Parshat Bamidbar

 

Those who are to camp  in front of the Tabernacle (Dwelling Place), to the eat, are Moshe and Aharon and his sons, keeping the charge of the entire Sanctuary as the charge of the children of Israel.   Any outsider who comes near is liable to the death penalty.

3:38

 

 

It is written, “Happy is the one You choose and draw near”…drawn near by the Blessed Holy One, those souls ascending from below to above to possess the inheritance prepared for them…Those who attain this rung become messengers of the world like angels, constantly carrying out a mission according to the will of their Master, because they constantly sanctified themselves and did not become defiled…As a person conducts himself in this world, so is his abode, so is he drawn within the world…

Zohar1:130a

 

 

Sforno alludes to a Talmudic illustration of the dangers to which disorder could lead.  There (Yoma 23), it is related that during the period of the Second Temple, two youthful priests ran up the stairs of the altar, wishing to be first to obtain the privilege of removing the ashes.  They pushed each other and one of them drew a knife and stabbed the other.  The worshippers assembled in the Temple were shocked by this outrage and desecration of the holy place.  Only one person, it is stated, had the presence of mind to go to examine the victim to see if he was only wounded or was past remedy.   His examination however was not prompted by humane motives, but in order to ascertain whether the knife had been contaminated by corpse defilement.  The Talmud comments, in an outraged tone, on the fact that ritual defilement was apparently more important to them than human life.

Nechama Leibovitz (Contemporary)

 

Although we have a rule that anything subject to numbers and measures does not attract “Berakhah,” (blessings), this rule applies only when the number or measurement in question is intrinsically physical, part of this material world.  Such numbers, by their very definition, do not bode well, since they are intended to stress individuality in the sense of separateness.  Each item is counted separately.  It also suggest limitation.

Shney Luchot Habrit (Prague, 16th Century)

 

 

The Bracha (blessing or benediction) is the ancient Jewish liturgical response to the encounters one has with the various aspects of reality.  When one partakes of food or drink, or if one sees or hears something unusual, one recites a “Bracha.”  Among the various “brachot” enjoined upon us there is the following, about which we read in the Talmud (Berakhot 58a):  “One who sees a crowd of Israelites says, “Blessed is the One who discerns secrets,” for the mind of each prson is different from that of the other, just as the fact of each person is different from that of the other.

Pinchas Peli (Contemporary)