TorahParsha

What God Stands On

for Parshat Naso

 

The Sotah is the woman whose husband suspects her of straying. She enters a ceremony of drinking water filled with dust from the ground of the Mishkan, the Tent of God’s presence. When the ordeal is over and the Sotah is proven innocent, the text says, this woman goes on to give birth.  

The husband and wife reunite by way of the ground that God’s presence rests upon.

And so God’s presence rests on our coming back together.

 

_____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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If you are apart from God

for Parshat Naso 

 

i

God tells the chieftains:

Prepare the people

to move toward the Land—

count the Tribes,

know their formation for the journey.

*

But God says:

count the Tribe of Levi separately.

Levi,

the Tribe of the priests

who serve in the walls

of God’s Tent.

 

ii

When God’s Tent is complete,

the chieftains offer a gift:

six wagons,

twelve bulls.

This gift

—wagons,

bulls that could pull them—

is a gift of journey,

a gift of the chieftains’ world.

It is not a gift

of the world of the priests.

*

Yet God says:

Give this gift to the Levites,

put this gift

to the service of the Tent.

 

iii

If you are of the wide world,

you might wonder

how you can approach the confines of God.

But bring of your own wide world.

And God will bring you in.

 

___

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

Numbers Chapter 1,2,7

Special thanks to Kathi this week, and every week

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God’s loners

for Parshat Naso 

 

i

Before Moses finishes

building God’s Tent,

God’s home

among the people,

God tells him:

let the ones who are sick

with the sickness of impurity

leave the camp.

(When they are pure again

they will return

and bring sacrifices

in God’s Tent.)

*

And God tells Moses

how a jealous husband

can come with his wife

to the Tent 

and face her.

*

And God tells Moses

how a person

may become a nazir,

a holy monastic—

not a priest

not a prophet,

but one set apart;

and how the nazir comes to God’s Tent

when his time as a nazir ends.

*

Then Moses completes the Tent.

 

ii

Why

before Moses finishes building

does God mention these lonely ones

—the sick and alone,

—the jealous, alone from their spouses,

—the seeker, alone with God—

why mention these lonely ones

who come to the Tent?

*

Perhaps because you might think:

this Tent,

this nation’s home for God,

has no place in it

for people who do not fit in the nation.

So before the Tent is finished,

God says:

even these outsiders

have a place in My Home,

even they

have a home with Me.

 

 

____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

___

To readers receiving this via e-mail: Though I have sent this before Shabbat began, the e-mail service unfortunately sends on a delay. I hope you enjoy after Shabbat is over.

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What is the Jewish community?

for Parshat Nasso

  

i

God tells Moses

to gather the leaders

from each of the tribes

to take a count

of the people.

The word God uses

for this counting is

si’u:

lift up.

*

In the Desert

these people who have been counted

encamp around the Priests

who will carry

yisu

lift up

God’s tent.

*

The Priests

must bless the people

and the closing sentence

of that blessing

is:

May HaShem lift up

yisa

His face to you

and give you peace.

 

ii

We lift each other

from the blur of the masses

to become people

who are counted.

*

We, a community

of counted people

lift up God’s Tent

from the level of the ground

to a point above the earth.

*

We who raise God’s tent

call upon God

to lift Himself up

making our lives

lives of peace:

lives of treating others

as more than a blur of masses

but as people who are counted.

 

iii

In respect for each other

we ready our lives

to bear the holiness

that readies us

to bear God—

Who guides us

to respect each other.

*

This cycle

makes up our community.

 

 

______

I have heard this use of “being counted” in reference to this census elsewhere—perhaps from Rabbi Yosi Levine.

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

TorahParsha.com

 

Why we pray in groups

for Parshat Naso

 

i

The Torah speaks twice of the completion of the building of God’s Tent.

*

In the first telling

(at the close of the Book of Exodus

and then opening Leviticus)

God comes to the Tent

and Moses cannot enter,

because who can come before God?

But then God calls to Moses,

and God speaks to him.

*

In the second telling (in the Book of Numbers)

the Princes of the Tribes of Israel

volunteer gifts,

donations for the Tent from each tribe.

Then following the Princes’ gift-giving

Moses walks in to the Tent,

and God speaks to Moses.

 

ii

Alone, you wait for God’s grace.

*

But the entire people can march up to God’s Tent

Following the people,

you can come to the place of God,

to the place where God speaks to you.

 

____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

 

For Parshat Nasso

There is More to a Community Than Population and Place

 

i

God commands a nationwide census.

And He arranges how each tribe will encamp as the nation travels across the Desert, and into the Land.

*
Then He commands the Laws of one who has committed wrong against his fellow’s property.

The wrongdoer shall make restitution in full.

And he shall also pay a fifth of the extent of the harm, as a fine.

 

ii
One might ask what one man’s sin against another, and the restitution of it, is doing just here—just after the discussion of organizing a nation, and mobilizing a nation.

*
Perhaps here is the answer:

Because people will wrong one another.

So you cannot build a community without showing people how to right their wrongs.

*
You cannot build a community without showing it how to mend itself.

You cannot build a community without showing it how to heal itself.

 

 

___________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

___________

Verse cited: Numbers 5:7

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Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther