The Power of Flags: Bamidbar, Identity, and the Soul of Jerusalem Day - Tehila Gimpel:

Guys, this week's coming portion is Bameidbar Numbers. The first the first portion in the book of Bameidbar Numbers. Now, this portion poses a challenge because you guys know I love teaching about the portion. On the other hand, we have Jerusalem day now. And on the third hand, we have Shàuote coming up and we're not going to get to meet because that comes out on Sunday night next week. And Let's be honest, Bidbar, this first portion of numbers doesn't uh let's say seem at first glance to have a lot of story to it. It's mostly counting and numbers. And it it it kind of reminds me of a meeting of like the city planning council about like how to plan out a suburb. Like, okay, this tribe is going to sit over here and this tribe is going to sit out over here. We have this many people here and this many people there. it doesn't really lend itself to uh to much storytelling at first glance. So, I felt like I really had my work cut out for me, but the Torah does not disappoint us. And so, I will try to touch on all of these coming out of our portion. Let's see if I can do it. So, buckle up, guys. Okay. So, this week's portion, we are in the second year. The tabernacle has been made and now seemingly it's time to get organized as an encampment. Um, now see it would look like from reading the Torah that up until now we just have a giant blob of people. There seems to be a giant blob moving through uh the sea when the sea splits and then just a very big blob of people when uh they're at Mount Si. We don't really hear about any great amount of uh order in the living arrangements. So this portion is all about how everyone situates themselves. Now, the first thing that we notice is that the tabernacle isn't exactly where you would necessarily expect it. We're talking about a traveling group of people. If you were to imagine what would be and you hadn't read the Torah, where would you sort of imagine the tabernacle? I would imagine the tabernacle like up ahead and then like the priests and then the Levites and then like the more important tribes and maybe the less, you know, significant tribes. I would kind of have a a procession going behind it because that's how they travel. We always have the tabernacle and its and its and its articles up front when we're traveling. So, you know, when we settle down, you would think we would just kind of settle like that and that would kind of be pointing us in the right direction. But in fact, we get a square encampment with these four flanks of three tribes on each side. And then each tribe. So we have these groups of three. And then it says that each tribe dwells within itself. So kind of you can look here at at an example of a picture. You can see like tribe tribe tribe on each side. And then uh it says that within each tribe you have each family unto their father's house uh dwelling sort of like a miniature encampment within each encampment. Um, so that's interesting. Now, what's also interesting is the tremendous focus that we get in this portion on flags. It's not not odd, right? It says here, God, just this is one example. There's so many times that this portion mentions flags. In chapter 2, uh, verse one, God spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, the Israelites must camp each by his division's banner. So, we have these three tribes. That's like your division by the insignias uh on the flags of each house, right? Uh um you have these they have to camp around the tent of meeting at a distance and those camping in the front in the east will be under the flag of the division of Judah organized according to their troops. The prince of the tribe of Judah was Nakshon the son of Aminadav. And it goes on again and again telling us that there are going to be these flags or banners that keep repeating themselves like it's really important that each group has a flag. Why is that important now? Like it almost seems like I when I when you think about it, it's like is this like is it color war? Is it capture the flag? The whole idea of flags is sort of interesting. You know, I was reading in one of the classical interpreters of the Torah, the says that from these verses in this Torah portion, the nations of the world began making flags. Nations began identifying themselves with flags. And I read that, I was like, hm, that might need a fact check. But I did fact check it. And lo and behold, if you look up in Wikipedia or in Encyclopedia Bratannica, they'll all say that the that flags were invented in China in the 11th century BCE. But the Torah here is telling us a story that takes place hundreds of years before that. So it would seem that the biblical flags are indeed the first flags known in history. What does that mean? And there's so much talk about the flags. You have the main flag of each group of three. So like let's say if you're in like the Judah team, then you have the Judah flag. If you're in the Ruven team, you have the Reven flag. For like three tribes, three tribes, three on each side. And then within each flag, it seems that the Torah is telling us that each tribe has a flag. Maybe even each family has a flag. What's up with all the flags? So there's this really interesting kind of odd, I don't want to say odd, kind of surprising, unusual midash. And the midash actually connects these flags to the revelation at Sinai. Listen to this midrash. It says in the midash of Bidaba, a great love did Hashem show Israel by making them into camps with flags. So why? It's like a sign of Hashem's love for us that he gave us flags. Okay. Says when Hashem revealed himself at Hari at Mount Si, he descended with 220,000 angels. As it says in Psalms, the chariots of God are myriads upon myriads, thousands of thousands. And all of them were arranged in groups with flags. As it says in Shir Sharim, the Song of Songs 5:10, bannered among 10,000. And using the word for here for flag in the Hebrew it has the word flag. When Ben Israel when the children of Israel saw the angels arranged with flags they began to desire