Parashat Be’ha’alotecha Numbers 8:1-12:16
Haftarah Zechariah 2:14-4:7
You know I like to point out moments in our liturgy that come directly from Torah. There is something spiritually elevating about standing in a modern service and savoring that many of the words on our lips go back thousands of years. Last week, I wrote about a famous example, the priestly blessing, recorded in Parashat Naso. This week, we encounter another case of Torah as liturgy: Passages from the (traditional) Torah service.
The verses in question are Numbers 10:35-36. In Torah Study yesterday, we spoke about how these two verses form one special unit, and today, I’d like to share a different perspective.
Numbers 10:35 reads:
Whenever the Ark set out, Moses would say:
Arise, O Eternal One!
May Your enemies be scattered,
And may Your foes flee before You!
In more traditional communities, these are the words chanted when the Ark is opened. But when you look in Mishkan Tefilah, page 362, you will not find them. The reason for that is that the editors of the Reform prayer books struggled with the militaristic imagery of enemies scattering and foes fleeing before the banner of Torah. They didn’t want to have these words at the beginning of the service segment that brings Torah into the room. And so, this is why our siddur skips after “Melech El ram v’nisa, Adon olamim” directly to “Ki miTzion, tetze Torah”, on page 364, and that is when we now open the Ark.
Numbers 10:36 starts off the last passage of the Torah service, when the Torah scroll is already back in the still open ark
And when it came to rest, he would say:
Return, O Eternal One,
to the myriad thousands of Israel!
This verse is also absent in our Mishkan Tefilah. I assume it was cut because it is the continuation of the previous battle cry to advance toward the land, but standing by itself, it really feels more like a plea: Return, God. Come back to us. Stay with us; now that we are about to close the Ark again, we need your presence.
These opening meditative verses are soon followed by the familiar words many of us love to sing, and that you find on page 374: Etz chayim hi lamachazikim bah — “It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it.” (Proverbs 3: 18)
Torah is a tree. Something to hold on to. Yet the truth is that much of the Torah narrative in Numbers is in fact the narrative of a military conquest or rather, the leading up to that conquest. The book of Numbers begins with a census of all men who can be drafted for military service. The camp, with the standards cluttering in the wind, is a military boot camp, waiting for its marching orders. Overall, in Torah, God has many names, and one is Adonai Tzevaot, The Lord of Hosts, the “man of war.” (Exodus 15:3).
The journey to the Promised Land is not only a journey of liberation; it is also a journey of a nation’s military conquest under the banner of Torah: Our sacred scripture as battle cry — or/and as a cry for help from God. In these times, we can both struggle and resonate with this truth. We might not agree with the Torah of an ultra-right government. But the Jewish people need protection – in Israel, and here. When does that need for protection, the elation about being spared turn into vengeful jubilation, or a free pass for human rights violations?
I understand the impulse to remove verses that no longer feel like words one can pray with integrity. Or that seem to endorse a logic and argumentation one does not endorse. I respect certain editorial choices, though I am not the only Reform Jew who prefers to sit with the discomfort rather than editing it away. Prayer, religion, spirituality is mystery, is irrational, is not as clear cut, will never be entirely consistent. If we canceled or rewrote everything that does not sit well with us or does not make sense scientifically, it will be hard to draw a line. Even the thorough German Reformers and their even more thorough American descendants didn’t achieve full consistency: Adonai Tzevaot still marches through our prayers. The redeemer (go’el) had to leave the Amidah and Yigdal for the sake of redemption (geulah) — but we still sing heartily about Moshiach ben David at Havdalah, when we conjure up Elijah the Prophet.
Meaning does not necessarily come from warm fuzziness. It can, but often, meaning comes after we wrestled with something. It can come from understanding why a passage is present — or why it has been removed. I believe that in order to understand why a passage was removed, we need to know why — and that — it was there in the first place.
Torah is not a pick-and-choose spiritual comfort book. Torah is a yesod, a foundation — and foundations, like the foundation of the United States 250 years ago, are complicated, never perfect. Everyone will decide for themselves what makes sense to them, but I venture we can’t do it without inconsistencies, contradictions, awkwardness, compromises.
The Torah service begins with movement and ends with return. The Ark sets out. The Ark comes back, comes to rest. The pillar of fire moves, the pillar of cloud settles. The people journey, the people encamp. In between setting out and resting, in between discomfort and meditation, in between ancient contexts and modern prayer, we find ourselves in conversation with Torah. As we say on page 374: For I have given you good instruction; do not abandon my teachings (Proverbs 4:2).
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Julia Knobloch