Parsha Themes Archive

This week, we will introduce the 4^th book of the Torah. What is the name of this new sefer? Or, more properly, what are its names?

Which of these names does not belong? Clearly, “BeMidbar”: this name says nothing about the content of the sefer. The origin of this name is the fact that it is the first significant word in the book (like the word “bereshit” in the first book of the Torah, the word “shemot” in the second book, the word “va-yikra” in the third book, and the word “devarim” in the fifth book). On the other hand, the other names here all seem to fit into a category: numbers, or “pekkudim,” which means “counting.” These names tell us there will be counting and listing in this book, and indeed, there is plenty of that. But “pekkudim” is more than just “numbers.” What does the root “P-K-D” mean in the context of the Humash Ha-Pekkudim?

P-K-D means to remember something and pay special attention to it. This basic meaning of P-K-D is what ties together the three specific ways in which P-K-D is used in our sefer:

[Reward, of course, is the opposite of punishment: Hashem decides to “remember” a good deed or a promise He has made to someone, and pays special attention to that person by fulfilling the promise. In Tanakh, we often find P-K-D used in this positive sense, like when Hashem ‘recalls’ His promise to give Sara a son -- “va-Hashem pakad et Sara.” But this sense of P-K-D does not appear in the Humash Ha-Pekkudim.]

What counting takes place in this sefer, or what lists do we find in the sefer?

[An example of contrast: the Talmud does not spell out how many candles to light on each night of Hanukka; it simply tells us to start with one and to add one each night.]

To be “poked” means “to appoint”; in modern Hebrew, for example, “pakid” means “an official” or “clerk,” someone “appointed.” Sefer BeMidbar is the Humash ha-Pekkudim in the sense of “Book of Appointment” because it describes how the nation is to be organized: each group and individual is appointed a specific task; a national infrastructure is created.

One of the darker meanings of “P-K-D” is “punishment.” Misdeeds and punishment for misdeeds are one of the major themes of Sefer BeMidbar. The opening sections of Sefer BeMidbar paint a picture of beautiful order and organization as the nation prepares for its journey from Sinai to Eretz Yisrael. The structure of the physical camp is set up, the military structure is created, and different groups are assigned to different tasks. But once we get past the first part of the sefer, we encounter a series of stories in which, time after time, an individual or the whole nation does something wrong and is punished, and the beautiful structure which was designed to bring the people successfully to their land becomes ineffectual and irrelevant:

In all of these incidents, individuals or the entire nation makes terrible mistakes which lead to “pekida” -- punishment. These incidents are so frequent that they become part of the theme of the sefer.

In Part I of this shiur, we traced many of the events of Sefer BeMidbar. We split these events into three different caegories of “pekida,” since Sefer BeMidbar is the Humash Ha-Pekkudim. In this sefer, “pekida” has three primary meanings: counting/listing, appointing, and punishment.

In this part of the shiur, we will first present a number of examples of how the word P-K-D is used in the sefer in these three different ways, and then we will discuss how the three themes of pekida interact with one another to produce the coherent literary unit we call a “sefer.”

The word P-K-D appears in various forms in Sefer BeMidbar 96 times (Shemot runsa distant second place, with fewer than 20 “P-K-D”’s. Many of these instances (the great majority) are in contexts in which counting or listing takes place. In order to demonstrate the use of P-K-D in this “counting” sense but not to belabor the point, I will cite just one example:

BeMidbar 1:19 -- . . . Just as Hashem commanded Moshe, he counted (P-K-D) them in the Sinai Desert.

Somewhat less frequently, we find P-K-D used to describe the appointment of an individual or group to a particular position or function. Some examples:

BeMidbar 1:50 -- “Appoint (P-K-D) the Leviyyim over the Tabernacle of Testimony and over all its utensils and all that belongs to it . . . .”

BeMidbar 3:32 -- The head of the princes of Levi was Elazar, son of Aharon, the kohen, appointed over (P-K-D) the guards of the watch of the holy.

BeMidbar 3:36 -- The appointed task (P-K-D) of the children of Merari was the boards of the Tabernacle, its bars, pillars, and sockets, all of its utensils....

BeMidbar 27:16 -- “Let Hashem, God of the spirit of all flesh, appoint (P-K-D) a leader over the congregation.”

