Shabbat Parashat Behaalotcha 5784

Parashat Hashavua: “It Was as the Ark Traveled”

(from speech at a hachnasat sefer Torah, 1987)

“It was as the ark traveled, Moshe said: ‘Arise, Hashem, and Your enemies shall scatter, and those who hate You shall flee from You’” (Bamidbar 10:35). Chazal say that this short section seems out of place (Shabbat 115b). However, it appears here to separate between two tragic episodes, and is separated from the rest of the text with two inverted letters nun. In the final analysis, for that reason, that is surprisingly its proper place in the Torah. In separating tragic stories, it is setting right the letter nun, which can represent nefila (a fall), turning it into reemergence to light and success. This is achieved by bringing the ark with us wherever we go.

Today we traveled (in the procession with the new sefer Torah) through the streets of Kiryat Moshe, thereby sanctifying the streets and Hashem’s Name. This helps neutralize the negative events that occur in our streets – the throwing of stones and the weakening of the public sanctity of Shabbat.

On the one hand, there are non-Jews around the world who object to seeing us in Eretz Yisrael, but there are also, tragically, many Jews who want to uproot the use of Hashem’s Name and defile the sanctity of Jerusalem, the Holy City. They want the sounds of public buses [on Shabbat], viewing them as the harbingers of “freedom and enjoyment.” But this “freedom” opposes the spirit of Judaism, weakens the feelings of kinship in the country, and tramples the crown of the sanctity of Jerusalem. It also provides fuel for the actions of the stone throwers. When people desecrate sanctity, we do not have a real Jerusalem, value for the Nation of Israel, and the connection between the Land and the nation.

Our walking through the streets with “the ark” sanctifies them and returns the crown of sanctity and purity. We proclaim: “Any vessel made to hurt us will not succeed,” not the stone throwers and not those who, Heaven forbid, try to rip the sefer Torah’s parchment.   

In recent parshiyot, we read of the four languages of liberation that Hashem promised we would have from Egypt. The next pasuk says: “I will bring you to the Land …” (Shemot 6:8). We are not living up to that gift sufficiently. Some of us are willing to relinquish parts of Eretz Yisrael and believe and dream that this will bring them tranquility and peace within the reduced borders. They do not understand that Eretz Yisrael cannot be divided, just like Am Yisrael cannot. They want to uproot Hashem’s Name from our midst, but they will not succeed. Somewhere down the line, they or their descendants will repent, because, as Jews, they have a nucleus of sanctity in their midst, waiting to show expression.

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