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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