Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

      The order of the flags in the desert – a systematic order – was a container, designed to contain and to express every component of every Jew as a private individual.

      The count and the flags: See Akeidat Yitzchak, who comments at length upon the flags as a symbol, as the imagery of consolidation. “And His flag was love upon me.” Midrash Raba, chapter two: “Why is it written, ‘We will exult in Your deliverance, and in the name of our God, we will flag’? (Psalms 20) [Because] at the time the Holy One was revealed to Israel at Sinai to give them Torah and mitzvos, with Him descended 22,000 of the myriads of ministering angels, and they were all arranged according to flags, as it says ‘flagged of the myriad.’ Having seen them, Israel immediately craved to be made into flags as they were, as is written, ‘He brought me to the wine house, and His flag was love upon me.’ So the Holy One said: ‘By your lives, I shall make you into flags, as you have craved,’ and this is what is meant by ‘every man upon his flag.’”

      From the midrash it seems clear that they wanted to actually be flags themselves, rather than to be given flags in their hands. We need to clarify the meaning and substance of the idea of a flag.

      According to the author of the Akeidah, “when the ultimate human purpose is obliged to take form in a conceptual shape, in His chosen individual ones, then it is fitting that His imprint should be present in a manner that can be felt by all the people of His group…and so here [the Torah] explains that it should be incumbent upon anyone who is wise of heart, that he should have its form clearly drawn [in his mind] so that the ultimate purpose toward which he aims through all of his actions will be clearly known to him, so that he will attain it through study or through studies, or through the high qualities that accompany these…”

      It is evident beyond any doubt that the Ba’al Akeida intends a reference to an image similar to that of the “image of a portraiture of his father” that appeared to Yosef, a sort of defined consolidation of purpose, of one’s own purpose in one’s own private world, as experienced by every oved Hashem, that will enable him to express his personality and his perfected midot according to a clear mold or template that is compatible with his personality and his midot, his character and his purpose in his world.

      This consolidated form that is expected of every single individual refers and points toward a personalized, uniquely original development of one’s character that flows from the root of one’s own soul, which is unique to every Jew. It is according to this uniqueness that one’s service of God must be cut to one’s own measure.

      It is well known that tikun hamidot, the repair of character falls into the category of derech erets kadma laTorah, “appropriate behavior precedes Torah.” As Rabeinu Chaim Vital writes in Sefer Sha’arei Kedusha, Part 1, Section 2, midot, one’s traits of character are dependent upon the life force, and they are the seat and the foundation and the root of the higher intellectual life force, on which all 613 mitzvos of the Torah depend. Therefore midot are not included among the 613 mitzvos. Indeed they are the main and most essential preparation for the mitzvos, and it is upon the midot, one’s traits of character that the fulfillment or disregard of the mitzvos depend.

      “This is because it is not within the power of the intellectual life force to fulfill the mitzvos through the 613 limbs of the body (the 248 organs and the 365 sinews) but only by means of the elemental life force that passes through the body itself, as in the mystery alluded to in: ‘For the life force of all flesh, its blood is in its life force,’ (Leviticus 17:14) and therefore the matter of evil midot, character traits is far, far more difficult than the transgressions themselves.”

      We see from this that shaping and consolidating personality is avodat hamidot. It is the labor of re-working and refining one’s character traits. This is because midot are the container and the instrument through which all service of God is carried out, and Torah study too is included in this, as it says: “Appropriate behavior precedes Torah.”

      The midrash teaches: “Torah is acquired through fire, through water, and through the desert.” What is the connection between these three forms of acquisition? An encounter between fire and water can create an entirely new creation, when this encounter takes place not by way of the extremes but by way of moderation. After all, this is how food is corrected and improved – by way of cooking.

      The desert is a place devoid of any of the temptations of survival. It is for the sake of heaven only. The encounter between opposites creates a constructive completeness when it is done for the sake of heaven, whereas it causes absolute destruction to both sides when alien interests and intentions distort it. This midrash teaches us a lesson in the consolidation and refinement of midot. Fire and water are opposed to one another. One is obligated to withstand the test of situations of conflict and opposition, of adversarial relationships, in order to extract the full power of one’s own endurance for the sake of one’s principles, and not merely to actualize them under laboratory conditions where there are no interferences from the outside, as in he desert. Nevertheless, the Torah was given in the desert first, in order to impenetrate its principles and values into the human being while he is still a blank slate, in the desert, Yet one must reach one’s point of consolidation through growth and through confrontation, by way of life’s multiple components and conflicts.

      Why the count? “Anything in a counted quorum can never be annulled.” Also, anything that “upholds” can never be annulled. And Israel upholds the universe. The counting and numbering of the people of Israel in the desert connects to the aspect of the desert as a condition of itaruta dilitata, “the awakening of the lower,” in which the “lower” one awakens to his need for God, the “Higher” One. For after all what is left for the Jew to do under such conditions of desert emptiness? For consolidation requires physical matter, including all of the components that are meant to undergo a consolidation process. When there is nothing physical, there is nothing to consolidate. And the desert is a boundary-less and borderless empty space, a vacuum.

      The Gemara explains: (Yuma 22B) “ ‘And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, that can never be measured nor counted, for sheer abundance.’ Yet it is written, ‘and the number…shall be,’ which sounds like it is possible to count them. Yet it says ‘that can never be measured nor counted,’ which sounds like it would not be possible to count them.’” The Gemara replies, lo kashia. “This is not difficult. This one refers to a time in which the people of Israel are doing the will of the Omnipresent One, and the other refers to a time when the people of Israel are not doing the will of the Omnipresent One. At a time when the people of Israel are doing the will of the Omnipresent One, [meaning that they are initiating, and acting out of itaruta dilitata] then they have no number.” Because they are not quantity, but only quality, and quality is never annulled, and this is what is meant by ‘Anything in a counted quorum can never be annulled.’ Also, ‘anything that “upholds” can never be annulled’ by the majority, by the quantity. For the quorum is quality. Every single individual is important in himself, and is not a number/quantity.

      From here we understand why the people of Israel are never cancelled out by the nations of the world, because they are not quantity but quality, at a time when they do the will of the Omnipresent One. Thus the problem is resolved, of the non-Jew who asked Rabi Yehoshua ben Karcha why the people of Israel are not cancelled out by the nations of the world, for after all it is written that “one must go according to the majority.” We see from this that a counted quorum that is the result of consolidation, of the initiative taken by the people of Israel, who have no raw materials left to consolidate other than their own selves, their own midot, are beyond the rules of the game of quantity.

      Some love to play games, and some love to invent games, and to create the rules of the game.