Synopsis
The Bible Dynamics commentary is a unique interpretation of the Torah, with an emphasis on demonstrating how personalities and ideas constantly evolve.Biblical personalities are traditionally perceived as larger-than-life, heroic figures, who surmount incredible obstacles to advance the world. And yet, little emphasis is placed on their own personal development. But according to the centuries-old Kabbalistic tradition revealed in our times by Rabbi Y. L. Ashkenazi (Manitou), the heroes of the Torah are evolving personalities who undergo profound change over the course of their lives, while acquiring new ideas and personal qualities through their ongoing dialogue with God.
The book of Numbers is a book of wanderings. The people must journey across the wilderness for forty years in order to be properly transformed. Even after they had left Egypt, the former slaves to the Egyptians continued to feel and behave like slaves; the generation of the Exodus was therefore also known as the dor ha midbar, “the generation of the wilderness.” The adults of that generation perished before reaching the Promised Land. Only their descendants could become a free people and enter the Land of Israel. We should not imagine, however, that their children, the next generation,
would automatically grow up to be a worthy people. Growing up free is not enough. A people can find itself only after experiencing a series of crises that allow it to gain its true freedom and its full sense of responsibility.
In this connection, Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook notes that there is, at it were, the “stationary Torah,” the Torah as it is observed in the home, and the “itinerant Torah,” the Torah of the road. A journey inevitably changes those who follow it. Problems not noticeable in a state of stability often become highlighted and exacerbated as soon as movement begins.
The book of Numbers opens with the themes of census and order, but a litany of problems soon arises. First there are personal crises, followed by social crises: faulty understanding of the Torah, of the Land, of the structure of the people of Israel, and of proper relations with the nations of the world. As we shall see below, each weekly portion of the 24 Bible Dynamics. Book of Numbers book of Numbers is dedicated to one of these crises. Each of these essential components of Jewish identity is examined and corrected in turn.
Having experienced a series of crises at all levels of society, the people are able to rebuild. After all transformations are complete, another census is performed, in weekly portion Pinchas, toward the end of the book of Numbers. The Jewish nation can then finally go on to conquer and settle their Land. Thus, the themes with which the book of Numbers opens and closes – counting and refining the structure of the Jewish nation – can be seen as a pair of “brackets,” as it were, enclosing the book. And the actual content of the book consists of the accounts of the various crises that must
be overcome along the way.
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