Taking the Torah With Us

July 9-10, 2010/ 28 Tammuz 5770

By Rabbi Steven Exler, YCT '09
Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

The final postscript to the war of the Children of Israel with Midyan is rather unusual. A closer look, however, may show it to be the fruition of a 40 year process of national development in the wilderness.

After describing the division of spoils of war, the Torah records that some military officers approached Moshe to say that they had counted the troops and found no one missing, a miracle in its own right. Then the officers offer as a sacrifice all the women's gold jewelry they had plundered in the war, "l'khaper al nafshoteinu lifnei Adonai" - "to atone for our lives in front of God" (Num. 31:50). Moshe brings the offering to the Tent of Meeting, and it is recorded as a "zikaron livnei yisrael lifnei Adonai" - a "remembrance for the Children of Israel before the LORD."

Why was an offering required as an atonement at this time, after what seemed to be good news – the counting of the military ranks indicating no men lost?  Furthermore, why was this offering then left at the Tent of Meeting as a memorial?  That itself is a very rare occurrence in the Torah!

Rashbam, a 12th century French commentator, cites an explanation by his father R. Meir which offers a backstory to this event.  In the Tanakh, a census is a dangerous thing, sometimes resulting in a plague and death (this phenomenon is attested throughout the Ancient Near East).  Knowing this, but wishing to nonetheless count the military men remaining after the war, the officers vowed a sacrifice of atonement – or protection – before the census.  Rashbam parallels this account with Parashat Ki Tisa where God commands a census and instructs that it be done with a half-shekel as protection against the danger of taking of the census.  Then, in words whose echoes we hear in the pasuk from our parasha quoted above, God commands that those half-shekels be used for the construction of the Tent of Meeting itself: "v'natata oto al avodat ohel mo'ed v'hayah livnei yisrael l'zikaron lifnei Adonai l'khaper al nafshoteikhem" – "and you shall donate it (the half-shekel) to the work of the Tent of Meeting, and it shall be for the Children of Israel as a remembrance before the LORD to atone for your lives." (Ex. 30:16)

These two accounts are parallel, and I would suggest that the second shows the internalization of the lessons of the first. On the heels of the Exodus, in the early moments of shaping a nation, God commanded that a census be taken, that the funds be offered as an atonement for the danger of census-taking, and that the money be used as a remembrance in the construction of the Tabernacle.  Now, a generation later, an empowered people has defended itself against another nation which sought to waylay her, and wishes to take a census to assess its condition.  The leaders of this growing nation, Bnei Yisrael, remember the instructions of 40 years earlier, collect funds from the spoils as an atonement for the census, and more importantly, bring those funds to the central place of worship for the benefit of the nation.  Now the funds are not incorporated into the structure of the building itself, which was long since completed, but are used for some ongoing purpose in its worship.

We see from this narrative that this nation is learning to incorporate the commands it originally received into its own way of living, continuing to make the Torah a living instruction, and to carry its values and rituals into ever-changing scenarios.