Mattot-Masai
Overview of ba Midbar - Numbers- [Sometimes there are just keywords to cue more detail from memory. R. July 2003]
Begins and ends with Israel on the verge of entering its land, with 38 intervening years of wandering in the wilderness.
Stone commentary says it was a low point in Jewish history, but it certainly was a mystical time. 38 years getting through a desert you could cross in a month. Following the Holy Ark, alternately blazing with Holy Fire or covered in a cloud. Living on mystical food - mann.
Ba Midbar includes the episode of the spies, the Korach rebellion, Moses and Aaron's errors, and the destruction of Midian.
Another theme is the counting of each individual, and the arrangement of the tribes around the Holy Ark. Stone: "demonstrating that the Presence of G-d was their rallying point, the central focus of the nation, then and always."
Tzelafchad and his daughters: mentioned at the very end of the parsha; mentioned in Pinchas (last week), when they are given the right of inheritance. Pinchas finishes what he began in last week's parsha.
Rabbi Shraga Simmons, Aish ha Torah:
The tribes of Reuven and Gad propose taking land the Eastern side of the Jordan River, and not going into Israel.
Moses was angered [yikTzof] by their request, pshat because they were repeating the sin of the spies - R. Simmons says because Reuven and Gad blatantly disregard the needs of their children -- and mention their cattle only. (Numbers 32:4)
The leaders of Reuven and Gad get the hint. In 32:16, they approach Moses again and restate their request. This time they mention their children -- but only after first speaking of their cattle.
Moses again is not happy at their lack of priority for putting business ahead of family.
Finally, they seem get the idea. In 32:26, they put everything in the proper order -- family first, business second.
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The tribes were arranged with the Holy Ark in the center. This focus on G-d, always present through the endless cycles of wandering, is what has sustained Judaism. The ONE at the center of the tribes, is like the ONE in the shema. In each individual's life, our own personal diasporas, hesitations, disharmonies, and denials, which are like the episode of the spies, or the Korach rebellion, or the problems with Baal Peor, are what is between us and crossing the Jordan. But keeping the focus on the Holy Ark, keeping the Sabbath and the Jewish traditions, provides an anchor of stability in the confusion and ambiguity of the desert.