Why the Torah Was Given in a Quiet Desert — And How That Can Heal You

What makes the human species unique? Our voice. When we use our voice, we trigger the passion. We trigger discipline. We trigger love. What we talk about triggers inner feeling. Okay friends, the story begins parasidar Torah portion of Bidbar. It's a new book, the book of numbers. Our sages tell us that uh the way or they point out that the way the Torah reading is structured, the schedule, the para bidvar is always going to be read the shabus before shabus. Somehow the Torah portion of Bidbar besides for it being an independent segment of the Torah, it also happens to have a connection to Shivuis, it also happens to be a preparation for Shabuis, a preparation for the holiday of Matan Torah, the holiday of giving of the Torah. Let's start with the opening verse. I'll provide my own loose translation. God says to Moshei in the Sinai desert in the tent of meeting in this established tent in the holy of hol or in the Mishkan on the first of the second month which means the first of ER. You know what the first of ER was? One month after the first of Nissan, what happened on the first of Nissan? The Mishkun was established. The home, the temporary home for God, the tabernacle was built a month later. So God tells Moshe, this is the second month, the second year that they left Egypt. And he told them, "Count the entire congregation of the people of Israel according to their families, according to their uh patriarchal lineage, right? There's a mitzvah to once again count all the Jewish people. Now, we've had mitzvah in the past already in the Torah where Moses was instructed to count the Jewish people, but he's instructed to count the Jewish people again. Why? Rashi points out any time there was a fundamental change in Jewish life in Jewish existence, God counts the Jewish people. Soon as we left Egypt, God count that. That's fundamental. That was a big deal. God counts the Jewish people. We've sinned with the golden calf. God forgives us. Let's count the Jewish people. There was a fundamental change that took place here and it's now once again time to count the Jewish people. What's the fundamental change that had taken place at this point? Again, it's one month after the establishment of the Mishkan. God's presence is finally welcomed to this earth, finally welcomed to this world. That started with the giving of the Torah a year prior at Mount Si. It wasn't fully sustainable with the giving of the Torah. That was kind of like the jump start. Jump starts aren't sustainable. You know, you can you can jump your car, but you got to have more gas. You got to have, you know, you could start your battery, but you got to you got to get gas. So, we started the battery. The inspiration came to the world. God became relevant to the world. And we'll talk more about this soon with the giving of the Torah where God effectively said, "I want to be part of this world. I am the Lord your God." That's the beginning of the Ten Commandments. You know that the beginning of the ten commandments starts with an I describing just a raw it's the most raw description of God. It's not a name of God which describes a particular angle of a relationship. It's just his raw self the highest of levels. And how does what's the last word of the ten commandments to your friend and don't covet your friend because God wants to be relevant to people the most raw truth the most real thing entity is so relevant and meaningful that's what the giving of the Torah is at Mount Si but again that was a jump start it was an experience that wasn't sustainable to the point that The Jewish people even told Moses, "We can't handle this. Why don't you convey the message to us through God?" And then the question becomes, "Well, how are we going to channel this relationship on an everyday level?" So God says, "Okay, you'll build a tabernacle. You'll build a Mishkan. You'll build a home for me." And the moment that took place a month later, God counts the Jewish people. But the Torah makes a point to tell us where God is counting the Jewish people. You know where God is counting the Jewish people? Bidbar in the desert midbari in the Sinai desert which hence the name of the portion. Commentaries ask an interesting question. You know what else took place in the Sinai desert? Everything from when we left Egypt in the book of halfway through the book of Exodus, several portions within the book of Exodus till literally the end of Deuteronomy. The whole thing is the Sinai desert. There's nothing unique seemingly about this Torah portion. Why are we pointing out that this took place specifically in the Sinai desert? So, one of the commentaries known as the Rashbam points out that you actually see this fundamental change in the text. Pre- Mishkan, pre-tabernacle, if you were to examine the text of the Torah carefully, everything that takes place is at Mount Si. But once the tabernacle is established, once God's presence was welcomed into this world in a very meaningful and practical way, everything takes place in the Sinai desert. The Torah switches description. It usually up until this point was describing what takes place at Mount Si and now it's Sinai desert because the relationship with God can't remain on the mountain can't remain up high. It has to be in the desert. It has to be relevant. It has to be meaningful. And somehow this desert connection prepares us for shivas, prepares us to receive the Torah, prepares us for the ultimate relationship with God. The ultimate relationship with God is not on the mountain, but it's in the desert. In fact, if you look in the Torah at the if you look at the book of Exodus, when God had given us the Torah, what did he do? He put a a border around the mountain and said, "You go up that mountain, you die, man. If you make if you think your Jew your Judaism is in heaven and that's what Judaism is all about, go experience God in heaven rather than doing what God wants you to do in this world in the desert. You're missing the point. You're dead. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. So it's all not on the mountain, but it's in the desert. And somehow this desert mentality ironically prepares us for shus which is quite ironic because the giving of the Torah and the desert are like opposites. The giving of the Torah again is the raw truth. It's the it's the it's the most deep and personal exposure of God that we have ever ever had where God literally appears and says to everybody openly here I am. I in the Lord your God. Our souls couldn't handle it. We expired. God had to revive us. And then that's taking place in a desert in the lowest of places in a place that is most inhabitable. So I want to share with you what several commentaries explain in what this desert mentality means and how it prepares us to be our best selves and to be the best Jews we can be and ultimately the best people we can be. Let's start with one of my favorite commentaries. Raben Bakaya explains based on a midrash. He actually is just citing a midrash in his in this interpretation. The midra says there are three things that were given with the Torah that kind of accompanied the Torah being given at Mount Si. And if you look throughout the texts in the Torah, you'll see this number one fire. The Torah was given with fire. There was a lot of drama there. The mountain, the mountain was entirely smoke. That's what it says. Kulo Ashad. Number two, water because God had to revive us with the doom when our souls had expired. So water was also part of the giving of the Torah. Number three, the desert. That was the venue. And what are the significance of these three things? Says Abayam. You know who has access to water, fire, and the desert? Everybody. Everybody has access to it. It's free. Fire is free. Anybody can make fire. Water is free. Although, I tried explaining that to the water company. They don't they don't agree. Apparently, in Canada, by the way, water is actually free. There's no water bill. Uh it comes with a price. I guess it's not free. comes with a price. You got to live in Canada. Okay. Um, the desert, right? The desert is not, and we're not talking about like Las Vegas desert where we're talking about a desert, a place that's not inhabitable by people. It's free. Anybody can go there. It's open to the public. The Torah is supposed to be open to the public. The Torah is nobody's supposed to say nobody has the ability to say I can't learn Torah. It's supposed to be accessible to everybody to the point by the way that this is trueically as well. According to it's forbidden to charge for a teacher to charge for Torah studies. Again, I tried telling this to my kids school with tuition. They weren't buying it. But uh I'm kidding. But no, but there is a whole discussion in how are you how do you charge for Torah study? So they say that you're not charging for the Torah study. You're charging for the classroom management. You happen to be teaching the Torah or you're charging for the teacher's time where he could have been doing other things. He could have had an occupation, been making more money. But technically speaking, you're not supposed to be charging for Torah study because of this midish. It's free. It's for everybody. It's supposed to be accessible. And what we approach on um the approach we have on Shabuis, the mindset we have entering the holiday of Shabuis is that this Torah is mine. Which is by the way a huge paradigm shift in Judaism, especially when you contrast Judaism to other religions or even other uh a lot of different ideologies. I'll give you an example. In Judaism, there is nothing nothing that is reserved for just clergymen. There's nothing like, oh, you're a rabbi, so you have to do this. You're a layman, you don't have to do this. There there's no such thing. The rabbi happens to be more knowledgeable. So, he happens to be more of an authority in understanding what is in line with Judaism and what isn't in line with Judaism. What is in line with God and what isn't in line with God. Cohen uh yeah Jam Kipper or the Cohen Gutler right or Cohen in general right so