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seeking a role model who will
show the world what it is to
live in faithful response to the
word of God. He finds it in
Abraham and Sarah.
Act 2 is told in Genesis 12-50.
The new order is based on
family and fidelity, love and
trust. But this, too, begins
to unravel. There is tension
between Esau and Jacob,
between Jacob’s wives Leah
and Rachel, and between
their children. Ten of Jacob’s
children sell the 11th, Joseph,
into slavery. This is an offence
against freedom, and catastro-
phe follows — not a flood but
a famine, as a result of which
Jacob’s family goes into exile in
Egypt where the whole people
become enslaved. God is about
to begin again, not with a fam-
ily this time but with a nation,
which is what Abraham’s chil-
dren have now become.
Act 3 is the subject of the
book of Shemot. God rescues
the Israelites from Egypt as
He once rescued Noah from
the Flood. As with Noah (and
Abraham), God makes a cov-
enant, this time at Sinai, and it
is far more extensive than its
precursors. It is a blueprint for
social order, for an entire soci-
ety based on law and justice.
Yet again, however, humans
create chaos, by making a
Golden Calf a mere 40 days
after the great revelation. God
threatens catastrophe, destroy-
ing the whole nation and
beginning again with Moses,
as He had done with Noah and
Abraham (Ex. 32:10). Only
Moses’ passionate plea prevents
this from happening. God then
institutes a new order.
Act 4 begins with an account
of this order, which is unprec-
edentedly long, extending
from Exodus 35, through the
whole of the book of Vayikra
and the first 10 chapters of
Bamidbar. The nature of this
new order is that God becomes
not merely the director of
history and the giver of laws.
He becomes a permanent
Presence in the midst of the
camp. Hence the building of
the Mishkan, which takes up
the last third of Shemot, and
the laws of purity and holiness,
as well as those of love and
justice, that constitute virtually
the whole of Vayikra. Purity
and holiness are demand-
ed by the fact that God has
become suddenly close. In
the Tabernacle, the Divine
Presence has a home on earth,
and whoever comes close to
God must be holy and pure.
Now the Israelites are ready
to begin the next stage of the
journey, but only after a long
introduction.
That long introduction, at
the beginning of Bamidbar, is
all about creating a sense of
order within the camp. Hence
the census, and the detailed
disposition of the tribes and
the lengthy account of the
Levites, the tribe that mediated
between the people and the
Divine Presence. Hence also, in
next week’s parshah, the three
laws — restitution, the sotah
and the nazir — directed at the
three forces that always endan-
ger social order: theft, adultery
and alcohol. It is as if God were
saying to the Israelites, this is
what order looks like. Each
person has his or her place
within the family, the tribe
and the nation. Everyone has
been counted and each person
counts. Preserve and protect
this order, for without it you
cannot enter the land, fight its
battles and create a just society.
Tragically, as Bamidbar
unfolds, we see that the
Israelites turn out to be their
own worst enemy. They
complain about the food.
Miriam and Aaron complain
about Moses. Then comes the
catastrophe, the episode of
the spies, in which the people,
demoralized, show that they
are not yet ready for freedom.
Again, as in the case of the
Golden Calf, there is chaos in
the camp. Again God threatens
to destroy the nation and
begin again with Moses (Num.
14:12). Again only Moses’
powerful plea saves the day.
God decides once more to
begin again, this time with
the next generation and a new
leader. The book of Devarim is
Moses’ prelude to Act 5, which
takes place in the days of his
successor Joshua.
The Jewish story is a strange
one. Time and again the Jewish
people has split apart, in the
days of the First Temple when
the kingdom divided into two,
in the late Second Temple
period when it was driven
into rival groups and sects,
and in the modern age, at the
beginning of the 19th century,
when it fragmented into
religious and secular in Eastern
Europe, Orthodox and others
in the West. Those divisions
have still not healed.
And, so, the Jewish people
keeps repeating the story told
five times in the Torah. God
creates order. Humans create
chaos. Bad things happen,
then God and Israel begin
again. Will the story never
end? One way or another it is
no coincidence that Bamidbar
usually precedes Shavuot, the
anniversary of the giving of
the Torah at Sinai. God never
tires of reminding us that the
central human challenge in
every age is whether freedom
can coexist with order. It can,
when humans freely choose
to follow God’s laws, given in
one way to humanity after the
Flood and in another to Israel
after the Exodus.
The alternative, ancient and
modern, is the rule of power,
in which, as Thucydides said,
the strong do as they will and
the weak suffer as they must.
That is not freedom as the
Torah understands it, nor is it a
recipe for love and justice.
Each year as we prepare for
Shavuot by reading parshat
Bamidbar, we hear God’s
call: here in the Torah and its
mitzvot is the way to create
a freedom that honors order,
and a social order that honors
human freedom. There is no
other way.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-
2020) was a global religious leader,
philosopher, the author of more than
25 books and moral voice for our
time. He served as Chief Rabbi of
the United Hebrew Congregations
of the Commonwealth from 1991 to
2013. Rabbi Sacks passed away in
November 2020. His series of essays
on the weekly Torah portion, entitled
“Covenant & Conversation” will
continue to be shared and distributed
around the world.
“GOD CREATES ORDER. HUMANS
CREATE CHAOS. BAD THINGS
HAPPEN ... WILL THE STORY
NEVER END?”
— RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS