The Desert Transformation – Matot-Masei 5784

Eight years ago this week — almost to the day — I found myself in Israel, co-staffing a 10 day Birthright Israel trip with a bus full of eager twentysomethings. We spent a week and a half galloping around the country, having the time of our lives despite the summer heat and the long days.

It was not my first time in Israel, and I’ve been to Israel since then. But on this particular trip I was privileged to visit a place where I had never been before and have yet to revisit- one that nonetheless has always stayed with me. Driving away from Masada towards Be’er Sheva in the south, we made a stop at a place whose name I knew and was waiting to visit with anticipation: Sde Boker.

Sde Boker, August 2016

For those who may not know, Sde Boker- “herding field” in English- is a kibbutz in the south of Israel where the country’s founding father and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, retired to after decades of service both before and after statehood was declared in 1948. After retiring he participated as a full member of the kibbutz, taking part in communal labor and helping to build up the desert, which he saw as Israel’s future. When I was there, I saw both the distant past and a vision of the future.

Our bus stopped in a parking lot and we disembarked. It was the middle of the afternoon and eerily quiet in the middle of the desert, with a herd of gentle gazelles greeting us. After quietly walking along a peaceful pathway with the gazelles, who had free reign of the place, we came to a clearing with two graves. There, surrounded by the biblical wilderness of Zin which was mentioned in our parsha, are the simple graves of Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula. I paused for a moment of quiet contemplation and reflection while paying my respects. After a few minutes, we headed to a nearby Bedouin tent for some coffee before continuing on our trip.

In addition to paying homage to one of my personal heroes, the wilderness of Zin offered a landscape unlike anything else I had seen before up to that point: a 360 degree panorama of the Negev, where the Israelites wandered for forty years before settling in their apportioned lands, tribe by tribe.

Within this allotted land, the people are further instructed to build towns set aside for the Levites, who will not receive their own land, which will also serve the function of cities of refuge. These are locations which one can flee to if one unintentionally kills another person. They are safe havens for those who have accidentally shed the blood of another, and they may safely reside there until the death of the high priest, at which point they can safely leave. 

It’s fascinating to read how these boundaries were created; while natural landmarks are mentioned to serve as boundaries in the parsha, Moshe is also instructed to “draw a line”, or “mark out” (shoresh Tav-Alef-Hey) boundaries between territories. While Moshe knows that he himself will not be privileged to enter the land, he nonetheless engages in this act of biblical cartography, delineating boundaries for a place that future generations will inhabit. 

 In the back of our Etz Hayim chumash, one can see a visual representation of these boundaries on the maps that follow page 1512, and it’s striking to realize that these lands are largely still very much in existence- the wilderness of Zin being among them.

Ben-Gurion famously believed that the future of the state of Israel lay in the Negev desert. Where some saw a barren wasteland, he saw the potential for new cities, environmental stewardship, and technological innovation. To quote his writing:

“The desert provides us with the best opportunity to begin again. This is a vital element of our renaissance in Israel. For it is in mastering nature that man learns to control himself. It is in this sense, more practical than mystic, that I define our redemption on this land. Israel must continue to cultivate its nationality and to represent the Jewish people without renouncing its glorious past. It must earn this—which is no small task—a right that can only be acquired in the desert… [he continues]: The trees at Sde Boker speak to me differently than do the trees planted elsewhere. Not only because I participated in their planting and in their maintenance, but also because they are a gift of man to nature and a gift of the Jews to the compost of their culture.”

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Small wonder that the University of the Negev, founded in 1969, was subsequently renamed Ben-Gurion University of the Negev after his death.

The desert wilderness itself is a biblical character. It’s described in the Torah sometimes in human form, having eyes and other characteristics that make it a dynamic factor in the biblical narrative, and not merely a setting. Much has been made about the similarity between the words “desert” and “speak” in Hebrew: they are both spelled Mem-Dalet-Bet-Resh. “Midbar” is desert, and vocalized differently, “m’daber” is a masculine singular form of “speaking”. Out in the wilderness, and not in the hustle and bustle of cities, is where realization and enlightenment often occur.

 The Midrash, in Shir Hashirim Rabah 3:6 states: 

“Torah [was given] from the wilderness, the Tabernacle from the wilderness, Sanhedrin from the wilderness, priesthood from the wilderness, Levites from the wilderness, royalty from the wilderness, as it is stated: “You will be for Me a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6); and all the fine gifts that the Holy One blessed be He gave to Israel were from the wilderness.”

The trials of the Israelites “In the Wilderness”- BeMidbar, as the book of Numbers is known in Hebrew- serve as a transformative experience that forges them into a true nation. Beginning with divine revelation at Sinai and continuing through our combined parshiyot, the desert serves as a transformative, liminal space which allows the Israelites to come into their true identity. Although David Ben-Gurion saw the future in Sde Boker and similar communities of the Negev, he also knew that true peoplehood had been gained there thousands of years before his time. He himself went there both for respite and rebirth- not entirely dissimilar to Moshe and the Israelites. It’s the desert he fled to after killing an Egyptian, where he heard the divine call of destiny at the burning bush, where we received the Torah after our liberation, and where many of us continue to see a vision of the future that includes the unity of all of klal Yisrael. May it be well with Israel, and with us.