Torah Posting: בהעלתך
We left off in a fairly climactic place, with Mosheh beginning to receive divine instructions form within the operational Mishkan, with God’s voice emanating from between the metal figures of the two celestial messengers (or keruvim) atop the cover of the Ark of the Pact. But it seems a few more operating instructions for this spiritual power plant must be conveyed here from the inside. They are given to Mosheh to communicate to his brother, Aharon, the high priest.
The first instruction gives us more visual detail on the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand that is arguably the definitive Jewish religious symbol. The lamps must be mounted so that they cast their light upon the front of the menorah. The design of the menorah is then described, with its hammered gold materials and floral details. We have already seen this description before, and the interjection of the menorah here feels like a bit of a non sequitur, but literarily the effect is that we are now imagining this lampstand glowing, casting its light into the center.
Then God turns to the topic of ritually purifying and preparing the sons of Levi for their service to the priesthood, a big communal ritual involving sprinkling water, shaving their bodies, washing their clothes, and making animal and meal offerings. The community leaders place their hands upon the Levites while the high priest, Aharon, designates them for their duties before God. Then the Levites are to place their hands upon the heads of the bulls brought for offering and make expiation, preparing their hearts for this service. After this ritual is over, the Levites are set aside for God and the priesthood to do their temple duties, taking this sacred and dangerous responsibility upon themselves on the behalf of the people. They shall serve from age 25 to age 50, at which point they are to retire from active service in the Tent of Meeting but may still assist their tribesmen by taking guard duty.
On the first New Moon of the second year since the people left Mitzrayim, God spoke to Mosheh in the speaking place, the wilderness of Sinai. It is time for the ritual calendar — which we have received in detail already in several sections — to finally begin, and we will see how God’s idealized version of this service plays out in reality, with ordinary human beings playing the parts.
God tells Mosheh to initiate the proceedings for making the Passover offering at sunset on the Full Moon, as previously discussed. Just as God had commanded Mosheh, so the children of Yisra’el do. There is a problem, though, which I am very excited to discuss because the English translation used in the Jewish world uses the word “householders” to refer to the people implicated here.
When the time comes to make the Passover offering, there are some householders in the community who are impure from contact with a corpse. They go before Mosheh and Aharon and say, “So, what, we’re going to miss the Pesah now? That doesn’t seem right.” Mosheh tells them to hang on while he goes to ask God what to do. God comes up with a new law about this on the spot: A second make-up Pesah is to be offered on the second Full Moon of the year, just like the first one, for people who are unable to make the first one because they’re impure. No cheating; refraining from the first Pesah offering for reasons other than ritual impurity is not allowed. These laws apply to everyone in the community, including non-Israelites who wish to make an offering.
With the religious calendar in motion, it is time for the community to go into motion as well. The text describes the cloud of God’s Presence that descends upon the Mishkan the day it is set up, and how its appearance changes to that of fire overnight. When the cloud lifts, that is God’s signal to the community to depart; they follow the cloud to where it rests, and that’s where they are to set up next. Until God signals departure by lifting the cloud, they remain in place. The timetable of this long wander in the desert is not under human control. “Whether it’s two days or a month or a year,” the text says, that’s how long they stay in place. The trip across the Sinai peninsula is not overly long, so contemporary people often wonder why the Israelites’ trip in this story took so long. We’ll find out next parashah, but the short answer is, because God said so.
In order to move the camp, God has a new instruction for Mosheh. He is to commission two silver trumpets that will be used to broadcast several signals. Long blasts from both trumpets means all the fighting men shall assemble before Mosheh at the Tent of Meeting. A blast from just one trumpet means the chieftains are to assemble. Short blasts mean the encampments should move out. Aharon’s sons, the priests, are to sound the trumpets. They are to be used at war, with short blasts signaling the troops to attack. On festivals and New Moons, the trumpets shall be blown to intensify the offerings at the altar.
These blasts of sound are reminiscent of the ones the people heard at the foot of Mount Sinai when God appeared to all of them. And now, at last, after so many parshiyot of absorbing that heavenly download, it is time to move out.
On the 20th day of the second month of the second year — a few days after the second Pesah offering to take care of the householders — the cloud lifts, and the children of Yisra’el set out on their journey, leaving the Midbar Sinai for the Midbar Paran. All the ranks of the tribes and their leaders are recognized as they head out in their designated order.
As they go, Mosheh turns to his father-in-law, who is called Hovav here but previously called Yitro. The Midyanite priest has been an indispensable teacher to Mosheh on multiple occasions, plus his daughter and descendants are going, so Mosheh urges him to come along with them to the land God has promised them. “לֹ֣א אֵלֵ֑ךְ כִּ֧י אִם־אֶל־אַרְצִ֛י וְאֶל־מוֹלַדְתִּ֖י אֵלֵֽךְ׃” Hovav says: “I will not go, for I will return to my land, where I was born.” But Mosheh insists, making clear that he feels unprepared for the task without Hovav’s indigenous wisdom. Somehow, the text does not make clear whether Mosheh’s father-in-law agrees to come or not.
The nation marches three days’ distance from Mount Sinai on its first leg, following the cloud of God’s Presence. The text shares two short incantations Mosheh says when the Ark is departing and when it arrives at its destination. The one for setting out is used in the Torah service to this day, when the scroll is removed from the ark to be read.
