Not every Torah portion has us hanging on the edge of our seat with cliffhangers or narrative tension. In fact, while considered a holy document, the text of the Torah can oftentimes feel quite… mundane.
So it was in this past week’s portion, Naso, whose title refers to a census the Israelites took at the base of Mt Sinai in the days preceding their trek through the wilderness on their way to the promised land.
In particular, the section of the Torah portion we read at SHS this past week, described, in painstaking detail, the gifts that each tribal chieftain brought on behalf of his tribe to help the tabernacle—that transportable sanctuary—operate.
Not only is each gift described in painstaking detail, but each gift is exactly the same. So it is that we read, twelve times in a row, effectively the following: “On the second day, Nethanel son of Zuar, chieftain of Issachar, made his offering. He presented as his offering: one silver bowl weighing 130 shekels and one silver basin of 70 shekels by the sanctuary weight, both filled with choice flour with oil mixed in, for a meal offering; one gold ladle of 10 shekels, filled with incense; one bull of the herd, one ram, and one lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering; one goat for a sin offering; and for his sacrifice of well-being: two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five yearling lambs. That was the offering of Nethanel son of Zuar” (Numbers 7:18-23).
Twelve times in a row we read this, with, essentially, the only words changing being which day it is, which tribe, and which chieftain.
So it’s reasonable to ask the question as someone living in the United States in the year 2022: why read this? Why spend time on a Saturday morning listening to someone drone on about shekels and flour and meal offerings and yearling lambs, let alone the same words describing those items over and over again?
Well, let’s look, for example, at how Rabbi Harold Kushner explores this text: “Although each offering was identical, each was unique to the person who brought it… To each tribe, God dedicated one day, and on that day there was no gift like its gift. The sincerity of each offering was in no way diminished by the fact that another chieftain had brought an identical offering one day earlier. For that reason, the Torah describes each offering in detail. Similarly, although people recite the same prayers, each worshiper’s experience of those prayers is unique and personal.”
I often struggle with whether what I have to bring to the table is unique; whether it is meaningful. What new material could I possibly have to add to the conversation that has already been undertaken by so many?
And this hasn’t only been true in a rabbinical context. As a lawyer, or while working in the non-profit sphere, no matter the industry, no matter the walk of life, we want to feel like we are making a distinct contribution. With billions around us, it can be hard to feel like what we do is unique or special.
And yet Rabbi Kushner—and the Torah discussion in his response to his comment that we held at SHS this Shabbat—offers an alternate frame: first, the sheer fact of our bringing an offering, and the kavanah, the intentionality, with which we bring that offering to the world, is what makes it meaningful, what makes it significant, regardless of whether or not it appears distinct. And second, it’s not all about us, our own perceptions of our offerings; it’s also about the recipient. The tabernacle needed twelve silver bowls. The communities, the families, the orbits we serve, need our contributions whether or not they feel distinct or meaningful. We have the analogy of a wedding registry. It may not be the, dare I say, sexiest choice to purchase something straight off the registry, and yet that’s the this couple (in the case of the tabernacle, the couple perhaps being the marriage of God and Israel) needs.
Regardless, this is Torah: bringing kavanah, intentionality, to the text we encounter, so that it is transformed by us, and we are transformed by it. It is a powerful undertaking.