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June 3, 2005/Iyar 25 5765, Volume 57, No. 40
Israel's vows renewed in the wilderness
Torah Study
SIMON J. MASLIN
Parsha Bamidbar, Numbers 1:14-20
With this week's Torah portion, we begin the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, Bamidbar. Its English name is based on the Latin word for numbers and derived from the census of the Israelites that God commands Moses to take in the opening verses. The traditional Hebrew name, Bamidbar, "in the wilderness," provides the setting for the entire book and resumes the saga of the Israelites where the second book, Exodus, ends. The third book, Leviticus, consists primarily of laws related to the priesthood and is not a part of the historical narrative.
It might seem that there is very little in this week's Torah portion to inspire comment: there is a census of the 12 tribes, a description of the encampment of the tribes around the Tabernacle, and further enumeration of several families of the tribe of Levi. But throughout the Book of Bamidbar, its very name reminds us of the covenant that is consummated between God and Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
I use the word "consummated," a word often related to marriage, advisedly, because the prophets often refer to the wilderness of Sinai as the place where God and Israel fall in love, and that love is consummated at the sacred mountain. Mount Sinai is the chuppah, "the bridal canopy," and the Torah is the ketubah, "the marriage contract." And so we find Isaiah declaring to Israel, "Your husband is the one who created you" (Isaiah 54:5), and Jeremiah reminding Israel of "your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness" (Jeremiah 2:2). It has even been suggested that whenever we use the phrase asher kid'shanu, "who has sanctified us," before performing a mitzvah, we are reminding God, as it were, of the kiddushin, "the marriage," between ourselves and God. The mitzvah we then perform is a token of our eternal love for God.
The image of the divine marriage between God and Israel provides a bridge between the Torah portion and the haftarah, which takes up the metaphor of the marriage between God and Israel. The following are points of connection between the two:
- The census - The Torah portion opens with God commanding a census of the tribes, while the haftarah opens with the words "The number of the people of Israel..."
- The wilderness - The Torah portion locates the people of Israel in the wilderness, while in the haftarah, the prophet Hosea has God enticing Israel to the wilderness, to "respond as when she was young, when she came up out of Egypt" (Hosea 2:17).
This haftarah, taken from the second chapter of Hosea, is particularly poignant and beautiful. In the preceding chapter, God instructs the prophet to marry a harlot who will be as unfaithful to her husband as Israel is to God. Scholars disagree as to whether Hosea actually married a harlot or whether the marriage is a literary metaphor describing how Israel panders herself to the surrounding nations by adopting idolatrous worship. In either instance, the prophet cries out to the children of his unfaithful wife, as God cries out to the prophet.
In the next few poetic verses, the prophet describes the continued acts of faithlessness and the suffering that Israel (his wife?) is made to endure because of her shameless behavior. But ultimately there is a reconciliation. It may be Hosea speaking of his wife or God speaking of Israel, or both.
It is in the wilderness, the place where God and Israel first fall in love and enter into their b'rit of eternal faithfulness, that love is rekindled and their vows renewed. The beautiful, tender words chosen by Hosea to renew the covenant are often used in wedding ceremonies today. Those who don tefillin for morning prayers also recite these words as they wind the leather thong around their ring fingers: "I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and compassion. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Eternal" (Hosea 2:21-22).
Simon J. Maslin is rabbi emeritus of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel of Elkins Park, Penn., and is a past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. Torat Chayim of the URJ is at www.urj.org/torah.
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