Finally, our last P-K-D category is that of punishment. Certainly, not every punishment in the sefer is described as a pekida, but I have found it useful to organize the themes of the sefer around this root because the word is used in these ways in the sefer and becaus, as we will see, the intimate interactions of these three themes, all traceable to this one root, produce the unique character of the sefer. Some examples of this last category:

BeMidbar 14:18 -- Hashem, slow to anger and great in kindness, forgiving sin and transgression, but who will not simply forgive, who visits (P-K-D) the sins of the fathers on the children . . . .

BeMidbar 14:29 -- “In this desert will your carcasses fall, all of your countings (P-K-D) according to all of your numbers, from age twenty and up . . . .” [This example will be explained further.]

BeMidbar 16:29 -- “If like the deaths of all men do these men perish, and if the visitation (P-K-D) of all men is visted (P-K-D) upon them, then [you will know that] Hashem did not send me.”

Why is it important for the Torah to tell us all of these details about the various countings, listings, and appointings? Since our assumption in reading Tanakh is that it is written for its meaning to all generations, why do we care how many soldiers there were in the shevet of Naftali over 3,000 years ago in the desert? Why is it important for the Torah to painstakingly repeat -- 12 times! -- the gifts of the Nesi’im? Do we really need to know how many male Leviyyim there were from one month old and up, and also how many Leviyyim there were from 25 years old and up? Why does the Torah tell us -- more than once -- all the details of how the degalim were set up, who were the military commanders, and how many soldiers they each commanded? How many times, after all, does the Torah need to repeat to us the list of the Nesi’im?

Second, whatever the significance of these numbers and lists, what do they have to do with all of the disasters and punishments with which the sefer is so occupied?

It seems to me that two of the aspects of P-K-D are in tension with the third aspect: the P-K-D of counting and the P-K-D of appointing stand together in contrast with the P-K-D of punishment. More fundamentally, the former two represent a vision which conflicts with the vision represented by the latter.

The Humash Ha-Pekkudim presents Hashem’s grand plan for the entrance of Bnei Yisrael into Eretz Yisrael. These former slaves -- miraculously rescued from the death and despair of Egypt, presented with the Torah amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder -- are now ready to march triumphantly on to their land, trumpets blaring, ready to scatter their enemies with the help of Hashem’s sure hand. Soldiers are numbered and formed into battle units, military leaders appointed, each shevet assigned a specific place in the symmetrical formation of the nation surrounding its crown jewel, the Mishkan. Within the army’s protective circle nestles the Levite circle, again with each family assigned to a particular task and position in the traveling camp. With the Kohanim directing, the Leviyyim dismantle the Mishkan, shoulder the Aron and other Kelim, and prepare to transport the movable Temple. The silver trumpets blast a signal, the nation breaks camp, and incredibly, two million people move in unison through the desert in ponderous synchronicity.

The lists and numbers of Sefer BeMidbar seem repetitive only when we expect them to communicate discrete bits of information rather than painting a picture. When we put the entire Sefer into perspective, what appears is a dynamic representation of organization, regimentation, assignation, preparation, and finally transportation. The telos of this vision is clear as well: confident, with roles defined and well understood, this group is on the road home. No obstacle can deter them. This is the vision of Hashem and the vision of Moshe.

But it is not the vision of the people. The people do not see the drama or share the excitement; for them, tomorrow is not filled with promise, but with insecurity. At the time of the enslavement, Egypt had been unbearable, a daily genocide. But in rosy hindsight, Egypt was not only the lap of culinary luxury but also, strangely, a place of security. The people made no choices and bore no responsibility to make decisions; their tasks were thrust upon them, their government provided for them from without. In the desert, they must organize themselves, create their own institutions -- their own judiciary, their own army, their own political structure, their own religious representatives. Hashem guides them in all of these tasks, but ultimately the people are responsible for themselves. As if this were not unfamiliar enough after over 200 years of slavery, their daily bread comes falling down from the heavens; instead of the predictable fish, fruits, and vegetables of Egypt, the people are provided with supernatural food directly from Hashem.

Despite incrontrovertible evidence of Hashem’s presence among them and of His intention to help them reach their goal (after all, He did split the sea and drown their enemies in it), the people cannot muster the courage to undertake the conquest of the Land and its powerful inhabitants; their insecurity deafens them to assurances that Hashem will help them and amplifies the claims of those who insist that the nation cannot match the power of the Cana’anites.

