modernist tendency toward an empty individualism comprised of isolated, rootless individuals does not express liberation, but only the throwing off of a personal yoke in exchange for wantonness.

Such individualism does not express the self, nor any of its qualities, even though the self has an exclusive copyright on positive individualism,  that aspect of hitbodedut that defines and is compatible with the needs of the self.

Modern individualism means giving liberty to the yetser, to the selfish needs of ego only. This expresses a severing and a disconnecting rather than the return home of the prodigal son.

Yet relating to the spiritual dimension of height also requires these other two dimensions. It requires the tangible realness of a sense of place and time. When these are included within spiritual activity, a three-dimensional experience of existence unfolds, affording a sensation of value-based quality attached to an expression of tangible realness.