flags for themselves. Doesn't that happen to you guys on a day-to-day basis? You run into some angels and the angel is waving a flag and you say if only I had like the first thought that comes to mind is like gee I really need a flag. I really need a flag like that angel. And they started to desire flags for themselves. And they said, "Would that we too be arranged with flags like them." And Hashem said to them, "You desire to have flags. I swear I will fulfill your desire as it says in the Psalms, may Hashem fulfill all your desires." And then immediately Hashem informed Moses and said to him, "Go and make the flags as they have desired." So for some reason the midash is connecting this arrangement of flags with the revelation at Sinai and the angels that were accompanying God's entourage as he revealed himself in the world. So let's think about that for a second. Let's unpack it. When Hashem reveals himself, he has this entourage. We see this in many places. He has this entourage of angels that come and now the midash tells us they're carrying flags. Well, what are angels? How are angels different from human beings? It's like besides her not having physical bodies. You know what's interesting in Hebrew, the word angel, the word for angel malak and the word for messenger are the same word to be I even if when our when our patriarchs sent out messengers often it will describe the messengers as angels even though they're just regular people being sent on a mission. So to be an angel fundamentally is to be single-minded in the mission God gave you. us as humans, we get distracted. I want to serve God, but on the other hand, I want to serve me and my physical desires. Like, what's going to be my main thing? I'm pulled in this direction. I'm pulled in that direction. The angels don't struggle with that. The flags symbolize that. They come into the world at the revelation and each one of them has a flag. What is what is a flag? A flag is like something that you rally around. When you're lost, you look up and you see this flag. You know what direction you're going. It identifies you. It makes sure it's it ensures that you don't get lost. You look where your flag is and you know where you need to go. It's like each angel knew their precise place and their precise direction and their job. And Israel, this band of freely released slaves sees these angels and is so inspired. It's like the inner calling of us at the revelation was like we have an inner desire to be closer to that angelic state where you can actually know your purpose. Why did Hashem send me to this world? It's like metaphorically they were saying we want flags too. Hashem, show us our mission in life. Like we want to also be like angels. We want to be single-minded in focusing on doing your will. It's this beautiful kind of missiondriven god- centered life that we want to have. And that's something that they realize at Sinai. That's like the besides for receiving the Torah, they had they had they didn't only receive laws and words, but they had an experience of seeing what a person like what what they could strive to be like. And so essentially this encampment that's being created in our portion, you know, it's interesting that this portion of this week is always the portion that you read right before shaveote. It's like it's like there's some kind of connection. This encampment, it seems when you first read it so technical, but actually it's an embodiment of the Sinai experience. And that helps us really understand the whole structure of the encampment because the center of the encampment is the tabernacle. In the center of the tabernacle are the tablets inside the ark. And above them are the cherubs where we have ongoing revelation. So you have the revelation of Si and the ongoing relationship that makes itself manifest through the cherubs. We have this kind of mobile mount si. That's really what the tabernacle is. And the people are essentially organizing their lives around the tabernacle. The tabernacle is not in front where it's like, okay, I have this on one side of me, but I have also all my other inclinations on my other side. I maybe I could move backwards, forward, sideways. Everyone is facing inwards towards the tabernacle. It's not one part of our life. It's not on one direction of our life. We all want to be like angels. They their inner desire was to be like angels looking single-mindedly towards this center to focus their life on Hashem's commandments and his ongoing revelation. So now, what did these flags actually look like? The Torah says that there were flags and on each flag there was a symbol. But the Torah doesn't tell us what the symbol was. Seemingly whichever tribe was the dominant tribe of that trinity would, you know, probably have some kind of symbol relating to them, but it doesn't tell us what it is. But here's the thing. Our forefathers were actually there. And that's the power of the oral tradition. like my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather was actually there and saw those flags. Like do we believe that that actually happened? These stories were passed down to us. And we have a tradition going back countless generations of what the actual symbols were on the flags. You can see it in many sources, but I'll give you one example that was just worded really clearly inades known in Hebrew as the Ramban. So he says on the flag of Judah there was an image of a lion based on the verse Judah is a lion club. So on the Judah side, the Judah team where he has Judah, Yesahar and and and Zevulun, they had the lion flag. On the flag of Ruvane, there was the image of a man. Based on the story of the Judaim, the Mandre story in Hebrew, the word for Mandrekes, Judaim is the same letters as the letters of the word Adam, man. On the flag of Ephraim was the image of an ox based on the verse his firstborn bull majesty is his. On the flag of Dan was the image of an eagle and the reason is based on the verse like an eagle arousing its nest because the tribe of Dan traveled last gathering all the camps like a rear guard. Therefore Dan would rouse