Parshat Bamidbar

 

by Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon

Founder and Board Chairman, JobKatif

 

Why was the Torah given in the desert?

Here we are, beginning the Book of Bamidbar. The name of the book is the name of the first Parsha: Bamidbar. There is important significance to Am Yisrael’s stay in the desert.Am Yisrael waslks through the desert. They receive the Torah in the desert. And in the end, they wind up in the desert for forty years.

Man is supposed to be in the desert to receive the Torah. Why is this significant? The desert is a simple place, a place of humility. These are both basic conditions to receiving the Torah-being humble and simple.

Why is this so?

A proud person will not hear Torah from just anyone. He will not be willing to listen, nor will he be able to receive or accept ideas that are unfamiliar to him. A prideful person will stay within his own element, and refuse to accept that which he does not know.

There is a wonderful passage by Rav Soloveitchik that addresses this point:

Even the best of the best must not forget that he can learn from others as much as he can get from others. Even the most simple, uneducated person has the inner strength, positive traits and a treasure of emotions that he can use by sharing with others and inspiring them. Every person is a rabbi and a student, inspiring and being inspired, giving and receiving. 

G-d gave two forces to man. One is the power to create worlds-the strength to be a rabbi and teacher and teach the other, to inspire and change one’s personality and create it anew. On the other, G-d gave man another strength: the ability to be a student and to learn from the other.

Even the greatest teacher, the most knowledgeable person, needs to know that he also should be a student, and to know how to receive. Only he who knows how to give and receive will truly succeed in developing himself.   

There is another point regarding giving the Torah in the desert. The sages (Midrash Yalkut Shimoni) say that the Torah was given in the desert because because it is amakom hefker, an ownerless place. Anyone who wants to receive may come and take it. It does not belong to a great rabbi any more than it does to a simple person. The Rambam in the Laws of Talmud Torah, expresses this idea beautifully:

Israel was crowned with three crowns-the crown of Torah, the crown of Kehuna,priesthood, and the crown of kingship. The crown of kehuna-Aharon merited this. The crown of kingship-David merited this. The crown of Torah-this was placed and stands before everyone.

Usually, we read Parshat Bamidbar before Shavuot or close to Shavuot. Apparently, there is a hint to properly preparing ourselves to receive the Torah-humility, willingness to receive and the knowledge that Torah belongs to all, to anyone who is ready to put in an effort to be part of the Torah

May reading Parshat Bamidbar help us to humble ourselves and help us learn from everyone around us.

Shabbat shalom!