…governance and a legal system: first the land, then the law. The fact that in Judaism the Torah was given bemidbar, in the desert, before they had even entered the land, meant that uniquely Jews and Judaism were able to survive, their identity intact, even in exile. Because the law came before the land, even when Jews lost the land…
…אשר נתתי לבני ישראל: )יג( וראיתה אתה ונאספת אל עמיך גם אתה כאשר נאסף אהרן אחיך: [2] Rashi on Bemidbar Chapter 27 Verse 13 Just as your brother Aaron was – From here we understand that Moses desired to die as Aaron had died. רש”י במדבר פרק כז )יג( כאשר נאסף אהרן אחיך – מכאן שנתאוה משה למיתתו…
…the liberal democratic West seems less sure of itself than it has been for many centuries. Thus do dreams of freedom end in a nightmare of chaos, violence, and fear. This is why the book of Numbers – in Hebrew, Bemidbar, “In the Wilderness” – is a key text for our time. It is among the most searching, self-critical books…
It is a fascinating story and from it comes one of the great principles of Judaism. Two of the tribes, Reuben and Gad, see that the land east of the Jordan is ideally suited as pasture for their large herds and flocks of livestock. They approach Moses and ask to have permission to settle there rather than cross the Jordan….
Koren Publishers have launched a new Magerman edition of the Koren Tanach featuring, for the first time, the complete translation of Chumash by Rabbi Sacks zt”l. You can order your copy here and view the opening pages below. Peek Inside…
In English, the book we begin this week is called Numbers, and for an obvious reason. It begins with a census, and there is even a second count toward the end of the book. On this view, the central theme of the book is demography. The Israelites, still at Sinai at the beginning of the book, but on the brink…
How are we to understand the differential roles of men and women within Judaism? On the one hand, Jewish identity is conferred by women, not men. The child of a Jewish mother is Jewish; the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother is not. The source of this halachic rule goes back to the very first Jewish child, Isaac….
The sedra of Bamidbar – “In the wilderness” – it is usually (though not this year) read directly before the festival of Shavuot, “the time of the giving of the Torah”, when we recall the revelation at Mount Sinai. Indeed the opening verse refers to Sinai: “And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai . . .” What…
The Lord spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. The fourth book of the Bible is known in English as the Book of Numbers – because it begins with a command to count the Israelites,…
On the face of it the connections between the sedra and haftarah of Bamidbar are slender. The first has to do with demography. Bamidbar begins with a census of the people. The haftarah begins with Hosea’s vision of a time when “the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand on the sea-shore which cannot be measured…