and motivate the others helping keep the camp moving together. Okay, so that's interesting. We have this ancient ancient tradition telling us what the flags look like. Do these symbols sound familiar? Are they ringing a bell to anybody? I'm going to see all the chat popping up. Right. In the vision of Ezekiel of Yezgel in the first chapter, he sees the heavenly entourage, the carriage, the throne of God. And what does it say? says, "The likeness of their faces was the face of a man, the face of a lion, uh, the face of the lion was on their right to the four of them, and the face of an ox to the left to the four of them, and the face of the eagle was to the four of them." So, you have these like the throne of God with these four faces. Seemingly, we know at the revelation, everyone who was at Mount Si saw this complete revelation just like Ezekiel saw. So when they're making their flags, they know what they're what they've seen. I won't go into all the details in Hebrew, but you can take my word that many of the phrases described in Ezekiel's vision are also used here describing the structuring of the camp. So if we put everything together, this encampment is not just like a suburban planning meeting. This is essentially an earthly physical replication of the heavenly throne and chariot. When the people say we want flags, maybe they're not just saying we want to be angelike in our personalities. Maybe they're actually saying we want the whole kitten kaboodleoodle. We actually want to create a dwelling place on earth for Hashem that is like his dwelling place in heaven. We want to organize our entire lives such that we ourselves become the bearers of Hashem's presence. We have this replica with these flags but the flags representing the essence of what we are trying to be. We are trying with our lives, with our tents, with our homes, with our families to actually live in such a way that we can be a bearer, a chariot for the throne of Hashem, which is symbolized in the tabernacle as the location of Hashem's presence as it can be revealed in this actual physical world. And it's really beautiful when you think about the implications because here they are in this chaotic world symbolized by the desert. The desert is a place where there's no order. You have Amalcch trying to kill you and Midian trying to tempt you and Balum trying to curse you. Not so different from the world that we live in maybe. And with all that chaos, within all that chaos, the Torah is telling us you can actually organize yourself, your life, your family, your community in such a way that invites Hashem's presence into your midst. It seems to be a recipe to organizing yourself as a person with a mission that's located within a family. A family within the context of a larger family. A larger family in the context of a community. And that community in the context of a greater national commitment that decides to center and orient itself with Hashem and Hashem's commandments and presence at the center of the center. And you know, I promised you something cool for Jerusalem Day. And you're saying, "Well, I don't know." Okay, listen to this. Jerusalem is a tricky Jerusalem Day is a tricky holiday because you know in Israel, everyone celebrates Independence Day. But somehow the six- day war got kind of forgotten, marginalized primarily because of the ongoing argument between the left and the right that also kind of breaks down on lines of religious and non-religious people as to what should really be the status of Judea and Samaria and ultimately the Temple Mount. And because it's such a let's say controversial issue, I hope less so now since the beginning of the war, but who knows, Jerusalem Day doesn't get all of the hype that um let's say Independence Day gets. And so even though we're celebrating the redemption of Jerusalem and the holy places and the biblical heartland, the celebrations became mostly relegated to religious Zionists and not so much in the secular world and definitely not in the world of the Israeli left who actually strives or strove to give those places to the Arabs. So it never really developed any major traditions. There's really only one tradition that is consistently celebrated on Jerusalem Day and that is the flag march. Now, I don't think that when anyone started out marching with a flag and like kind of picked up grassroots like you know more more and more people joined, I don't think anybody thought that that would even become the main event of the day. And I for sure don't think that they thought about the portion of Bidbar and the flags in uh in the encampment that comes out every year on the week of Jerusalem day. But here we are and in the very portion of Bidbar that focuses so much on these flags, we have the flag march where thousands and thousands of people come and take Israeli flags and march around the old city ending up ultimately at the Western Wall facing the Temple Mount. It's like almost unknowingly but through some kind of prophetic intuition even we were challenging channeling excuse me not challenging channeling this idea that says our flag orients us to our purpose and with our flags we organize oursel ourselves around Hashem's revelation which is ultimately going to be in the center of the old city of Jerusalem at the temple mount and so in this kind of grassroots intuition ition. Exactly. In this week's portion, we're going to see tomorrow thousands and thousands of young people circling the old city and coming to face physically and spiritually the temple mount and say this is what this is our flag and this is what we want to orient our lives to. This is what we want to dedicate ourselves to. So with that, I wish you guys a happy Jerusalem day. I wish you a meaningful shàvuote and that may you just connect with that we should all connect with our mission our flag nestled within our families within the communities that we build and facing our hearts fully and completely to orient ourselves towards the tabernacle towards the ark of the covenant and ultimately towards the temple that should be rebuilt in our days. Amen. [Music]