Life Transitions

A friend of mine, Ari Zelligman, expounded upon the sheer preponderance of detail as the book of Bamidbar kicked off. When I think of the desert, I think of the wilderness, vast, unending sun-scorched expanses, a hidden world that fails to meet the eye. Animals coming out in the nocturnal coolness, if only a brief respite from the day's laziness. It was on that note, that Ari caught me off guard. Speaking this past Friday night about what would seem to be the monotony of the formation of the Jewish encampment, he said that his take on it was entirely different: the Jewish people were entering military formation, seemingly preparing for war. The holy ark would never leave the encampment unless it was "battle-ready," and the holy breastplate, or God, or Moshe himself, had sanctioned a campaign, or attack. 

He shared, though, that there seemed to be a more profound message, here, one that perhaps - I would add - resounds in different phases of the annals of our people, and the personal journey of each and every one of us. 

The flight from Egypt was precisely that, a hasty maneuver, miraculous in scope, which, like the one-time miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, doesn't constitute the nature, and tenor, of everyday life. Life requires order, serenity, not hastily-made moves that rattle a person's nerves and catch him or her off-guard. Sometimes, in any relationship, we have to initiate a fight or flight response, but were a relationship to be like that all the time, it would not only be deleterious but it would erode any worth the relationship may have possessed. And such, a relationship is built on the premise of expectation, predictability and consistency, what is, what Hashem was inculcating in the fabric of the collective DNA. 

As per Rivka's choice of Yaakov, over Eisav, it would seem that the very same concept resonated there. Whereas Eisav lived a helter-skelter life, always in pursuit, chasing his prey, always running about and in search of something, Yaakov's simplicity was rooted in his being a tent-dweller, a family man, somebody who could settle down. 

The symbolism of an impending transition seems to be pronounced in another key development, or episode, in the Bible. When Moshe and Aharon are instructed to speak to "the rock" in the Zin Desert, it would seem that there too there is symbolic import. Whereas the introduction of the formation of the encampment at the beginning of the Book of Bamidbar signaled a modality of stability and order, Hashem's instruction to speak to the rock was to bespeak a new reality where every Jew in the land would turn to God in supplication and prayer, conjoining their prayers with physical effort and toil to reap the fruits of the land. The desert, a place of wilderness, howling winds, creatures lying in wait, was one that necessitated no less than a miracle of the highest proportion; the Land of Israel was perhaps one no less miraculous, but one which would require the efforts of each and every Jew to bring out the divine plenty, as the eyes turned heavenward in hope of rain, grain that took root, and harvests that yielded produce that would supplant heavenly manna, and forge a new nation that they themselves had created through the power of prayer.