What can we learn from the parasha this week about journeys? Not the journey you look back on– in my case from Marais Road Shul in Cape Town to NNLS in London here today.
I want to rather look at journeys ahead of us. Because at that moment, between staying and moving forward, that’s a vulnerable place. You don’t know what’s ahead, but it’s probably difficult out there. Or maybe it’s just scary because you are currently living in the privileged, resting place that we call home. I think of my relative who moved from Latvia to Eretz Yisrael in 1934. She didn’t know anyone there and she went from a comfortable life in Europe with her family, to a hard life in the Middle East digging earth, draining swamps, laying water lines, building water towers and planting orchards. There were no guarantees for her when she left home in 1934. But her brother who stayed behind in Riga, was murdered seven years later. You try to read the writing on the wall, but the signs are never as clear as they are in the parasha this week…
We read that the people of Israel had clouds resting over the Mishkan, deciding for them when to go and when to stay…as it says: ‘Whether it was two days or a month or a year—however long the cloud lingered over the Mishkan—the Israelites remained encamped and did not set out; only when it lifted, did they break camp.’
They also had The Ark of the Covenant of יהוה which travelled in front of them on that three days’ journey to seek out a resting place for them.’ Plus, they had Moses’s excellent leadership and silver trumpets blowing. It’s all very easy for the people of Israel. They don’t have to decide for themselves. Between when to go and when to stay, they just go with the flow. But in terms of survival strategies, that’s not always a good move.
But at that moment between staying and going, between advancing and resting, comes one of my favourite parts of the whole Torah…neatly held together by two inverted nuns which we separate in the choreography of the Torah service on Shabbat. The lines are:
׆ וַיְהִ֛י בִּנְסֹ֥עַ הָאָרֹ֖ן וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֑ה קוּמָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֗ה וְיָפֻ֙צוּ֙ אֹֽיְבֶ֔יךָ וְיָנֻ֥סוּ מְשַׂנְאֶ֖יךָ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ׃
When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, God! May Your enemies be scattered and may Your foes flee before You!
וּבְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ ׆
‘And when it halted, he would say: Return, O יהוה, Israel’s myriads of thousands!’
These two lines are familiar because the first part is what we say when we take the Torah out of the Ark, and the second part is what we say when we return the Torah to the Ark. The two lines are like the arch though which we take the torah out, read it and parade it and then put it back again.
As the Torah is returned to the ark, but before the curtains or doors are closed, we sing the second sentence between the inverted nuns ... וּבְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ ׆
That’s a harder one to understand. The English in Sefaria says ‘And when it halted, he would say: Return, O יהוה, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!’
What does that mean?
Nechama Liebowitz points out the problem is with the Hebrew word shuva שׁוּבָ֣ה The Hebrew word shuv means ‘return’ but it’s a word that doesn’t take an object and yet here it is, awkwardly followed by a phrase ‘many thousands of Israel’ as a direct object.
Around the year 1,000, in Spain, the commentator Ibn Ezra says it means: Give the myriads of Israel rest that they may be no longer disturbed.
500 years later in Italy, the commentator, Sforno sees it like this: Rest O lord among the myriads of Israel. Let thy presence rest in our midst.
500 years after Sforno, Nechama Liebowitz writing in Israel, describes it in context with the first part like this:
‘He who rose up to Scatter his enemies and remove wickedness from the earth would dwell once more amongst the tens of thousand of his children and followers from all people.’
She compares it to the Messianic time we read about in Zacharia in the Haftorah later. ‘In that day many nations will attach themselves to GOD and become God’s people, and God will dwell in your midst.’
The student of Nechama Liebowitz, Rabbi Chaim Weiner sees it like this: The two sentences between the inverted nuns have military relevance. This means the second sentence means God return our soldiers in peace. Israel’s myriads of thousands are the soldiers that we want God to bring back to us.
I can’t help thinking about the eight Israeli soldiers who died in battle this week. Benny Ganz described them as “the beautiful faces of the people of Israel, the best among us.” Would that all the soldiers and all the hostages be returned home.
For the meantime, in our very long journey from the midst of the wilderness in Sinai, to Israel, to Babylon, to North Africa to Europe and beyond, we are not there yet, and I’m grateful for that. I’m in no rush to get to the end of days, however painful and uncertain it is at the moment. I feel very at home here in New North London and secure in the liberal democracy of the UK. This is my privileged, resting place. I’ve done enough travelling and I’m grateful to be here. But I know that things can change…
There’s another way to read the line from the parasha that we say when we return the Torah to the ark when we ask God to come back to us. In our long journey through history, when we are resting or journeying, where ever we go and however it looks, God really hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s us that must return to God.
