JUNE 20 • 2024 | 55
J
N

The Trumpet Call
T

he parshat opens with
holiness, purity and
brilliant light from the
candelabra in the sanctuary.
The portion ends not with
Miriam’s nasty words about
Moshe and his wife, but
with the response of
the Jewish people, the
Israelites, to Miriam’s
punishment: They do not
move on — seemingly
refusing to accept God’s
authority

The parshat wants to
show us the morality of
the Jewish people: Some-
one as great and giving
as Miriam deserves the
respect of the people not
leaving her behind. The
Children of Israel rise to the
occasion and show their ethical
backbone.
This moral and ethical
strength is translated into
the piercing sound of silver
trumpets that Hashem tells
Moshe to make. The trumpets
have many mundane functions,
such as calling the leaders or the
people for a meeting or getting
the nation to start moving again
through the wilderness. Toward
the end of this section about
the trumpets comes a higher
calling: Ch. 10, v. 9: “If a war
comes to your land because of
an enemy that oppresses you,
sound the blasts of the trum-
pets, and God will remember
you and save you from your
enemies.
”
God promises that if the Jew-
ish people do indeed rise to the
occasion and channel their holy
relationship with God and their
ethical and moral backbone,
then God will hear their shouts
— represented by the trumpets
— and God will save them. The

trumpets are a reminder to us
and to God of who we are as
a people, of struggles through
the millennia against enemies
who disdain all the good that
the Torah and the Jewish people
bring to the world.
Israel today is fighting
an enemy that has not
only hatred for the Jews
and their aspirations, but
also a hatred of the mo-
rality and ethics that the
Jewish people have stood
for and continue to
stand for in the Jewish
state and in the Jewish
army. In this world of
media that constantly
wants us to forget who
we are and see the
Jews as oppressors and wicked,
we need to blow these trum-
pets loud and clear to remind
ourselves who we are. The brave
Israeli soldiers strive to fight a
vicious enemy while trying to
avoid as many civilian casualties
as possible. The commitment to
returning and saving those held
captive is in the DNA of the
Jewish people.
We need loud, piercing
horns to be blown to make
sure we can see who we really
are through the haze of the
antisemitism and anti-Jewish
bias that surrounds us.
Let us continue to have faith
that with our efforts, with our
sticking to the ethics that our
people have taught the world
for thousands of years, God
will hear our trumpet cry and
will bring salvation to Israel,
destruction to our enemies and
the immediate return of our
precious hostages.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin is rabbi of Kehillat

Etz Chayim in Huntington Woods.

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Asher
Lopatin

Parshat

Bechaalotekha:

Numbers

8:1-12:16;

Zachariah

2:14-4:7.

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PUZZLE ANSWERS

Solution to puzzle in 6/13/24 issue.

1. The Blue paintbrush (lower right)

2. The bracelet on the girl, bottom left

3. The pink graphic on the black shirt

of the girl in the middle on the left

side of the table

4. The tamborine on the furthest end

of the table.

5. The hand of the girl on the

bottom right