B'haalot'cha

Numbers 8:1−12:16

How The Trouble Began

The Israelites' troubles, and indeed our own troubles, begin when we turn away from God.

By Rabbi Avraham Fischer. The following article is reprinted with permission from the Orthodox Union.

In the aftermath of a national calamity, we try to reconstruct the events that led to the tragedy.

We try to locate the turning point, in the belief that there was a precise moment at which, had we been aware, we might have prevented the catastrophe.

To be sure, the Children of Israel were sentenced to die in the desert because of the sin of the scouts (Meraglim), as we will read in Parshat Shlah Lekha. However, the first signs of dissolution emerge in B'ha'alotkha.

The verses, “And it was, when the ark set forward, that Moshe said, ‘Rise up, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let them that hate You flee before You.’ And when it rested, he said, ‘Return Hashem to the myriads and thousands of Israel.’” are set off with two inverted letters--n'oon to mark the end of the idyllic condition described at the beginning of the book of Bamidbar (ch. 1-10)--the order, purposefulness and unity--and the onset of deterioration:

And the people were as complainers of evil in the ears of Hashem, and Hashem heard and His anger was kindled; and a fire of Hashem burned within them and it consumed at the edge of the camp (11:1).

These are the troubles that culminated in the sin of the Scouts.

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