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muman613:
http://torah.org/learning/rabbiwein/5767/bamidbar.html

Parshas Bamidbar

A Book of People

The Chumash of Bamidbar is devoted to the narrative of the experiences of the people of Israel during their forty-year sojourn in the desert of Sinai. However, the Torah’s narrative of any event or historical happening is never restricted to dry facts alone. In its nuanced phrasing the Torah comes to reveal to us the human factors and the psychological and spiritual import of these events.

The Torah is not intended to be a history book and to view it as such will only raise problems of text and misunderstanding of message. It is rather the book of humankind, of its achievements and foibles, its grandeur and pettiness, its great capacity to do good and to be evil. Thus the entire narrative here in Bamidbar has to be seen in this light. The Torah is going to tell us the story of people and not just of events.

Therefore the book of Bamidbar is full of character sketches and descriptions of people who by their actions changed the course of Jewish history, not only in the desert of Sinai but for all times as well. Those who complained about the manna, the overriding ambition of Korach, the selfishness and timidity of the ten spies who were sent by Moshe and the contradistinction in attitude with their colleagues, Yehoshua and Calev, the love of the Land of Israel exhibited by the five daughters of Zlafachad, all of these - the analyses of people and their attitudes and motivations - are on display here in this book of Bamidbar. It is therefore no exaggeration to state that the book of Bamidbar ranks with the Chumash Bereshith in describing and teaching us about human beings and their individual but somehow common natures.

I think that this insight into the Chumash Bamidbar explains the often discussed issue of why this Chumash should begin with names of people and of the count of the tribes and the general population of Israel. The Torah, so to speak, is preparing us for the analysis of people and human characteristics that make up the bulk of this book. People have names, are part of a larger society and are distinct individuals. Not to recognize this basic fact of human existence will prevent anyone from having any meaningful understanding of the narrative of Chumash Bamidbar.

The commentators to Chumash point out that some of the tragedies of Chumash Bamidbar were indirectly caused by Moshe’s overoptimistic assessment of human beings and their behavior. The great men named in this week’s parsha – the beginning of the book of Bamidbar – are in the main no longer there at the end of the book. Positions of power take their toll on their holders.

The names therefore are recorded for us as an example of the pitfalls of power and office. By expecting people to be people and not saints and angels, great errors of judgment and policy can be avoided or at least mitigated. The desert was a harsh learning place for the Jewish people. If its lessons were truly absorbed and translated into Jewish individual and public life, then the experience will have proven to be of eternal value.

Shabat shalom.

Rabbi Berel Wein

muman613:
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=137

Parshas Shemos (5771)

If We Don't Learn From Our Past -- We're History!

This weekend, we begin reading (again) the Second Book of the Torah, Sefer Shemos (The Book of Exodus). This book continues the narrative of the Children of Israel in Egypt as they are persecuted and enslaved by their Egyptian tormentors. Which makes the Torah sound like it’s essentially a book of Jewish history.

Yet, we know that this is not true. After all, what book of history contains 613 commandments in it? And in many places, the events that are recorded are not even in chronological order. (In the Midrashic sources, this is referred to as the principle of “Ein mukdam u’meuchar baTorah – lit. there is no early and late in the Torah”.)

Yet as much as it is not a history book, the Torah itself ‘commands’ us to learn about our history. As Moses tells the Jewish people in his last will and testament: “Remember the days of old; reflect upon the years of each generation…” (see Deuteronomy 32:7).

Of course, for many today, and especially the youth, history seems to have begun from the day they were born. There is little interest or concern for what happened in the past. (Someone once quipped: “Why should I learn history? ... there’s no future in it!”)

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muman613:
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=28
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What Nachmanides is telling us here is a very critical idea that greatly changes the way we approach the study of Genesis - that the Creation narrative and the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is not as simple as it would have us believe. In fact, it is so shrouded in mystical secrets that it simply cannot be understood from a plain reading of the verses, and would better be left unwritten - even though our belief in Creation is the root of our faith - because it distorts and hides so much more than it reveals. And, as Rashi quotes from Rabbi Yitzchak, the entire purpose of its being written at all is not to explain the traditional Jewish version of cosmology and the origin of the universe, but rather to give legitimacy to the [later] Jewish claim to the Land of Israel in the face of those who would claim that we illegally occupied it.

With this (new) understanding of the Biblical account in Genesis, we are far better equipped to deal with this latest challenge to the Bible from Science - the discovery that the universe seems to have begun with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago instead of only 6000 years ago. We can now appreciate that the Torah, when offering up its own version of the Origin of the Universe and of Man, was not pretending to be a book of Science and Cosmology and had no intention of providing an exact play-by-play account of Creation just so we would know how the world started. It only mentioned the Creation story - knowing full well that most of us would distort it without proper mystical teachings to guide us - as a concession to justify and legitimize the Jewish nation's future claim to the land of Israel.

Now we certainly have to deal with the challenges to the Creation story presented above - and to that end I recommend two fascinating essays, one on the Age of the Universe which can be downloaded at http://www.lulu.com/content/86052 and the other on the appearance of prehistoric man long before Adam and Eve were created at aish.com - but it is important to always bear in mind that the Torah is not a Science book or a History book but is first and foremost a Book of Instructions for Living. It is the best-selling Book of all time and it has withstood all the challenges against it from science and elsewhere over the centuries and millennia, and I am supremely confident that it will withstand these modern-day challenges as well.

Israel Chai:

--- Quote from: muman613 on April 30, 2012, 03:47:30 PM ---Study and learn....

--- End quote ---

Rhetorical question. Now I'll believe that it's the length of time it takes you to powder your butt that was really the day, but first tell me this; why can't it have been right? That book says things that are right and until someone proves them wrong with something else that's right, they are always a good idea to stick with.

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