Parashat Beha‘alotcha: The Rearguard

Hebrew

In his commentary on Numbers 10:31, Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, (Italy, 1800-1865) wrote something amazing:

This is what I wrote in 5591 (1831), but now in 5602 (1842) I agree with those who  say [something else]…

In the spirit, I want to return to something I wrote [in Hebrew] two years ago with slightly different emphasis.

At the beginning of the second month in the second year after they left Egypt, the Israelites are still encamped in the shadow of Mount Sinai. Two weeks earlier, they offered the Passover sacrifice and celebrated their freedom. They certainly felt a tremendous difference between their present state and their situation just one year earlier on that very night, but they were also aware of the great journey still ahead.

Therefore, at the beginning of the second month they began to organize themselves in the manner necessary to move forward efficiently.

A few days before their intended departure everyone who had been unable to offer the Passover sacrifice received a second chance to mark the miracle of their freedom. It is important that every individual finds her/his place within the people.

And then the great day came:

It happened in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, that the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony (Numbers 10:11).

In the beginning of Deuteronomy, we learn that the travel time from Horeb/Sinai to Kadesh Barnea on the border of Canaan is eleven days. If they advanced at half that pace, the Israelites might have celebrated Shavuot on the border of the Land. Even going much more slowly, on account of the large  entourage, it is likely that they anticipated celebrating Sukkot in their new homes in the promised land.

The many things, great and small, that went wrong along the way, I leave for another year, in order to focus on one small point.[1]

The standard of the camp of the children of Dan, which was the rearguard of all the camps, set forward according to their armies (Numbers 10:25).

In Hebrew, the word translated “rearguard” literally means “the one who gathers.” What was the rearguard intended to gather? According to the Jerusalem Talmud, lost objects (Eiruvin 5:1). However, ‎R. ‎Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin[2] assigned them far greater responsibility:

Whoever was trailed behind and could not walk with his camp, and was left alone in the rear would be collected by the tribe of Dan. And the camp of Dan would move  slowly to accommodate the people who had been left behind, until they were able to rejoin their camp. (Haemek ‎Davar, based on an earlier midrash).

Over the last two to three months, we have experienced unexpected things. We were stopped in our tracks. Many have been weakened, many remained alone. And now we are organizing to renew activity. We will not pull up tent pegs but rather wear masks. We will not fold up our tents but rather maintain physical distancing. But we will restart our journey.

Who will trail behind?

Who will – through no fault of his or her own – not be able to join?

And perhaps the hardest question of all: who will accept the responsibilities and duties of the tribe of Dan? Who will make it their business, even in the midst of the most important tasks, even in the strangest situations, to be alert and extend a hand to a person, to a comrade who is weak or trailing behind?
We must all be from the Tribe of Dan.

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[1] I am grateful to Rabbi Avital Hochstein, President of Mechon Hadar-Israel, and a outstandingly skillful and careful reader of texts, who directed my attention to this verse and the quote from the Jerusalem Talmud. Her different and more complex reading may be found (in Hebrew and English) on the Hadar website.

[2] Rosh Yeshiva of  Yeshivat Volozhin, Russia, 1816 – Warsaw, 1893.