Parasha
Bamidbar
Numbers 1:1-4:20
By:
Dani'el Rendelman
Do you know who is
the leading exporter of
flowers to the continent
of Europe?
What country sends
more plant-life to Europe
than any other?
The answer is NOT America,
Kenya, Russia, or anywhere
in Africa. The answer
is Yisra’el.
This
year, according to the International
Flower Festival, over 1.5
billion flowers were shipped
to Europe from the tiny
nation of Yisra’el. What is amazing about this is that two-thirds
of the Land of Yisra’el
is nothing but desert. Even more amazing perhaps is that most
of this shrubbery sent all
over the world was grown
in the Negev Desert. From the steamy southern Negev Desert,
Europe receives most of
its flowers!
The prophet Yesha’yahu
spoke of this time when
“the wilderness and the
solitary place will be glad
for them, and the desert
will bloom as a rose,” Yesha’yahu
(Isaiah) 35:1.
As the Yisraelite
people are reunited, the
Yisraelite Land rejoices
and produces abundance.
Who would have
thought that such greatness
could come from a desert?
Another great “plant” also
comes from the desert –
the Torah. “And Elohim spoke to Moshe in the desert
of Sinai,” Bamidbar (Numbers)
1:1.
From the sunny land
of sand came forth Torah.
It wasn’t in the land of
Mitzrayim (Egypt) that Torah
was given.
It was in the land
of desperation, in the land
of the desert that Yahweh
gave His divine will.
In the midst of the desert
a flower bloomed for the
teachings of Torah are a
“tree of life to them that
lay hold upon her: and happy
is every one that retaineth
her,” Mishlei (Proverbs)
3:18. Who would have thought that such greatness
could come from a desert?
Selah.
The
English word “desert” is
a translation of the Hebrew
term “midbar.” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines
midbar as “in the sense
of driving; a pasture (that
is, open field, whither
cattle are driven); by implication
a desert; also speech (including
its organs): -desert, south,
speech, wilderness.”
Midbar comes from
the root word “dabar” which
means to “say, speak, be
spokesman, subdue, talk,
teach, tell.”
Learning from the
root word “dabar,” to speak,
and the word “Bamidbar,”
in the wilderness, quickly
shows that the Torah was
spoken in the wilderness
or desert! This lesson
can be learned just from
understanding the Hebrew
word "bamidbar" or reading
Numbers 1:1.
“Bamidbar” or “in the desert” is the name of the current Torah sidrah.
It is also the Hebrew name
of the current scroll of
reading. "Numbers"
is an English moniker
derived from the Greek Septuagint
and counting of Yisra'el
that takes place in the
book. Anyway,
our short reading this week
recounts the counting of
the Hebrew males of military
age, the arrangement of
each tribe around the mishkan,
and the honor and census
of the Lewites.
It was also in this
parasha and in the midbar
that the tree of life was
given. “Why was the Torah given in the desert?
To teach us that
if a person does not surrender
himself to it like the desert;
he cannot merit the words
of Torah.
And to teach us that
just as the desert is endless,
so is the Torah without
end,” says one Rabbi.
The
desert is a place of desolation.
Throughout the Bible
the dangers of the midbar
are mentioned. Hunger, thirst, wild animals and enemies
lead to the midbar being
described as wilderness,
as “land of deserts and
of pits, a land of drought,
and of the shadow of death,
a land that no man passed
through, and where no man
dwelt,” Yermi’yahu (Jeremiah)
2:6. Yahweh took Yisra’el through these dangers
to teach them some lessons.
Bnai Yisra’el had
to learn to trust Abba,
to obey His mitzvot, and
depend totally upon Him.
“For Yahweh’s portion
is his people; Ya’acov is
the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and
in the waste howling wilderness;
he led him about, he instructed
him, he kept him as the
apple of his eye.
As an eagle stirreth
up her nest, fluttereth
over her young, spreadeth
abroad her wings, taketh
them, beareth them on her
wings: So Yahweh alone did
lead him, and there was
no strange god with him,”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:9-11. It seems that the midbar, the desert,
is some type of training
arena for the Almighty where
He prepares them for The
Promised Land.
Wasn’t Moshe too
found in the desert?
Did not Yahshua spend time
in the desert before His
ministry began?
Mikveh in the Desert
“The
Midrash says that the Torah
was given in three stages:
through fire, through water
and in the desert.
These three stages
are symbolic and they teach
us how one merits Torah. Fire: the fiery arousal of longing for
their father in Heaven that
burns in the heart of every
Hebrew; water: moderation,
contemplation and clarity
of thought, to think in
the ways of Torah, in the
right spirit and mind; desert:
doing without all the pleasures
and desires of this world
that hinder the person in
reaching perfection,” wrote
Shem MiShmuel.
This three-stage giving of
the Torah mirrors the Biblical
precepts of mikvah (baptism).
Remember that when
you look at something in
the mirror that you see
the exact opposite, so this
list is opposite of fire,
water desert:
-
Mikvah in the
Desert:
this is the baptism
that shows a persons
teshuvah from sin and
return to Yahweh. A person is immersed in water but is
coming out of the desert.
“In those days
came Yochannan the Immerser,
preaching in the wilderness
of Judea, And saying,
repent ye: for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand,”
Mattitiyahu 3:1-2.
-
Mikvah in the
Fire: this
is the baptism of purification
and cleansing through
trials and tests. “Yochannan answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more
powerful than I will
come, the thongs of
whose sandals I am not
worthy to untie. He
will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and
with fire,” Luke 3:16.
During the first Shavuot,
which took place in the
desert, the Yisraelites
were to wash their clothes,
prepare their lives, and
abstain from defilement
until the baptism came.
“Mount
Sinai was covered with smoke,
because Yahweh descended
on it in fire. The smoke
billowed up from it like
smoke from a furnace, the
whole mountain trembled
violently, and the sound
of the trumpet grew louder
and louder. Then Moshe spoke
and the voice of Elohim
answered him,” Shemot (Exodus)
18:17-19. Compare this to a later Shavuot and a
later mikvah found in Acts
2 for some enlightenment.
“Fire, water, and desert –
by these we established
our commitment to the Torah.
The first Hebrew,
Avraham, was cast into a
fiery furnace for his loyalty
to the way of Elohim. And lest one say that this was an extraordinary
act by an extraordinary
individual, at the shores
of the Red Sea an entire
people plunged into the
ocean’s waters when the
Divine command to “Move
forward!” issued forth.
And lest one say
that this was spur-of-the-moment
heroism, for forty years
the people of Yisra’el followed
Elohim through the barren,
hostile desert, trusting
in Him to provide for them
and protect them. As the prophet Yermi’yahu declaims, “I
remember the kindness of
your youth, your bridal
love, your following after
me in the desert in unsowed
land,” said Rabbi Meir Shapira
of Lublin.
It
is no surprise that throughout
Jewish writings that the
galut (Diaspora or exile)
is compared to the wilderness. As the galut comes to an end the wilderness
blooms and prepares for
mikvah, “water will gush
forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert,”
Yesha’yahu 35:6. Flowers are blooming in Yisra’el in record
numbers.
The twelve tribes
are slowly coming back together.
Mikvah into the truth
is taking place worldwide
as the Torah is being proclaimed.
Who would have
thought that such greatness
could come from a desert?
