I’ve been thinking a lot about RVs lately. Growing up, they were considered the way to travel the country in style. It was a big deal when my uncle and aunt took my Grandma Hensel to the Grand Canyon and back in a huge one. Actually, it was more of a motor home when you get right down to it. Of course, back then gas was well under a buck a gallon. I’d hate to see the gas bill these days, though I’m sure modern RVs get much better fuel efficiency … to a point. Anyway, here’s my commentary on B’ha’alotcha. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is B’ha’alotcha or “In your setting up” and covers Numbers chapters 8 through 12. Chapter eight concerns itself with the setting up of lampstands and the preparations of the Levites. Chapter nine focuses on regulations surrounding the celebration of the Passover, allowing even those who are ceremonially unclean due to coming in contact with a dead body to take part in the feast, as well as how the Israelites moved their encampment only when the cloud over the Tent of Meeting moved, and how they stopped when it stopped.
Chapter ten concentrates on further instructions for moving the encampment, both at a time of battle and at a time of peace. Chapter eleven relates the events that happened when the people of Israel grew tired of manna and begged the L-RD to send them a wider variety of food. And finally, chapter twelve focuses on the consequences of some family troubles among Moses and his siblings, Aaron and Miriam.
So this is a rich Torah portion, ripe with topics for discussion, but the part that I kept being drawn back to was chapter twelve, because I believe what it teaches us about the L-RD is so important and, too often, overlooked by many believers today.
We read this in:
Numbers 12:1-2
Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. “Has the L-RD spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the L-RD heard this.
So, what do we have here? Well, we have the sister and brother of Moses complaining against him. The first fault they find here is that Moses has married a Cushite wife. The King James translates the word Cushite as “Ethiopian.” So what do we know about the wife of Moses?
Actually, we know very little about her. The first thing we know is her name, which is Zipporah. She is the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, and therefore would most properly be considered a Midianite.
Zipporah’s name specifically appears in the Torah only four times. Her name appears twice in Exodus chapter two, where she is named as the daughter of Reuel (another name for Jethro) who is given by Jethro to Moses as his wife, and that she gave birth to his first-born son, Gershom.
Zipporah’s name next appears in Exodus chapter four, when she circumcises Moses’ son because he had failed to, and the L-RD was about to strike Moses down for failing to do so. The final appearance of her name in the Torah is in Exodus chapter eighteen, when we are told that Moses had sent his wife and two sons ahead of Israel to stay with Jethro during Israel’s ordeal fleeing from slavery in Egypt.
Directly from the Torah, that’s all we know about Zipporah, the wife of Moses. Of course, rabbinic tradition has attempted to fill in the blanks, but there is no basis in the Torah itself for much of what is taught about her.
What we do know is that Miriam and Aaron were complaining about Moses having a Cushite wife. Is it Zipporah’s origins in the land of Cush… or Midian, or Ethiopia… whatever you wish to call it… that matter here? No. The core of this issue is not where Zipporah IS from, but where she is NOT from; she is not an Israelite.
Now, this information was, of course, nothing new to Miriam and Aaron. Moses has been married to Zipporah for a few years at least, had two sons by her – Gershom and Eliezer – and yet it is this fact that spurs Miriam’s complaint against her brother. When she complains, “Has the L-RD spoken only to Moses? Hasn’t He also spoken through us?” she is not speaking anything untrue. In fact, the Sage Rashi suggests that Miriam never even intended harm to Moses by what she said! We read this from:
Rashi
“…and although Aharon and Miriam did not mean to hurt Moshe they were still punished; how much more so, then, will a person who wishes to hurt another be punished?”
And it is this quote from Rashi that draws up closer to the real issue at hand here, and that is a Hebrew word you may have heard used by some people at times here at Beth Yeshua, but which you may not understand. That word is lashon hora, and it means, “evil speech.” Stan taught about it last week.
Evil speech and its consequences is a theme that is repeated generally in the Torah, and especially in this week’s Torah portion. What is evil speech?
Well, it goes deeper than just malicious gossip and lies. As a matter of fact, one can be speaking things that are absolutely true about another person, and yet still be guilty of evil speech.
Think about it. Was it true that Moses had married a Cushite as opposed to a Hebrew woman? Certainly. Was it true that the L-RD had spoken to Aaron and Miriam as well as Moses? Sure it was. So, why were they punished for speaking the truth?
Because nothing that was said, although true, was meant to build up Moses. The intent was to diminish Moses, even if not exactly to harm him. The words being spoken were coming from negativity and a root of bitterness. Bitterness is often taken for granted these days; we hear of a person’s misfortune and the injustices they have suffered and, of course, we understand why a person might be bitter today. But are bitterness and envy – understandable though they may be – fruits of the Spirit or qualities that offer life and healing?
