We just received the Torah anew for the 3,337th time on the holiday of Shavuot. Since Torah is an eternal guide for life relevant for all times and places, I would expect the Torah reading for this Shabbat would be super appropriate to us here and now. However, at first glance, this week’s parsha opens with a ritual that seems narrow in focus and interesting only to Jewish history buffs.
The opening narrative of the fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar, is about Moses and Aharon counting the Israelites in the Sinai desert shortly after the inauguration of the Mishkan (Holy Tabernacle). Three separate censuses were taken at the time. First, all Israelite men aged 20 through 60 were counted, excluding the Levites. Then all Levite males aged one month and older were counted. As the “Kings' Legion” who served in the Mishkan as priests and supporting staff like musicians, singers, guards, and porters, they were designated to be counted differently.
Finally, the men of the three Levite families of Gershon, Kehos, and Merari aged 30 to 50 were counted separately. This elite cadre of men was tasked with transporting the Mishkan through the desert. Each time the divine cloud lifted, signaling it was time for the Israelites to journey closer to the Promised Land, the Levites dismantled the Mishkan, transported it, and set it up at their next destination. This week’s parsha opens with the census of this divine moving team. I always wondered how this piece of information is relevant to us today. After all, this team was only operational for approximately forty years, so why does the Torah focus so much on it? Here is the deal. The forty years in the desert served as the template for life. After we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, G-d set up the Israelite camp and the process of its journeys through the wilderness as a guide to how we as a nation and as individuals can navigate the wilderness of life. The wilderness is an area devoid of, and often hostile to, human habitation, cultivation, or significant use, and is a metaphor for any time, place, or thing devoid of divine meaning and purpose. G-d gave us the Torah in the wilderness to illustrate that the goal of Judaism is to reveal divine purpose in everything, even in the mundane and hostile. This is accomplished by carrying the Mishkan, the embodiment of holiness, into the mundane. Instead of battling impurity and evil through condemnation or persuasion, we transform it all through observing a Mitzvah or learning and teaching Torah, the embodiment of divinity we received at Sinai. Reading about the divine moving team that did their holy work in the desert so many years ago is super relevant today. It reminds us that we are all divine porters, tasked with the mission of bringing Torah and Mitzvos to every corner of the spiritually desolate wilderness of our world, allowing the brilliant divinity inherent in every single Mitzvah and every word of Torah to transform it into a lush garden of divine peace and tranquility for all.