Peace amongst the Myriads

After finishing the third book of Moses known as Leviticus, we now begin to read the

fourth book of Moses, known as Bamidbar, which means in the desert. We have seen

terrible human suffering in the Darfor region of Sudan and we see how desperate

immigrants come to the United States of America by crossing formidable deserts

including the Sonora Desert or the fast moving currents of the Rio Grande River. Not a

day goes by that we don’t hear about a death of a human being on the way to his/her so

called land of opportunity. The most common cause of death is dehydration. In contrary

to these facts, we did not even find one person of the more than 2 million Israelites who

trekked through the Desert on the way to the promised land who died of dehydration.

That is not to say that the Israelites never complained. All too often we hear the famous

line, why did you take us out of Egypt to die in the desert, there aren’t enough graves in

Mitzrayim (ancient Egypt)? (see

day. We were not called stiff necked people for no reason. Besides the clouds of glory

that protected the Children of Israel, we also see the miracle that God always gave them

to drink through his servant Moses. Unlike the Mexicans and others who enter the desert

and risk being caught and sent back, we were not only welcomed by God into the desert

but we were like a husband and wife under the canopy when we accepted the Torah on

the Sixth of Sivan in the year 2448 (next week is the Holy day of the giving of the Torah).

Believe it or not, in the Torah itself there is no term such as “the holiday of the giving of

the Torah” but it is called

fruits or

Ten Commandments on the 50

holiday

celebrated the following week after reading the section called Bamidbar. Indeed, with

the aid of the codes, we find an allusion to this term. The Torah says the following,