The creation of institutions and the appointment of individuals and groups to various responsibilities becomes for many of the people an opportunity to pursue power struggles and bicker over who deserves honor; those who are blind to the Divine vision behind the counting and appointing impute to those in power -- to Moshe especially -- the same motives which energize them. Throughout the Sefer, Moshe’s leadership is challenged by those who want more power than they have; for his part, Moshe is bewildered and eventually angered by these attacks, as he sees his leadership function in the context of the Divine process and not as part of the dynamic of ego-driven self-promotion and political jockeying. A reluctant leader from the first moment of his career, Moshe can hardly believe that others accuse him of promoting himself to a position he tried so hard to decline.

In this sense, Sefer BeMidbar is a tragic story of the clash of two visions. The clash between the grand, orderly beauty of P-K-D/counting/appointing and the petty, chaotic P-K-D/punishment produce a Sefer which opens with energy, momentum, and promise, but ultimately delivers death and disappointment. As Hashem says when the people accept the spies’ evaluation that they cannot conquer the land, “In this desert will your carcasses fall, all of your countings (P-K-D) according to all of your numbers, from age twenty and up . . . .” All of the pekudim, all of the countings and appointings which have been such a focus of this Sefer, all of that will crumble in the desert and come to nothing. All of the planning, all of the assignations of leaders and tasks, all of it is ultimately meaningless and wasted; all of these pekudim are trampled by the pekida of punishment. In this sense, the vision of the people wins out over the vision of Hashem. They refuse (or are unable) to abandon their position, and eventually Hashem gives up on them and pins His ‘hopes’ on their children, the next generation. For this reason, there is another great counting at the end of the sefer, where the Torah pointedly notes that no one included in the second counting had been counted in the first counting. That entire generation dies; their count amounts to zero. The new generation, unbound by the limitations of their parents, is counted again, undergoing the same process of the setting up of institutions and structures so that they, this time successfully, can enter the land.

Besides being a tragic Sefer, the Humash Ha-Pekkudim is also an ironic Sefer: we accompany emancipated slaves whose most plaintive refrain is, “Too bad we left slavery”; we learn of mitzvot introduced by the phrase, “When you get to the Land I am giving to you,” when the recipients of these mitzvot already know they will die in this desert and will never see the Land at all; the Leviyyim enjoy the status of being raised to holiness above the rest of the nation in an elaborate public cand are assigned to the caretaking of the Mishkan, but they are the same people who, led by Korah, challenge Moshe and Aharon: “Why do you raise yourselves above the congregation of Hashem?”; the Nesi’im, constantly in the spotlight in our Sefer, appointed to positions of responsibility and leadership, are the very same people who participate in the greatest catastrophes of the Sefer: the Torah notes that Korah’s supporters are “nesi’im,” as are the meraglim (spies), as is Zimri ben Salu, the man who publicly fornicates with a woman from the nation of Midyan; Moshe’s leadership, attacked by Korah and his supporters, by the entire nation’s frequent angry complaints (“Why did you take us out of Egypt?”), and even by Miryam and Aharon, is something Moshe never wanted at all. He tried unsuccessfully in Sefer Shemot to resist Hashem’s command that he lead the people, and in our Sefer, Moshe repeatedly demonstrates great willingness to share his power with others: he wistfully wishes that all of the people could be prophets (not just himself), he willingly grants a portion of his authority to the seventy elders, he is described as an “exceedingly humble” man who did not bother to respond to Miryam’s carping at him and indeed seems unperturbed by it (it is Hashem who is furious with Miryam; Moshe intercedes and asks Hashem to heal her of her tzara’at); Bil’am, the sorcerer hired to curse Bnei Yisrael, is forced by Hashem to sing their praises: “[Hashem] sees no evil in Ya’akov, no bad in Israel . . . ,” but the very next perek reports that the God-beloved nation has become entrenched in the worship of the idol Ba’al Pe’or and in sexual immorality with the Midyanites.

Above all, the greatest irony of the Sefer is the clash of visions: Hashem and Moshe attempt to build a grand, beautiful organization to accomplish transcendent goals, but the people remain interested in water, tasty and varied food (not just manna every day!), and power politics.

Sefer BeMidbar is a Sefer of missed opportunities. It sets the stage for Sefer Devarim, where Moshe reviews these failures for the benefit of the second generation, attempting to inoculate them against these mistakes, and exhorts them to learn from the limitations of their parents.