This parashah very profoundly captures the essence of spiritual life. It is the key to understanding the book of BeMidbar, because we are speaking of the desert, which is what the word bemidbar means. The parashah begins in a very powerful way: “God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert” (BeMidbar Sinay). The wilderness has different meanings. One of the most powerful meanings is the silence—in essence, the emptiness. Unless one can make oneself hefker, open and ownerless like a wilderness, it is very difficult to imbibe the deeper wisdom of the Torah (Midrash Pesik’ta D’Rav Kahana 12:20). The desert implies an empty mind, and where there is emptiness, we are most available to experience deveikut. When there is true emptiness, all of creation and all of God’s presence can be experienced. The emptiness is present all the time, but the silence is only experienced when we decrease the noise of the mind (Talmud Bav’li, Chagigah 13b). In other words, to know the Divine, we must be like the wilderness ... completely open, empty, and ownerless. To understand it on that level is to have particular appreciation for the opening statement of this parashah. When there is ego, we have preconceptions that block the mind. The ego then owns the mind. So, to optimize the receptiveness of the vehicle of the word of God to the will of God, we have to be like the wilderness ... open, empty, and egoless. To be in this consciousness we have to be in humility, surrender, and a place of inner peace. That is the state that Moshe was in. So, the wilderness is not only a physical location like Sinai, but the wilderness is a state of mind. That is the deepest message of BeMidbar. Rabbi Gabriel Cousens, MD Torah as a Guide to Enlightenment (Parsha BeMidbar)
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 02:00:31 +0000
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