The fourth book of the Torah which we read during the Spring and early Summer, can seem like a transition period. The Israelites are on their journey from Egypt to Israel, they are neither here nor there. This Torah book may even seem like filler between the drama of the Exodus and the exhilaration of reaching the Promised Land. But many profound events take place in B’midbar not the least of which is the revelation on Mt. Sinai.
To me, the essential spiritual message of Mt. Sinai is less about what was revealed (Ten Commandments, the whole Torah, all of Jewish law), who revealed it (God, divine spirit, divinely inspired Moses) and more about who was present.
The entire community, men, women and children, were present at Mt. Sinai. Unlike other religions in which God reveals to an individual who then passes God’s teachings along to others, the Jewish experience of God is communal.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs z”l teaches:
Literacy and knowledge of the law was no longer confined to the priestly elite …God revealed himself not to a prophet or a demigod but to an entire people.
All your children shall be learned of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children.
Isaiah 54:13
All your children, not the brightest or best or most affluent. This was and remains the unique feature of the Torah as the written constitution of the Jewish people. Everyone is expected not merely to keep the law but to know it.
I do struggle with the obvious contradiction between the Torah’s explicit inclusion of everyone and the exclusion of women by some of the modern Jewish movements.
The Torah clearly included women in the revelation at Mt. Sinai and the Torah never excludes women from Torah study, observance of Jewish laws and Jewish rituals. That Orthodox Judaism has evolved to limit women’s participation is a clear violation of the Torah’s intent, in my view. But I will not digress further on that issue here.
The “Big Idea” from the Book of B’midbar is that the Torah belongs to all Jews. We each are invited to read, learn, question, argue, disagree and debate with the Torah. That is the sacred inheritance of every Jewish man, woman and child. When we engage in Torah study at whatever level is appropriate for us, we not only open ourselves to the spiritual message of the Torah but we link ourselves to our ancestors and our holy mission to be the People of the Book.