Parashat beha'alotecha

summary

Parashat Beha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1 – 12:16) is an incredibly rich parasha that is sited at Sinai, on the 20th of the second month of the second year since the Exodus. The Israelites are preparing to depart from the place of Revelation that we have all been stood at this past week for the festival of Shavuot, where today we celebrate being given Torah.

Before the preparations get in full swing, instructions for the installation and lighting of the menorah in the sanctuary (see also Exodus 25:37 and 27:21). Moses calls the Levites to the sanctuary and consecrates them to help the priests with the sacrifices. They are selected from the Israelite community and take the place of the firstborn who would otherwise have assumed the role. The career of a Levite is limited to the ages 25-50, when they retire.

Now in preparing to leave Sinai, Moses tells the Israelites what they are to do if they are defiled by touching and corpse or if they are on a long journey at eh specified time of the Pesach offering. In both cases they are unable to make the Pesach sacrifice and provision is made for them to make the sacrifice a month later in the sanctuary. The sacrifice is to be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, by all in the camp, including non-Israelites residing them who were to observe all these ritual laws.

Now, the wilderness journeying is resumed as it was interrupted (Exodus 40:36-38), by a description of the fire and cloud that were the signs of the kavod Adonai, God’s presence. God instructs Moses to create silver trumpets to be blown by Aaron’s sons, the priests, on four occasions: to signal the beginning of a journey, to gather the people, a call to battle and to announce the celebration of a sacrifice, festival or happy occasion.

As the Israelites set out from Sinai, Moses asks Hobab, son of his father-in-law, Jethro to join him but Hobab declines. So, with the Ark in front of them, they advance. However, the people complain about the lack of meat and inadequacies of ‘manna.’ God warns them to stop their ungrateful griping but they persist and Moses bewails to God his lot of having to lead them. God’s instruction confirms the advice of Jethro (Exodus 18:13-27) to share leadership. God provides ford enough for the people and places the spirit of prophecy upon the seventy appointed leaders. Two of these, Eldad and Medad, continue to speak in the spirit of prophecy, seeming to challenge Moses and Aaron’s authority. Joshua, Moses’ trusted attendant reports the matter to Moses who refuses to restrain them saying, “Would that all Adonai’s people were prophets!”

Finally, Miriam and Aaron speak out publicly against Moses, questioning his integrity because of his marriage to a Cushite woman. God summons them and reaffirms the special relationship between God and Moses. Miriam is punished with leprosy but after Moses and Aaron intervene, she is excluded from the camp for seven days.

commentary

“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married.” (Numbers 12:1)

We are all inclined to make assumption, and cling to them, because it is more comfortable to go on believing what we are accustomed to believe than to think afresh; and when we come up against contrary evidence, we tend to dismiss it, and say: ‘I have made up my mind, don’t confuse  me with facts.’

Most dangerous are the assumptions we make about people, especially those who differ from us in the way they look or speak or dress or behave, or in the religious or political views they hold. It is so easy to make, and easier to assent to, unfavourable generalisations about them. We Jews have often been victims of such stereotyping; how careful we should therefore be not to commit the same sin against others. (Rabbi John Rayner, in our Siddur Lev Chadash, 296).

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