B’haalot’cha
Numbers 8:1 - 12:16
Précis:The parasha begins with a description of the making of the menorah, a central Jewish symbol. Next, the Levites are given specific directions for their duties. The parasha returns to narrative with a recounting of a second Passover celebration (required because some of the Israelites had been ritually impure when the first anniversary of Passover was celebrated). Next comes a discussion of the making of silver trumpets. The cloud of God’s Presence lifts, and the march of the People through the wilderness from Sinai begins, led by the Ark of the Covenant. The people begin to murmur again, this time about a lack of meat. God provides, but the People are struck with a plague. This time, even Miriam and Aaron seem to have complaints about Moses, cast in terms of their critique about his “Cushite woman.” Moses is, as usual, is vindicated at the end.
Numbers 10:35–36. “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: ‘Advance, O Eternal One! May Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You!’ And when it halted, he would say: ‘Return, O Eternal One, You who are Israel's myriads of thousands!’”
This week’s reading begins with a description of the menorah (in Hebrew, “ner”) which begins with the Hebrew letter “nun.”While this letter is known to dreidel players through the centuries as meaning “nothing,”this little letter has an important theological consequence in this parasha.
Before and after the verses noted here, in the handwritten Torah scroll (as well as in most printed versions), there appear what we call an “inverted nun” (the letters written in larger font, and upside down). The reason for these unusual symbols remains something of a mystery.
Some suggest that the “inverted nun” may signify that something is amiss with the written text. When the Talmud was compiled in the 5th – 6th centuries of the Common Era, the use of the “inverted nun” in Torah text was already an established practice. According to the Talmud (BT Shabbat 115b), “The Holy One, Blessed be He, made marks on this passage, above and below this passage to indicate that it is out of place.”A statement, attributed to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (who oversaw the compilation of the Mishna) suggests that these two verses were a separate Book of the Torah (BT Shabbat 115b–116a). He comments that the Book of B’midbar is actually three separate books of the Bible: the 1st 10 chapters, these two verses, and then the rest of Numbers.
If, indeed, these marks indicate that the verse was “out of place,” we can infer that God recognized that the Torah He gave to Moses was not totally complete. Perhaps some additional editing was needed. This concept is of course contradicted by our tradition which holds that every letter, word and phrase in the Torah is there for a purpose.
On the other hand, we know of many midrashic stories which suggest that Moses (or even God) was unaware of where rabbinic halachic exegesis might lead. These tales, and the implication that the Torah script here is annotated to indicate an error, may be suggesting that it is our responsibility to continue to study and wrestle with the Torah and with its meaning.
While traditional commentary has no difficulty in asserting a Divine Origin to the Torah, there are hints, as stated above, that this has not necessarily been a unified, relentless point of view. A couple of “inverted nuns” can raise the implication that there is more to Torah than was handed down at Sinai, and that it is our task to find it today.
