Our Parsha speaks about the reasons for the separate section delineated by the inverted “nuns” — “When the Aron (the Ark) would journey, Moshe said, ‘Arise Hashem, and let your foes be scattered, let those who hate you flee from before you.’ And when it rested, he would say, ‘Reside tranquilly, O, Hashem, among the myriad thousands of Israel.'” (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 10, posukim 35-36)
Preceding these posukim are the posukim which speak about the journey of the Aron and of B’nai Yisrael from Har Sinai to their next resting place, “…a three day distance…” (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 10, posukim 33 & 34).
Many commentators speak of the section delineated by the inverted “nuns” as a separation between the aveirot of B’nai Yisrael so as to not bring about a Chazaka (recording of three Jewish sins in succession).
We learn subsequently about the people’s complaints about lack of quail and in next week’s parsha Shelach, about the sin of the Miraglim (the spies). But what was the first aveirah which brought about the separation, by inverted “nuns”, of “VaYehi B’nso’a HaAron V’yOmer Moshe…”? (Sefer Bamidbar, Perek 10, posukim 35-36)
Rabbi Artscroll mentions a Ramban on posuk 35 which cites a Midrash which indicates that the B’nai Yisrael “… fled from the mountain of G’d like a child running away from school.” The Midrash indicates that they were “happy to leave that holy place because they afraid that Hashem might give them more and more commandments. Thus, although they traveled in compliance with Hashem’s will, their attitude made a sin of a journey that should have been the fulfillment of Hashem’s oath to the Avos.” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, page 787, commentary on Perek 10, posukim 33 & 34)
In addition, the Rashi on posuk 33 indicates that although the posuk says that the journey “… was a distance that normally would have required three days of travel, … they (the B’nai Yisrael) covered it in one day.” (Artscroll Stone Chumash, page 787, commentary on Perek 10, posuk 33)
It seems that the attitude of B’nai Yisrael in departing from Har Sinai is totally at odds with Moshe Rabbeinu’s paradigm derech of showing HaKaras HaTov such as by the Maka of Dom (the plague of blood) where he showed his thankfulness for the water which protected him as a new-born.
We find parallels and similarities between the modern-day Memshelet Yisrael, ostensibly the “leaders” of Medinat Yisrael, and the B’nai Yisrael who, in rushing away from Har Sinai after having just received Torah, seemingly failed to give appropriate HaKaras HaTov to Hashem for his kindnesses to us and for giving Torah to B’nai Yisrael.
What do we see today? We observe how the current Memshelet Yisrael, once the vehicle to build and ingather a scattered nation and make the land bloom as it hadn’t in nearly 2,000 years, has become obsolete due to the cancerous growth of it’s anti-Torah ways. We see how they have apparently abandoned MIA soldiers to their captors with little care to find conclusive proof as to whether they have remained alive or have died in captivity. We see how they have benignly neglected Jonathan Pollard, who saved countless Jewish lives by his actions, and left him to rot in an American prison. We see how they have lied to, misled and neglected the members of the former South Lebanon Army who previously fought alongside them and supported Israel for decades.
And finally, having displayed utter disrespect to those who fought for them whether in Northern Israel, South Lebanon or in the United States, Memshelet Yisrael has now totally disrepected and abandoned it’s land, a land which had bloomed and represented a significant part of it’s economy before the expulsion.
And the Regime disrespects the Jewish people with it’s lies, falsehoods, corruptions and deprivations of compensation to the very people whose land the despots stole out from under them at legalized gunpoint.
As we watch today’s history unfold, it’s uncanningly amazing how these themes of various Parshiyot HaShavuot remain as pertinent in subsequent years as in the year conceived, for example this one conceived last year during the run-up to the expulsion. And this year, the elected leaders of the Regime are laying the groundwork for yet a further ill-conceived, unthought out abandonment of more Jewish land, yet another expulsion of Jews, this time not 9,000, but 50,000 to 100,000. It’s like a demented daily replay of Groundhog Day.
And when one of THEM, former NSC Giora Eiland (the equivalent of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US) blasts the Expulsion from Gush Katif and the evolvement of “convergence” (or is that “consolidation”, or Olmert’s latest morph “realignment”?), he’s not blasting that such plans were conceived altogether, for he was one of “disengagement’s” architects, but merely that they “missed a golden opportunity,” by not regionalizing the plan with Egypt giving some land adjacent to Gaza and Israel compensating Egypt by relinquishing more land in the southern Negev in a swap with Egypt and with Jordan giving further land to the “pa (sic)” so that Israel can have “defensible borders” after giving away 88% of Yehuda and The Shomron.
May it be in this year and beyond, that our brethren; the refugee families from Gush Katif and the Shomron (may they soon be restored to new homes and neighborhoods, Bati Knesset, Yeshivot in Gush Katif and the Shomron and only happiness and success for all time), as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard (may he soon know freedom and long life in Eretz Yisrael) be central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream.
May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.