602 Days

The Hebrew names given to the five books of the Torah are arbitrary; one word is plucked from the first sentence in each book, and that becomes its name. In the case of the fourth book, Bamidbar, (which means “in the desert,”) this name, coincidentally,  perfectly describes the book’s theme.

The desert is a constant presence in the Tanakh. Over half of the Torah takes place there. Two holidays commemorate events that took place there. One cannot underestimate the significance of the desert theme in Judaism.

The desert is a paradoxical place. It is dangerous, but also offers protection. In his final speech, Moses reminds the Jews that God had watched over them, and “led you through the great and terrible desert with its snakes, serpents, and scorpions, a parched land with no water in it.” (Deuteronomy 8:15). At the same time the desert has been a place of refuge for people like Elijah who needed to flee from powerful enemies.

The desert is also the domain of the demonic. The Yom Kippur service includes the Seir L’Azazel, a sacrificial goat that was sent to “Azazel, in the desert.” This is a curious sacrifice, one intended to appease the angel of destruction. The Talmud and Ramban explain that the Seir L’Azazel is sent to the desert, the domain of Samael, the “prince who rules over wastelands.”

Yet at the same time, the desert is a place of revelation. God appears to Moses for the first time in the desert. After leaving Egypt, God gives the Torah to Israel in the desert. The Midrash explains that the desert is the perfect setting for revelation; it is a place open to all and belonging to none, just as the Torah is.

The desert is many different things at once because it is a blank slate. Both God and Samael can be encountered there.

In Bamidbar, the Jews struggle mightily in the desert. They worry, complain, and rebel. Undoubtedly, they are frightened by the desert’s forbidding environment. But their incessant complaints point to something more, a failure of the soul. The angst of the desert generation is best described by an excerpt from Robert Frost’s poem Desert Places:

…They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars – on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

The newly freed slaves peer into an empty horizon; and in this abyss, they see a reflection of their souls. And that proves to be too much.

In Bamidbar, the desert generation struggles with their own “desert places.” And so do all of us.

Many commentaries explain the failures of the desert generation as a product of their upbringing; they were raised as slaves, and never lost their slave mentality. The Bible writes that God recognized that this generation was too cowardly to face battle immediately. Ibn Ezra adds that these former slaves “had a lowly soul…(and they were) weak and not trained in warfare.” Don Isaac Abrabanel adds that they built a golden calf because they were raised in a pagan culture. The desert generation was a victim of their upbringing.

As they journey into the desert, this generation falls and fails a dozen times, unable to navigate the desert within.

We might imagine that there is a substantial difference between these former slaves and ourselves, who were raised in freedom. But there isn’t.

Maimonides explains that the forty years in the desert played a formative role in building the character of the next generation. Confronting the difficulties of the wilderness and living without luxury instills courage. The opposite, he explains, “is the source of faint-heartedness.”

We have far fewer challenges than previous generations; the lifestyle available in 21st-century America is unparalleled in prior history. But our comfort is actually a source of weakness; without any challenges, our character diminishes. And when we come face to face with our own desert places, we crumble and fall, no different than the desert generation.

It is only natural to run from difficulty. We search for the best health remedies and financial investments. We amuse ourselves endlessly. There is no limit to entertainment, with a seemingly infinite reel of social media clips and streaming channels. Real life has been replaced with something more alluring; we walk about, heads buried in smartphones, as we brush past the roses.

This type of existence is quite comfortable; and we can live this way until we can’t.

Two characters in Tanakh confront the difficult journey into one’s own desert places: Job and Kohelet. Job experiences the pain of losing everything; Kohelet experiences the pain of having everything but losing his appetite for it.

In the desert within, Job and Kohelet struggle with their inner demons; and it is there that they experience a new revelation. Vulnerability and confusion are the great teachers of the desert within. The Talmud (Gittin 43a) writes that “A person does not understand the words of Torah unless he stumbles in them first.” It is when we trip and fall that we first shake ourselves out of our materialism-induced coma. Then we can learn.

The desert generation plods forward. They build Sukkot, primitive huts, and follow Moses through the wilderness. After a few stumbles, they become role models of how to navigate the desert within. And their children, raised in the desert, who grew up with nothing, have everything needed to forge their destiny.

Bamidbar is their contribution to the Torah.

I write these words 602 days after October 7, 2023. I write these words 602 days after the most horrible day in recent Jewish history, after 602 days of captivity for the hostages, after 602 days of war. I have heard too many stories that are too painful to hear; seen too many videos that are too painful to see.

In the last 602 days, I have peered into the desert within. The emptiness is frightening. There are moments that you can no longer see anything; and you wander endlessly wondering where your faith, your purpose, and mission have gone. The thunder and lightning of Mount Sinai are just too far off in the distance to be heard.

But from time to time I can still hear a small still voice calling to me. It prods me to go from camp to camp, to take comfort in a flimsy Sukkah while waiting for something better in the future.

And that small still voice sustains me.

It is the voice of Bamidbar, the revelation that comes from the desert within.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.