This Shabbat we read Parshat B’ha-alo-t’cha. That may look like a klutzy way to write the sedra’s name, but it is the way to indicate the correct pronunciation – especially the sh’va under the tav. (Did you know that the last letter of the alef-bet is tav – not tuf as I always thought it was since I learned my ABCs – or rather my alef-bet-gimels?)
Before we get into this week’s sedra, let’s go two days further, to the 20th of Sivan – this year, Monday, June 16. Kaf Sivan was almost the sixth rabbinically legislated fast day on our calendar, following Tisha b’Av, 17 Tamuz, Tzom Gedaliya, 10 Tevet, and Ta’anit Esther (not in sequential order).
Almost, but not quite (a phrase, made famous, by the way, by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams).
This date might not be a required fast day; it is observed by relatively few. But it is doubtlessly a date of tragedies.
To keep it short: In the 12th century, a classic blood libel – accusing a Jew of killing a gentile child for its blood to be used in the baking of matzah – took place in France. Thirty-one Jewish leaders were given a choice of baptism or horrible death. They chose Kiddush Hashem. As a result of this tragedy, Rabbeinu Tam and other French Baalei Tosafot declared the 20th of Sivan as a fast day.
Fast forward 500 years. Unspeakable massacres, referred to as G’zeirot Tach v’Tat, took place in the years 5408 (Tach) and 5409 (Tat), corresponding to the secular years 1648 and 1649. One of the first and bloodiest of the Chmielnicki massacres (named for the Cossack leader who incited them) occurred in Nemirov, Ukraine on 20 Sivan. The bloodshed actually raged on for the following 12 years. Cossack hordes swarmed throughout Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania, wreaking havoc in their path and putting entire Jewish communities to the sword. The Cossacks murdered unknown thousands of Jews, including instances in which they buried people alive, cut them to pieces, and perpetrated even more horrible cruelties – many of their heinous deeds surpassed even those performed later by the Nazis.
The Vaad Arba Ha’Aratzot, which at the time was the halachic and legislative body of all Polish and Lithuanian Jewry, declared that the 20th of Sivan should be established (or reconfirmed) as a fast day.
In our time, back in 1982, the costliest battle of the war in Lebanon claimed the lives of about 30 IDF soldiers on this date.
Thus, the 20th of Sivan is indeed a tragic day. You can find Selichot written for the day in some siddurim. Even without fasting, the day calls for remembering, introspection, and teshuvah.
Now on to – or back to – Parshat B’ha–alo–t’cha.
This is the 36th of the 54 sedras of the Torah, the third of 10 in Sefer Bamidbar. It is written on 240 lines in a Sefer Torah; only nine sedras are longer.
One of its parshiyot (a setuma) is separated from the parshiyot before and after it by more than just blank space (as is usual) – namely, with a backward letter nun on each side. Consequently, it is the “loneliest,” most isolated of all parshiyot in the Torah. And very well-known as well: “Vayhi binso’a ha’Aron… U’vnucho yomar…”
The sedra has five mitzvot: three positives, two prohibitions. To illustrate how unevenly the mitzvot in the Torah are distributed, B’ha–alo–t’cha has more mitzvot than 28 other sedras, and fewer than another 25 sedras. Only five mitzvot – yet it’s in the top half.
Most striking about this sedra is the terrible downswing in its telling of the period of Israel’s sojourn in the midbar (wilderness, a better definition than desert).
The sedra starts with the kohen gadol’s instructions concerning the lighting of the Menorah. Then to the sanctity of the Leviyim.
Next is the bringing of the Korban Pesach – the first annual commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt – and then the much-praised context of the commands regarding Pesach Sheini. Pesach Sheini is not just a mitzvah among mitzvot. It is a manifestation of second chances. A concept that goes beyond the few men who complained that since they were tamei from contact with dead bodies, they were not able to be part of the great mitzvah of Korban Pesach, the ritual that identifies an individual as being part of Bnei Yisrael.
Next, the Torah tell us of the making of the chatzotzrot, the silver trumpets. Multi-purpose, they will be used to assemble the people and their Nesi’im, and to signal when to begin traveling.
Then comes the description of the Heavenly Clouds of Glory which protected the people in the midbar and signaled when they camped, for how long, when they were to travel, and to where.
And finally, the people are ready to go. It is their first movement since their arrival at Har Sinai. We had arrived at Sinai on Rosh Chodesh Sivan 2448 (1312 BCE). Following the Revelation at Sinai and Matan Torah, we stayed at Sinai for almost a year, learning Torah and mitzvot from the greatest teacher ever, and learning how to live as the people of Israel.
Having previously been taught the procedures for dismantling the Mishkan and traveling in the order of the four flag-camps, the people were now actually on their way. To where? To Eretz Yisrael.
This first half of the sedra concludes with the backwards nun-bracketed pesukim: “So it was, whenever the Ark set out, Moshe would say, ‘Arise, Hashem, and may Your enemies be scattered and may those who hate You flee from You.’ And when it came to rest he would say, ‘Repose, Hashem, among the myriads of thousands of Israel.’” (How many of you, dear readers, remember “playing Chumash” and scoring 500 points for finding those letter nuns?)
And then everything goes south.
Complaints. Hashem’s response of deadly fire. Moshe’s pleading to G-d and the fire stopping. More complaints, this time about the manna, the miraculous bread from Heaven that sustained the people day after day. This time, G-d was exceedingly angry (so to speak) with the people, and so was Moshe. This time Moshe did not pray that we should be forgiven; he expressed despair at the impossibility of the situation and doubt in his ability to lead the people on his own.
G-d’s response is for Moshe to gather 70 elders of high caliber who will receive some of the holy spirit from Moshe and be able to share the burdens of leadership.
As to the Jewish people’s complaints about the manna, G-d does not offer the same satisfying culinary response as He did the previous time they asked for meat. This time, quail descends in unimagined quantity and the people are severely punished for their complaints and lack of faith and hakarat hatov.
The sedra ends with the lashon hara spoken by Miriam to Aharon and Miriam’s being afflicted with tzaraat.
B’ha-alo-t’cha thus takes us from the lofty events in the first half of the sedra to an unbelievable mess in the second half. And the sin of the spies and Korach’s rebellion are to come shortly.
Not so many numbers this week – but much food for thought for all of us.
