Parashat Bemidbar III: Make Yourself Like a Desert and . . .?

The book of Numbers, called in Hebrew Bamidbar, “In the desert,” takes place during the 40 years the Israelites spent in the desert between the time they left Egypt and the time they entered the land of Israel. What is the significance of the desert? Why did this growing up period need to take place specifically in the desert? Here are a few interesting comments:

1. Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah (1.7) says that the Torah was given with three things – fire, water and the desert. All three of these are free for everyone in order to teach that the Torah is free and accessible to any who wish to partake of it.

2. Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah (1.7) also says that in order to learn Torah effectively, one should make oneself like a desert -- completely hefker, like an abandoned piece of property which is no longer owned by anyone. What does this mean? See below for the hasidic Sefat Emet’s reading of this midrash.

3. The desert was a place in which the Israelites experienced a sense of complete dependence on God, as their every need, from food to water to shelter from the sun could only be provided through God’s miraculous intervention. The Sefat Emet emphasizes this notion of dependence in his reading of the midrash above. He says that being hefker, ownerless, means that one should submit oneself completely and utterly to God, and admit one’s complete dependence on God for every action. This is an extreme view, but there is something appealing about it, something appealing about at least imagining relinquishing complete control and negating oneself, making oneself just part of the ownerless desert. It is a notion which serves as a nice antidote to modern Western notions about how much control we have over our destiny, and what active parts we should take in shaping it.