Shabbos Parashas Beha'alosecha - 5779

Shabbos Parashas Beha'alosecha - 5779

Rabbi Hal Miller

When the Ark would travel, Moshe said, "Arise God, and let Your enemies be scattered,

let those who hate You flee from before You." And when it rested, he would say, "Dwell,

God, tranquilly among the myriad thousands of Israel." [Bamidbar 10:35-36]

Our verses are the "inverted nun" verses, set off in the Torah, as the Gemora in Shabbos

[116a] says, as a separate book. Rashi, as do many others, asks why these verses

appear here (instead of Bamidbar [2]), in the middle of what seemingly was another

subject. Rashi's answer is, "In order to make an interruption between one trouble and

another." If so, what are these 'troubles' that it is interrupting?

In the chapters before our verses, the Torah discussed the sanctification of the Leviim, the

Pesach offering, and the beginning of the journey through the desert toward the promised

land. It discussed the encampments, the pillars of cloud by day and fire by night.

Everything seemed positive and directed toward a good future.

After our verses, we can see some form of 'trouble' right away. 11:1 says, "The people

were like those who seek pretexts of evil", which clearly indicates they are about to get

themselves into hot water with God. They complained about shortage of meat and other

perceived lacks in the desert. Having just come out from slavery, one would think they

would be full of joy and gratitude rather than complaints about missing luxuries. Certainly,

Rashi's comment makes sense for these following verses, but what about those preceding?

Ramban asks the same question, that Rashi "did not explain to us what this first trouble

is for which we needed a break, for no calamity has been mentioned here before. The

second calamity is, 'The people were as if aggrieved' [11:1]." Ramban continues that this

also is puzzling. He suggests that Rashi understands things to be out of chronological

order here, that the first trouble was the fact that Israel left Sinai, the place of God. Ramban

explains Rashi that there was a fear among the people that God might give them even more

commandments if they stuck around Sinai and were wrong in running away, but Ramban

thinks that their leaving was because they felt out of place in such a holy environment.

Rav Hirsch sees our verses as a return to the main story. Prior to the chapters noted

above, the people had been recovering from the golden calf incident, putting themselves

back on track in the covenant, doing teshuvah. At this point, that teshuvah is completed,

and it is time to start the next phase of the narration, the actual journey to the promised land.

This section relates that, despite all that came before, God is holding to His promise, and is

sticking with the Jews in their journey. Thus the first 'trouble' was the calf incident, the second

is the one about "who will feed us meat", and Rashi's understanding of this being a divider

makes sense. The Torah did not want to present a series of terrible events without a

break.

It would seem a stretch to say that these two troubles were back to back such that the Torah

had to insert something to split them, when in fact there are so many pages already between.

But the content of those pages really occurred in a very short time period in the overall

narration, so Moshe's words here constitute an actual break in the story.