We read this in:
Acts 8:18-23
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
We also know what is said in:
Proverbs 14:30
A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.
These are just a couple examples; there are many. And what both of these passages point out is that bitterness and envy are not compatible with ministry or a life led by communication with God – the Holy Spirit. Because Peter recognized the bitterness and envy in Simon’s heart, he did not just refuse to lay hands on him, but actually told him, “You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.”
And what is the fruit of bitterness and envy? It is lashon hora, evil speech! Let’s take a look at another part of this week’s portion, and see the consequences of yet another instance of evil speech. We read this in:
Numbers 11:4-6
The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost–also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
Now, like the source of most bitterness, we can understand the complaint these people have. Manna was a wonderful, perfect food to be sure, but as most chefs will tell you, too much of anything, even a really good thing, can get monotonous. So some of the people eventually complain that it’s manna for breakfast, manna for lunch and manna for supper, and it’s easy to understand that they decide they would like some meat.
However, you see, it doesn’t end there. They let a minor dissatisfaction with the lack of variety of food grow and grow until their complaint becomes a lot more than just wishing they had a steak now and then. They let this complaint grow and fuel their dissatisfaction until they’re not just asking for a wider variety of food, but are claiming that they were better off under the yoke of slavery in Egypt. All over what? Food!
So the L-RD hears their complaint, but his response is not to their surface complaint of a lack of meat, but to the root of bitterness in their heart.
We read this in:
Numbers 11:18-20
“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The L-RD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the
L-RD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month–until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it–because you have rejected the L-RD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”
You see, the true problem here is not meat. The Israelites did indeed have herds of cattle and flocks of sheep; if they had wanted meat, their was meat to be had. This is instead a problem of attitude and a condition of their hearts being rooted in complaints and envy and bitterness, rather than rejoicing and praise and the Spirit of the L-RD. This is not a matter of what they were given; this is a matter of desiring whatever they were not given, as we read in:
Numbers 11:31-34
Now a wind went out from the L-RD and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the L-RD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
And that’s the key phrase. They craved “other food,” as in any food other than that provided by the L-RD. The manna was not the problem here. The L-RD could have provided them anything, be it steak, turkey, cheese pizza, popcorn, whatever! And no matter what He provided, their desire would have been for whatever was not on the menu. It was not merely about wanting something new to eat, it was about wanting something not provided by the L-RD.
You know, the traditions of the rabbis are sometimes filled with tales that add on to the Biblical text. Sometimes what they add provides insight, sometimes not. One of the traditions surrounding this episode with the quail and the manna states that those who ate the manna were compelled to follow the Torah and obey all that the L-RD commanded them in order to receive the full benefits of the manna. Whether that’s true or not, the tradition offers the insight that what the people complaining here really wanted was food that came with no strings attached, with no requirement to follow the Torah and obey all that the L-RD commanded them. So ultimately what they wanted wasn’t a twenty-ounce porterhouse on their plates, but they wanted the L-RD out of their lives.
And as a result of a minor complaint about food, thousands died there in the desert. Remember, these were a generation of people who had already said no to hearing the voice of God directly, a voice that would have allowed them to become what God desired them to be: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. As we know, they instead chose to hear from a human mediator, rather than the L-RD. They chose to worship a golden calf, rather than wait for the return of that mediator. The L-RD had promised that not one of their generation would live to see the Promised Land, save for Caleb and Joshua, and this is one of the episodes on the way to Him fulfilling that promise.
So how does this tie in to the evil speech uttered by Miriam? Let’s take a look at the L-RD’s response in:
Number 12:4-8
At once the L-RD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them came out. Then the L-RD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, he said, “Listen to my words: “When a prophet of the L-RD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the L-RD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
When the Spirit of the L-RD departs, Miriam, who has spoken evil against her brother Moses first, was struck with leprosy. It was a death sentence and yet, because Moses interceded on her behalf, the L-RD spared her life, though she had to sit outside the camp for seven days before she was healed and declared clean once more.
What this ought to make clear is that, as far as the L-RD is concerned, the old saying, “Words can never hurt me,” is not relevant. The excuse repeated by so many, “Well, all I was saying is…” does not stand up to scrutiny. Whether it is careless talk, gossip, evil speech, or even lashon hora, what comes out of people’s mouths, their words and the intent of their hearts, matter quite a bit to the L-RD. Being careful with what one says can bring unity to a community; being careless about what one says can destroy it, as we’ll see next week. Is there a cure for lashon hora? That’s what Stan will speak about in a little bit.
Shabbat Shalom.
