The Torah Talks… 17 Sivan 5785 / 13 June 2025
The sages of old would delve deeply into the Torah every day to find messages of contemporary relevance that would guide them in their activities from day to day.
Today’s Torah reading, the sixth day of the week, corresponds to the sixth of seventh aliyot in Parshat Behaalotcha (Numbers 8:1 to 12:16), the section of Torah which we read in synagogue this Shabbat.
Today’s aliyah starts with a familiar and inspiring verse we hear every time the Torah is removed from the ark to be read in synagogue service:
“Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, “Arise, God! May Your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate You flee from You.” (Numbers 10:35)
A fitting and uplifting message for today. Hashem, may we see Your hand and know that everything comes from You alone.
However, the reading goes on to detail one of a litany of complaints from the Children of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness – this complaint being one that was particularly baseless:
“We recall the fish that we ate in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now, we are bored, for there is nothing else at all; we have nothing before our eyes but manna.” (Numbers 11:5-6)
Of course, the Children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. No-one was given anything ‘for free’. As the pre-eminent Torah commentator, Rashi, points out, “Should you say that the Egyptians indeed gave them fish for free, does it not already say: “you will not be given any straw”? (Exodus 5:18) If they did not even give them straw for free, could they really have given them fish?”
Hashem is angry as the manna, His miraculous gift to sustain the Children of Israel in the wilderness, is defamed, but still promises to address the people’s complaint, while Moses falls into deep despair and prays to die.
Hashem’s response to Moses’ despair is as follows: “Gather for Me 70 men from the elders of Israel, whom you know were the people’s elders and foremen in Egypt. You must take them to the Tent of Meeting, and they must stand there with you” (Numbers 11:16)
Following from this, the 70 elders prophecy with Moses at the Tent, and even two additional people, Eldad and Meidad, prophesied from their place in the camp.
Joshua was outraged by this, but Moses calms him: “Are you zealous for my sake? If only all God’s people were prophets, that God would bestow His spirit of prophecy upon them!” (Numbers 11:29)
What are we to learn from this?
In my understanding, without in anyway diminishing the responsibility or the outrage against Hamas and its fellow jihadists for the massacre, October 7th was a terrible rebuke to Israel for the deepening disunity that has appeared in our society. As in former days, recorded in scripture, Hashem’s rebuke comes through the hands of our enemies.
October 7th, through one event, communicated Hashem’s displeasure to both sides of Israel’s societal split – to the secular left through choice of place (the left-leaning kibbutzim and a dance festival), to the religious right through choice of time (Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the day we are told Hashem reserves after the universal festival of Sukkot to celebrate intimately with the Jewish people alone, when we in turn rejoice and dance with His holy Torah, as a bride with a groom).
We haven’t learnt our lesson. We have made baseless complaints, and we have defamed Hashem’s miraculous gift – the return to our ancestral Land, the succession of crushing victories over our enemies, the restoration of our sovereignty, the ingathering of the exiles, and the blooming of the Land.
But Hashem is also giving us the solution, just as he gave Moshe. One man should not rule alone. Bring together the elders. And not just any elders but those who were the ‘elders and foremen in Egypt’ (i.e. those who have made sacrifices for our people).
We need a genuine coalition of national unity. We need all our elders contributing today, all the talents. No one should be jealous for power as Israel enters this existential moment, or even – G-d willing – after this moment has passed.
Whatever issues we think are important – all the very real and serious issues on which we’ve fought so bitterly for so long – are not as important as Jewish unity.
May Hashem bless us with His protection, deliver us from our enemies, and strengthen and inspire us, His servants, to truly come together at this time, and thereafter, in an enduring spirit of ahavat and achdut Yisrael, for His sake.
