Bamidbar
Numbers 1:1–4:20
Hosea 2:1–2:22
This week’s parshah gives us the opportunity to think about what it means to be in the place we are intended to dwell in, and how to reconcile different roles within a holy community and a holy world.
Let us begin with the situation of the Levites in general. As we know, they get the special honor, which for now we will think of also as a task, of being the ministers, acting as go-betweens from the people to the Lord.
As we are about to experience again this coming week, the act of accepting the yoke of Divine love is pretty daunting, if highly exhilarating.
The people ask for intervention, saying it is too much for them.
Of course, this being the people Israel, we who struggle with the Divine, later on Korach (who is, perhaps confusingly a Kohathite) will try to push this choice, as he asks the eternal question of the appointed leadership: “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3).
In spite of the almond blossoms and the incense that prove Aaron’s right to the priesthood, I think no one is insensible to the starkness of Korach’s observation: Why are some people more special than others?
And all the more so, why does this have to be the case with respect to religion, to the fundamental tenant of religion, that we are all (and my personal theology compels me to believe this) equally marvelous and worthy in God’s eyes?
When the Israelites moved, they had to tear down the Tent of Meeting. Every time.
This makes it clear that God is always with them, but also leads to an interesting temporary aspect to the Divine Presence.
Only when they stop moving can they pitch the tent; as long as they are on the go, the Holy of Holies is in their hearts, and the physical manifestations are pregnant with the possibility and hope of re-residency.
In moving about, it’s Aaron and his sons who handle the most sacred objects, and once these are all packed and wrapped and covered in blue cloth and dolphin skin, the Kohathites come and lift them, so that they do not come in contact with the sacred objects and die.
Why is it that there is a perceived value to handling the holy items (be they the coverings for the lamp stand of yore or the wrappings of today’s Torah scroll) and that the opportunity is not always shared?
Anyone with a sibling will understand this feeling, too.
Who should get privileges, and when, is an enduring struggle for parents and children. And in the end, there can be no real equity, for there is a difference of experience.
Even if the advantage (say, driving the family car) comes at the same age, the younger sibling’s experience is always colored by being second.
We see this over and over in the stories of families in the Torah. I think perhaps one of the abiding realities that this shows us is the need to be happy with our lot. We fit into the Divine plan in unknown but important ways.
One way of reading the Torah is that it is God’s blueprint for a Utopian society. In this case, then, the holy lifters (the Kohathites) are just as important as the holy coverers and as the holy standard-bearers who aren’t even allowed to touch the coverings of the sacred.
Just because you can’t get close does not mean you are not special, needed and important. Sometimes it is lonely and hard in those more exalted places.
Our task is not to strive to be other than who we are, but rather to find the blessing in the challenge of who we are becoming.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.