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From: Ohr Somayach <ohr@ohr.edu>
To: weekly@ohr.edu
Subject: Torah Weekly - Naso
* TORAH WEEKLY *
Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion
Parshat Naso
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OVERVIEW
The Torah assigns the exact Mishkan-related tasks to be
performed by the families of Gershon, Kehat, and Merari,
the sons of Levi. A census reveals that over 8,000 men
are ready for such service. All those ritually impure
are to be sent out of the encampments. If a person,
after having sworn in court to the contrary, confesses
that he wrongfully retained his neighbor's property, he
has to pay an additional fifth of the base-price of the
object and bring a guilt offering as atonement. If the
claimant has already passed away without heirs, the
payments are made to a kohen. In certain circumstances,
a husband who suspects that his wife had been unfaithful
brings her to the Temple. A kohen prepares a drink of
water mixed with dust from the Temple floor and a
special ink that was used for inscribing Hashem's Name
on a piece of parchment. If she is innocent, the potion
does not harm her; rather it brings a blessing of
children. If she is guilty, she suffers a supernatural
death. A nazir is one who vows to dedicate himself to
Hashem for a specific period of time. He must abstain
from all grape products, grow his hair and avoid contact
with corpses. At the end of this period he shaves his
head and brings special offerings. The kohanim are
commanded to bless the people. The Mishkan is completed
and dedicated on the first day of Nisan in the second
year after the Exodus. The prince of each tribe makes a
communal gift to help transport the Mishkan, as well as
donating identical individual gifts of gold, silver,
animal and meal offerings.
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INSIGHTS
PLUS CA CHANGE...
"May Hashem illuminate His countenance..."(6:26)
It's interesting the perspective that time grants. Nearly four years ago, I wrote the following:
"When tragedy comes to the Jewish People, we could think that Hashem has abandoned us to our enemies. When we are beset by those who wish to destroy us and they seem to be unstoppable and we are powerless, and they kill us from morning till evening, let us remember this verse: "I will surely hide My face." (Devarim 2:18) "Hashem will never abandon us; rather, we feel that He has forsaken us because He has hidden His face. When Hashem hides 'His face' it means that we cannot see Him controlling events. It seems to us that chaos rules. "Nothing happens that He does not decree. The decree for every event that has happened this year was sealed last Yom Kippur: 'Who will live and who will die...' " "He is always with us. And if we look carefully at events, even though we cannot see Hashem's 'face,' we can, at least, discern His 'back', we can see the telltale footprints in the snow of history.. "However, when we feel depressed because we have failed G-d so totally and we feel that there is no way we can find our way back to Him, we should remember that He is always there behind the mask of the world, waiting for us to return through prayer and teshuva (repentance)."
Four years later, these words seem as apt as when I wrote them. As the French say, "plus ca change... the more things change, the more they stay the same."
"I will surely hide My face."
In the Hebrew language, the emphatic "to surely do" something is expressed by the repetition of the verb. That is, the literal translation of the phrase "I will surely hide My face" is "Hide - I will hide My face." The very structure of the Hebrew language gives us an insight into this "hiding." There are two kinds of concealment: A concealment where you know that someone is there but you just can't see them, and a concealment where you don't even know if they are there at all. In other words the very fact of their hiddeness is concealed. This is the ultimate hiding - where the very hiding is hidden.
When we are aware that G-d has hidden from us, He is not really concealed, because we realize that our hiding from Him has been reciprocated by His hiding from us. It's like any relationship: When you act coldly towards your friend or spouse, they lose confidence in your friendship and they retreat. But if you honestly ask for forgiveness and promise that you really want to renew the relationship, they will take you back.
However, there's a deeper hiding of the "Face." In this hiding, the hiding is itself hidden. Then we don't see that we have a relationship with G-d at all. We think that this is the way the world is supposed to be. Then we are in big trouble, because nothing awakens us to return to Him. We think to ourselves: "This is the way things are supposed to be. Isn't it?"
One of the blessings that the kohen bestows on the Jewish People is that Hashem should "illuminate His countenance for you..." Obviously, G-d does not have a countenance, a face, in the physical sense. The meaning of this blessing is that we should see everything that happens in the world as directly coming from G-d, that there's no such thing as "natural causes." The blessing of the kohen is that we see "His face" in the world - that His presence be clear to all who choose to see it. Then we can shake ourselves from the bonds of our illusions, re-establish our relationship with Him and return to the Torah.
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Written and compiled by Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
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(C) 2001 Ohr Somayach International - All rights reserved.
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From: Root & Branch Association, Ltd
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Weekly Sabbath Torah Reading/Commentary: PARASHAT NASOH
(Numbers 4:21-7:89)
Weekly Sabbath Torah Reading/Commentary: PARASHAT NASOH (Numbers 4:21-7:89)
Shabbat Nasoh
11 Sivan, 5761
June 2, 2001
by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
EFRAT, LIBERATED JUDEA, Yom Revi'i (Fourth Day -- "Wednesday"), 8 Sivan, 5761 (Gregorian Date: May 30, 2001), Root & Branch:
This week's Torah portion contains one of the most well-known passages in the entire Bible, the Priestly benediction:
"May the Lord bless you and Keep you; May the Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; May the Lord lift His face upon you and grant you peace" [Bamidbar/Numbers 6:24-25]
Let us attempt to understand the blessing recited by the priests (Kohanim) in the introduction to the Biblical blessing which they are about to bestow, every morning in Israel and during the Major festivals in the Diaspora:
"Praised art Thou, O Lord King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aaron and has commanded us to bless His nation with love".
Does this mean that if a Kohen (priest) woke up on the wrong side of his bed that morning, and does not feel in a particularly loving frame-of-mind, then his blessing is rendered ineffectual? Where do we find the "halachic" (Jewish legal) requirement that the Kohen deliver his benediction with love for all of Israel?
To understand the intent of our Sages in this formulation of the Kohen's blessing, we must remember that the Torah reading of Nasoh always occurs in close proximity to the Festival of Shavuot (Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks). This, more than any other of the Biblical holidays, brings with it the message of redemption.
Shavuot is the culmination of the Festival of Passover, since it goes beyond our exodus from Egypt into an alien and unwelcome desert by transporting us to Jerusalem with its celebration of the bringing of the first fruits to the altar of the Holy Temple (chag haBikkurim). Shavout is the only Festival completely devoid of a symbol of exile: the Pesach (Passover) Matzah is called bread of affliction and the Sukkot (Tabernacles) Sukkah (hut) is reminiscent of the Israelite wanderings throughout the desert.
Our Sages ordain that the Scroll of Ruth be read on the Festival of Shavuot. Ruth is the Biblical book which records the ancestry of David, Psalmist, King of Israel, founder of Jerusalem as the capital of a united Israel, and ancestor of the Melech HaMashiach (King Messiah). This Scroll of Ruth, from beginning to end, speaks of love as the most necessary condition for the birth of David and the advent of world redemption.
Lot, nephew and adopted son of Abraham, returns Abraham's loving-kindness with disinterest and disdain by leaving his "father" as well as his father's land and faith for the greener pastures of the wicked Sodom. Lot's descendant Ruth repairs her great-grandfather's transgression by returning to that very land and faith with Abraham's great-granddaughter and her mother-in-law, (adopted mother, in a sense) Naomi.
Moab, the nation into which Ruth was biologically born, forfeited the possibility of converting to the Israelite faith and nation because the founder of Moab selfishly and hatefully refused the wandering, embattled Israelites bread and water [Devarmin/Deuteronomy 23:4-5]. Ruth enabled the female descendants of Moab to be allowed to convert to Israel because she treated her mother-in-law with the ultimate in love and kindness by sharing her life's values and providing her with sustenance.
The entire love story between Boaz and Ruth, grandparents of David, was forged by loving-kindness. Boaz first notices Ruth when, as a homeless immigrant convert, she comes to gather the forgotten sheaves, the gleanings and the produce in the corner of his field (leket, shikhah and peah), a law of loving-kindness towards the poor dictated by the Torah. Boaz is immediately attracted to Ruth, despite the fact that she is a stranger, since "it has been told, yes told to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law..., by leaving your father and your mother and the land of your birth and coming to a nation you did not know yesterday and the day before" [Ruth 2:10-11].
Ruth is pictured as an Abrahamesque figure: he, too, "left his land, his birthplace and his father's house for a land he did not Know" [Bereshit/Genesis 12:1] -- and Abraham is the very quintessence of loving-kindness.
Elimelekh, elder kinsman of Boaz, left Bethlehem, Israel during a famine -- for the greener pasture of Moab -- because he was too selfish and distanced from his people to help them in the time of their need. Boaz repairs his relative's meanspirited lovelessness by redeeming Naomi's sold land and performing a levirite marriage with Ruth the stranger.
"Yibum" (levirited marriage) is considered the ultimate in loving-kindness, whereby a brother-in-law gives respectable marital status and financial security to his childless widowed sister-in-law, as well as providing a name and heir for his deceased brother. At the same time, Boaz is repairing his ancestor Judah's transgression of selfishness in not providing a brother-in-law to husband the widowed and childless Tamar. Boaz's kindness towards and love for the foreigner Ruth is the most profound expression of genuine loving-kindness.
The Scroll of Ruth teaches our tradition that the world will be repaired and redeemed only through loving-kindness. Is it any wonder, then, that the Kohen-Priest-teachers must bless the nation of Israel with love? The representatives of G-d and Torah must feel love in their hearts for every Jew, as did Boaz and Ruth, so that they can communicate to Israel the greatest blessing of all: the love of every sibling for his/her fellow Israelite, the profound and causeless love which will ultimately bring world redemption and peace.
Shabbat Shalom from Efrat,
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
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