P
arshat Bamidbar takes
up the story as we left
it toward the end of the
book of Shemot. The people
had journeyed from Egypt to
Mount Sinai.
There they
received the
Torah. There
they made the
Golden Calf.
There they were
forgiven after
Moses’ passion-
ate plea, and there
they made the Mishkan, the
Tabernacle, inaugurated on the
first of Nissan, almost a year
after the Exodus. Now, one
month later, on the first day
of the second month, they are
ready to move on to the second
part of the journey, from Sinai
to the Promised Land.
Yet, there is a curious delay
in the narrative. Ten chap-
ters pass until the Israelites
actually begin to travel (Num.
10:33). First there is a census.
Then there is an account of
the arrangement of the tribes
around the Ohel Moed, the
Tent of Meeting. There is a
long account of the Levites,
their families and respective
roles. Then there are laws
about the purity of the camp,
restitution, the sotah, the
woman suspected of adultery
and the nazirite. A lengthy
series of passages describe the
final preparations for the jour-
ney. Only then do they set out.
Why this long series of seem-
ing digressions?
It is easy to think of the
Torah as simply telling events
as they occurred, interspersed
with various commandments.
On this view, the Torah is
history plus law. This is what
happened, these are the rules
we must obey, and there is a
connection between them,
sometimes clear (as in the
case of laws accompanied by
reminder that “you were slaves
in Egypt”) sometimes less so.
But the Torah is not mere
history as a sequence of events.
The Torah is about the truths
that emerge through time.
That is one of the great
differences between ancient
Israel and ancient Greece.
Ancient Greece sought truth
by contemplating nature and
reason. The first gave rise to
science, the second to phi-
losophy. Ancient Israel found
truth in history, in events and
what God told us to learn from
them.
Science is about nature,
Judaism is about human
nature, and there is a great dif-
ference between them. Nature
knows nothing about freewill.
Scientists often deny that it
exists at all. But humanity is
constituted by its freedom. We
are what we choose to be. No
planet chooses to be hospitable
to life. No fish chooses to be a
hero. No peacock chooses to be
vain. Humans do choose. And
in that fact is born the drama
to which the whole Torah is a
commentary: how can freedom
coexist with order? The drama
is set on the stage of history,
and it plays itself out through
five acts, each with multiple
scenes.
The basic shape of the nar-
rative is roughly the same in
all five cases. First God creates
order. Then humanity creates
chaos. Terrible consequences
follow. Then God begins again,
deeply grieved but never losing
His faith in the one life-form
on which He set His image and
to which He gave the singular
gift that made humanity god-
like, namely freedom itself.
THE ‘FIVE ACTS’
Act 1 is told in Genesis 1-11.
God creates an ordered uni-
verse and fashions humanity
from the dust of the earth into
which He breathes His own
breath. But humans sin: first
Adam and Eve, then Cain, then
the generation of the Flood.
The earth is filled with vio-
lence. God brings a flood and
begins again, making a cove-
nant with Noah. Humanity sin
again by making the Tower of
Babel (the first act of imperi-
alism, as I argued in an earlier
study). So God begins again,
The Ever-Repeated Story
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
88 | MAY 18 • 2023
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH