BAMIDBAR
Bamidbar Numbers (1:1-4:20) is the first parsha in the book Bamidbar. Bamidbar means “in the wilderness” which is the setting of the action. The book is called Numbers in English because of the census that is taken at the beginning of the book. Bamidbar as a book bridges the priestly preoccupation with laws that is characteristic of Leviticus and back into the story of the wanderings of our ancestors on their way to the promised Land.
The core focus of the parsha is the role of the different tribes. Chapter one begins with a census of adult males who are of the age to fight in the army. (1:20, 22 etc). As I wrote about in my commentary on Parshat Mikeitz in Genesis, the counting is myth presented as if it were history. The counts total 603,550 males between 20 and 50, which would mean something like 2 million people if we counted everyone under 20, the adult females and all the males over 50. There’s no way that there were actually 2 million people at Mt. Sinai. There’s some thought that the numbers might have come from a census done during David’s time, but that’s unclear.
Chapter 2 tells us the location of each tribe in relationship to the mishkan. Since a picture is worth at least 1,000 words here, look at the picture at the bottom since I can’t figure out how to insert pictures into the text. Gershon, Kehath, Merari and Aaron/Moses are clans of Levites, tasked with protecting the mishkan which is in the center.
Chapter three gives us the placement of the different clans of the Levites and hammers home the idea that the service that the Levites render to YHVH and his tabernacle repay the debt owed to YHVH of the first born humans of the tribe, which I discuss more below. Finally Chapter 4 assigns specific tasks to the different Levite clans involved in moving the mishkan. There’s a ton of caution about how getting improperly close to the holy of holies can result in death. Interestingly, the men tasked with moving the mishkan are all between 30 to 50, as if maturity doesn’t happen until 30.
I want to discuss the following three themes.
The importance of lineage and tribe
The idea that the firstborn belongs to YHVH for services rendered.
The danger of the sacred.
Tribes and Lineages are how humans have organized ourselves for most of our history. They are traditionally core to our identity and place in a wider cosmos. We aren’t simply Jared, but Jared son of Shephard, Grandson of Hy from the Levite tribe, clan of fill in the blank. We aren’t simply Rachel, but Rachel daughter of Hannah granddaughter of Rivka from the tribe of Benjamin, clan of the fill in the blank. These lineages ground us and tell others our heritage. They tell others where we are from and probably what we have done for a living—it is different being a fisherperson who lives on the sea than it is being someone who raises sheep or grapes. Tribes and lineages tell others where we are from and who we are, both in terms of the human and the more than human world.
This kind of tight identification has simply broken down in our world. We don’t know where we are from, we don’t know where our great grandparents are from. Our parentage doesn’t tell us what we are going to do for a living; going into the family business (if that’s even possible) is a choice, not a mandate. Some of that’s good; there are plenty of people who were ill suited to be priests, traders, farmers etc. who did those things because that’s what they had to do. We romanticize our ancestors to believe that they were all on a higher spiritual plane because they were more connected to the more than human world, or they were all skilled woodsman, or all knowledgeable of ancient myths or didn’t oppress women or those who were different in some way. I remember driving through the Ozarks once. I had definitely romanticized country dwellers who could do all sorts of things I could not do. We drove past these badly overgrazed, eroded fields and I was just shocked. I asked the other person in the car, “don’t these people know what they are doing with the land?” And he replied “Obviously not.”
Tribalism is a mixed blessing. Tribalism way too often has translated as hatred of the other. Those of us into earth based Judaism often look to native Americans as role models, but their intertribal relationships were often terrible. And we can see the damaging consequences of tribalism in so many of the wars around the globe.
But without tribes we are left rootless. Who are you? How many of us can say I am Don O’Conner from County Cork. My people were fisherman and peat farmers?
There is a shift in the description of the tribes between Bereshit (Genesis) and Bamidbar (Numbers) that deserves to be mentioned. The descriptions in our parsha are only based on the male clan and tribal leaders by name and are driven by military considerations. For instance, Numbers 2:27 “the tribe of Asher. And the chieftan of the children of Asher is Paiel son of Ochran, and his army and their counts are forty one thousand five hundred.” If we compare this to Genesis 49 which is Joseph’s deathbed message to his people, we still have it organized by tribe based on the name of the tribal leader, but we have comments that connect the more than human world with the tribe. Judah is a lion’s whelp (49:8), Zebulon dwells by the seashore (49:13), Issachar dwells in good land (49:14), Asher is known for his bread, probably meaning that he dwells in a place that grows good grain (49:20), Benjamin is like a wolf ((49:27)
To be clear, this isn’t like we have a deer or wolf or bison clan—what we have is Naphtali who is a likened to a hind. (49:21) or Dan who is like a venomous snake (49:17). There’s nothing that says that a being from the more than human world is sacred or identified with the human people of the clan, as with say Australian aborigines. The organizing principle of the tribes in our parsha is military without any reference to the more than human world, but there is something in Genesis that we can perhaps reclaim.
