The very insightful quote by Viktor Frankl, above, captures,
in my view, the golden thread that weaves through last week’s Parashah, Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89), and this
week’s one, B’ha’alotcha(Numbers 8:1-12:16).* Both Parashot discern
one of the Torah’s most
profound spiritual tensions and touch upon the brittle line between destiny, Frankl’s
“why” and
survival, the bearing of any “how.”
To fully appreciate the conceptual bridge between Frankl’s “why”
and what is reflected in the messages of both Naso and B’ha’alotcha, I would
like to enlist the wisdom of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, ZT”L
In his essay “Camp and Congregation,” Sacks provides a powerful
lens which illuminates how in these two Parashot, Am Yisrael is transformed into a
nation with a “why,” one that is united by purpose and destiny that will
eventually be able to bear the “how.” In his, as always, brilliant manner Sacks distinguishes between two models, Machaneh (camp,
collective existence) and Edah (congregation, community) which appear
interchangeably in both Parashot. His
distinction between the two is built largely on the following Biblical usage. Sacks
asserts that whereas a camp is aimed at providing protection, military order
and survival, organized externally, Edah, is organized internally and carries a deeper significance. Edah, according to him, is the inner essence of the camp, not
merely a random, anonymous crowd struggling to survive. What unites its
dwellers are interpersonal ethics, a covenantal connection, welded by a shared
mission and a shared destiny, the “why.”
Parashat Naso focuses on transforming Am Yisrael from a
wandering camp into an Edah, a holy community centred around the Mishkan, which defines its Divine purpose and sacred mission. It constructs the structure for
what is necessary for an Edah. At this point, it is noteworthy to
mention that though the word “Edah”
itself is not, literally, prominent in this Parashah (it appears much more cogently in
later Parashot, particularly in times of collective failure and collective
responsibility such as Korach), it develops the substance of what is to
become, later, Edah. Naso plays a key role in the process of embedding the concept
of “why.”
B’ha'a’lotcha illustrates that we need an occasional
jolt, in the form of a harsh experience, to remind us of the “why.” The Parashah describes the hardships that the
journey into the desert poses. We witness how quickly the vision of the “why”
can unravel once despair and fears settle in. The people express frustration
and a wish to go back to Egypt. "The Yisraelites… began to cry.
They said, ‘who will feed us meat?’ We recall the fish that we ate in Egypt
freely, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks and the garlic.” (11:4-5).
The desert challenges spawn the first fractures in the community. The Edah
of Parashat Naso loses sight of its mission and reverts to being a camp
of anxieties.
To be honest, one must admit that the Torah builds the framework for the Covenant before it
reveals to Am Yisrael how difficult covenantal consciousness is to follow and sustain in
real life. That is the reason, I believe, why just before the crisis described in
the verses above, as if anticipating such a spiritual collapse and out of a
wish to provide an “antidote” for it, the Torah tells us, in what might seem
sudden, unrelated and out of context, that “whenever the Ark set out, Moshe
would say, ’Arise, G-d! May your enemies
be scattered and may those who hate You flee from you.’" (10:35)
The Ark represents for Am Yisrael the Covenant, the purpose, their future-oriented mission and provides them with a meaning. Meaning enables
endurance. As long as the Ark was traveling before the camp, it could strengthen and sustain
them through the hardships and challenges of the desert regardless of how
difficult they may be.
*Since
Yisrael and the Diaspora differ, sometimes, after the Holy Day of Shavuot, Naso
was read on the previous Shabbat (May 23, 2026), and B’ha’alotcha on
this Shabbat.
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