As we will become used to as this enormous community schleps itself across the desert, the people begin to complain right away. This is a little quick for God’s taste, and God ravages the outskirts of the camp with a fire. The people cry out to Mosheh, and Mosheh prays for God to lay off, which God does. The place is named after the incident. This is not the end of it, though, and the text remains unimpressed with the people, calling them “האספסף” (“ha-saf-SOOF”), which is nicely translated as “the riffraff.”
The riffraff are craving the meat and fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic they enjoyed as slaves in Mitzrayim. They’re bored of the flaky, heavenly מן they’ve been eating since a parashah we read some six months ago. That substance is described more here, as is its preparation. It’s “like coriander seed” and “its color was like bdellium,” a golden resin that is meant to connote granular incense. The text describes them grinding it in millstones or pounding it in mortars, boiling it, and making it into cakes. “It tasted like rich cream,” the Torah says. And yet they complain.
Mosheh hears them weeping, clan by clan, as he walks past their tents. God is angry, and Mosheh is understandably upset. This is not going well.
Mosheh complains to God about these people he’s been saddled with. He didn’t sign up for leading a bunch of whiny babies. He can’t do this, he says. He has given up so thoroughly that he tells God he would rather God just kill him on the spot, so he doesn’t have to wallow in his own inadequacy anymore.
God doesn’t respond to this frankly also babyish request but rather instructs Mosheh to gather the 70 elders to the Tent of Meeting. God will speak to Mosheh there and charge him up with divine power that will then be conveyed to the chieftains who will share in Mosheh’s burden to rally the people. They are all then to speak to the people and tell them to purify themselves, for God has heard their cries, and the next day they shall be given meat to eat. They shall eat meat not for one day, or two days, or five or ten or 20, but meat shall rain down on them for an entire month until it comes out of their nostrils and becomes disgusting to them, for by whining about their lot and wishing to return to slavery, they have rejected God.
This snaps Mosheh out of his moaning and groaning, because Mosheh is a leader and strategist now, and he has logistical questions. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there. Where on Earth could there be enough flocks and herds and fish of the sea to feed all those people?
God responds, “You think God’s arm is too short? You’ll soon see if this is gonna happen or not.”
Mosheh doesn’t question it any further. He goes out and gives the chieftains this update, and God transmits the holy spirit to them as promised, and they begin to babble prophetically. In fact, two men, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in camp rather than going to this meeting, and the spirit comes to them anyway, and they start babbling right there in camp. A young assistant nearby runs to Mosheh and warns him that Eldad and Medad are having an unauthorized prophetic moment in camp. Mosheh’s assistant, Yehoshu’a, son of Nun, tells Mosheh they must be restrained immediately. Mosheh apparently feels the people could use a bit of fear of God. “I wish all the people were prophets babbling with the holy spirit right now!”, he says, and then he reenters the camp with the elders.
Then a wind — רוח, the same word I have just translated as “spirit” — sweeps up from God and blows in a bunch of dead quail, covering the entire camp and the ground for an entire day’s journey all around it in a carpet of quail three feet deep.
The people are thrilled — look at all this meat! — and start gathering it day and night and into the next day, in gluttonous quantities. This reaction does not impress God; I guess God wanted them to realize the errors of their ways. Before they’re even done chewing, God strikes them down with a terrible plague. This place is also named after the incident.
Eager to put the quail incident behind them, the people set out for another place, only for more drama to erupt, this time at the leadership level. Mosheh’s siblings, Miryam and Aharon, challenge his authority as prophet-in-chief on the basis that he has taken a Kushite woman as a wife. Racism, in other words. In contrast, the text says Mosheh is “the most humble human being on the face of the Earth,” which feels like a bit much, but here it means he has no desire at all to fight with his siblings about who is the greater prophet of God.
God hears this challenge and calls the three of them out to the Tent of Meeting. As they stand at the entrance, the pillar of cloud comes down, and God calls forward Aharon and Miryam by name. They step forward, and God explains to them what the real deal is when it comes to prophets. “Normally,” God explains, “I make myself known to prophets in a vision or a dream. Not so with your brother, Mosheh. My whole Household has faith in him. I speak to him mouth to mouth, plainly, not in riddles, and he beholds My Likeness. How do you not fear to speak with him?” God departs angrily without waiting for an answer.
As the cloud withdraws, Miryam is suddenly stricken with snow-white scales upon her skin, the sort of spiritual affliction on which the Torah has already spilt much ink. Aharon is spared, presumably because it would really mess up Mishkan operations for the high priest to come down with the ol’ צרעת. Miryam’s affliction does the job, though; Aharon begs Mosheh to pray for her to be spared, understanding that what they did was a sin and an error. Mosheh immediately cries out to God, saying “אֵ֕ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ׃” (“el na re-FA na lah”) — “please, God, heal her, please.” It’s a beautiful prayer we still use.
God is not totally impressed, though. “If her father spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days?” God asks Mosheh. God sentences her to be shut out of camp for seven days in accordance with existing law and then readmitted. This order is carried out, and the people wait for the prophetess to return before departing.
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