The core question/task, it seems to me, is how we might create roots. I believe we have to be attached to a particular place and a particular ecosystem that suit us. We have to discover our gifts. We need to figure out who our beloved community or communities are and a process of sharing our gifts. The different ways to do this is a longer discussion. I’ve done a blog post on how to begin this process. https://earthbasedjudaism.org/philosophical-reflections/discover-your-true-purpose.
We may think of this task both in terms of a human only orientation and an ecocentric one, oriented towards the more than human world while incorporating the fact that we are tribal human beings situated amidst the more than human world. Take these questions in either direction. Where physically do I belong? What are my gifts? What is my community/tribe or communities and tribes?
The idea that the firstborn belongs to YHVH for services rendered sure sounds like a kind of Lord-vassal relationship where the vassals pay the Lord (usually in crops, labor and military service if called upon) in exchange for protection and land on which to farm—because the divine owns the land. Here’s our text. “And I here, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn, the first birth of the womb from the children of Israel. And the Levites shall be mine, because every firstborn is mine. In the day that I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated every firstborn in Israel to me, from human to animals. They shall be mine. I am YHVH (3:11-13).
On this reading, YHVH claims the service of the Levites at the mishkan (and later the temple) rather than claiming the first born of every tribe. Further, this debt of service is hereditary. Born into the Levite clan and you owe this debt on behalf of all Israel, born into Benjamin and the Levites take care of it.
The idea of hereditary service in payment to a debt isn’t exactly a contemporary idea. And yet, I was the board president of my local Jewish day school for five years and have been the de facto treasurer for almost a decade despite the fact that I don’t actually enjoy the work. So why do it? I was asking myself this question a few years ago during my morning prayer practice, when the answer hit me: I was paying back a debt to my ancestors who had educated me as a Jew.
What debts do you believe you owe the divine? What debts do you believe you owe your ancestors? What debts do you owe the more than human world? How might you redeem any of these debts?
The sacred is dangerous. That’s not exactly news to people who watched Nadav and Abihu get fried for some unclear violation of what the divine had commanded just a short while before (Leviticus 10:1-2). Numbers 3:4 reminds us of their death, and 4:15 and 4:20 address the danger. The parsha closes with this warning to the Kohathite clan of the Levites who are not charged with handling the holy of holies: “And they shall not come to see as the Holy is covered up and die.” (4:20)
I don’t believe in some kind of divine being who is going to literally kill me if I violate some rule and get too close to the sacred, and I suspect neither do you. So what lesson should we take away from this?
One important lesson is to be cautious about the power of the sacred. It isn’t all white light and blessings. The divine is also dark and scary. Going too far too fast can have consequences that you may not be equipped to handle.
I also want to approach the danger of the sacred as myth. In order to mature, we need to have the previous stages of our lives die. A toddler stamping her foot or throwing herself on the floor and wailing might be cute, but it doesn’t work in a forty five year old. Not picking up after yourself can be tolerated in a five year old, but there comes a point when you have to pick up after yourself. Flirting with everyone who wears a skirt is understandable for a 20 year old, but is certainly a sign of immaturity in a fifty five year old.
We need to have our previous stages die, so we can step into our more mature roles. That’s not an easy or painless process, as the enormous volume of immature people in our society bears witness. We who would follow a spiritual path need to be willing to metaphorically die. Death is part of spiritual development. Our text is giving us a warning about the power of the sacred and death; unfortunately it isn’t telling us anything about when we need to embrace death.
Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin is a book here that has had a profound impact on my thinking about metaphoric death and human development. I can’t recommend this book more highly.
Does this idea of metaphoric death make sense to you? What aspects of you need to die for you to mature in the human world? What aspects of you need to die to mature in relationship to the more than human world?
These last two questions might sound like the same question, but I invite you to play with it. Maybe they aren’t, because if you are like me, you are in a different developmental place in your human relationships than you are in relationship to the more than human world. For instance, I am basically complete with my human role of building an organization; I’m in maintenance mode while my successor does the work. But in relationship to the more than human world, here I am just starting out to teach, to write and to go even deeper in my relationship with the divine.
QUESTIONS
Take these questions in either direction. Where physically do I belong? What are my gifts? What is my community/tribe or communities and tribes?
What debts do you believe you owe the divine? What debts do you believe you owe your ancestors? What debts do you owe the more than human world? How might you redeem any of these debts?
Does this idea of metaphoric death make sense to you? What aspects of you need to die for you to mature in the human world? What aspects of you need to die to mature in relationship to the more than human world?
