Throughout the month of June this year we find ourselves in the Book of Numbers in our lectionary
cycle of weekly Torah readings. This fourth book of the Torah, called “Sefer Bemidbar” in Hebrew, is probably
my favorite of the five books. It contains beautiful prayers like the priestly blessing:
“May the Eternal bless you and protect you!
May the Eternal deal kindly and graciously with you!
May the Eternal bestow divine favor upon you and grant you peace!”
(Num. 6: 24-26)
And it includes teachings about the importance of learning from everyone, as when Moses berates
Joshua for wanting to jail the young upstarts Eldad and Medad for unauthorized prophesying:
“And Joshua son of Nun, Moses' attendant from his youth, spoke up and said, ‘My lord Moses,
restrain them!’ But Moses said to him, "Are you wrought up on my account? Would that all the Eternal's people were prophets, that the Eternal put the divine spirit upon them!"
(Num. 11:28-29)
And it contains the list of way stations through the forty-year wilderness journey through
Sinai (Num. 33: 1-49), a passage that has the feel of an incantation when chanted in Hebrew or read in English. Rashi and other commentators teach that the long list of starting and stopping points in Numbers 33 is there to remind us of God’s kindness and providence at each stage of our life journeys – a teaching that is very much near the heart of my own Jewish spirituality.
But perhaps the profundity of the Book of Numbers can be most readily found in its very
title. Not the English title, but the Hebrew title – “Bemidbar” [במדבר] which means “In the wilderness” (or, more accurately, “In the wilderness of…”, the start of the noun phrase “Bemidbar Sinai”/ “In the wilderness
of Sinai.”
The word “midbar”/מדבר (“wilderness”) is derived from the Hebrew root letters dalet-bet-resh/ דבר, a Hebrew root whose primary meaning is “speak.” (For example, “Ani medaber ivrit” [for a male] or “Ani medaberet ivrit” [for a female] is the way you say “I speak Hebrew” in Hebrew, and the word “dibbur” [דיבור] means “speech” or “utterance.”)
I visited the Sinai Peninsula back in December 1981, during my first trip to Israel when I was a college junior. I can well imagine how being in that midbar - that wilderness - could become connected in our ancestors’ understanding with the ultimate dibbur – the ultimate “speaking” -- that our tradition calls “Torah.”
This year, the concept of midbar/wilderness has an added, metaphorical significance for
all of us. We are still in the midst of a deadly pandemic – and our efforts to deal with it – personally, locally,
nationally and globally – have left us feeling unmoored and disoriented, as if we too were wandering in a wilderness. Our tradition teaches that the Shechinah – God’s immanent presence – did not desert us during that temporary Sinai sojourn. We are not being deserted now either – and we are not deserting one another.
Our faith reminds us that we remain connected though our methods for connecting have to be adjusted for the time being.
Please let us all continue to do our part by staying safe as we enter the summer season. And thank you to everyone who has been reaching out to fellow congregants, and other neighbors and friends during this
challenging time.
L’shalom,
Rabbi David Steinberg
rabbidavid@jewishduluth.org