in on that level you're right there is disparity there is diversity in terms of of rules but nobody has a higher or lower um obligation to God or their mission in in this world because they happen to have more or less knowledge. It's not like, oh, you're a clergyman. You have to, you know, you have to make kid Friday night. You're the rabbi. It's everybody has to make kid Friday night. Uh, no pass system is right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, and because of that, theoretically, anybody has the opportunity if they work hard to become an authority, to become a scholar, to become a rabbi. And everybody actually has an obligation to on their level based on their capabilities and based on their time to become a scholar in in the occupation in the vocational world. You study law if you want to become a lawyer. You study medicine if you want to become a doctor. And you study psychology if you want to become a therapist or whatever it is. And if you don't and you for whatever reason need that knowledge, you'll ask chat GPT. you'll look it up. But in Judaism, people study Torah just because they're Jewish, even if you don't plan on being an authority because it's open to everybody. And it comes with the responsibility. This is what Rebay explains. Another explanation by the Alik. The al-shik Mosha al-shik was a I used to think by the way that he was a cabalist. He might have been a cabalist, but he was a student of the Arizal of Rabbi Isaac Laura of Tvat in the uh late 1400s, maybe 1500s. And the the reason why I say I used to think he used to be a cabalist. Apparently, there's a story, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but I just think it's interesting. There's a story where he would study and listen to the Rizal's teachings, and he kept falling asleep. And he was a scholar. He was a studious person. He wasn't the slacker, but and his falling asleep was just unexplainable. It just like he reflexively dozed off at the class. Dariz was teaching Cabala and he came to he says, "I don't know what's going on. I study Torah. I'm successful. I sit in your class and I'm dozing off." And apparently the Arizal told him that your soul wasn't meant to focus on Cabala, so you can't handle it. Your soul is me meant to focus on what's called Durish, on the more homalytical teachings of the Torah. And his his teachings are are very very uh inspirational, very lengthy. whole he'll shoot out like 12, 13, 14, even sometimes 20 questions on the opening of the para and then have paragraphs and paragraphs of just addressing them. And one of the things he explains, why are we focusing on what took place in the desert, the Sinai desert? How is that a preparation for Shabuis? You know what it is? It's a trigger. It's a trigger. We're reminding ourselves about something very romantic and special that took place every shiv midbar. This took place in the desert. When I work with couples, one of the things I do is I trigger them, but in a good way, in a positive way. Couples come in unhappy, frustrated at each other, and Inevitably throughout the session, one of the questions I like to ask is how did you guys meet? Because asking the question, so why are you here? It's like, tell me how tell me how much your life sucks, right? Instead, I say, how did you guys meet? Which is probably a good story because they decided to get married. Nobody forced them. And I like the details like where were you? Let's walk through it. Let's trace the steps of what worked and where you were when you liked each other. Just thinking in that mode of mind is triggering. And the alik says we're triggering ourselves. We're reading about what took place in the desert because what took place in the desert was the establishment of the Mishkan for which God is beginning to count us because of this fundamental change that took place. God is finally meeting the earth in a very romantic and meaningful way. When God had estab when Moshe sorry had established the Mishkan it says Moshe it's the day that Moshe finished the Mishkanot means to finish complete. It also comes from the word kala a bride because the mishkun was like a wedding canopy because it represented the romantic sacred union between God and the Jewish people described homalytically in the book of Shir Hashirum song of songs by king by king Salman. This is the relationship that we welcome to the world and we're trying to remember this relationship before we're trying to trigger ourselves. This is what the alik says. I read in a teaching from the takes it a step further. We decided to meet God in or we we had the opportunity to meet God in the desert. But what is this desert? This desert is a place that's inhabitable. This desert is a place where food is scarce, water is scarce, shelter is scarce, and were it not for the clouds of glory and for all the amenities that God had prepared for us, what would have what would have life been in the desert? But we're reminding ourselves that sometimes throughout the year, you know, shuis is approaching. We're going to relive the experience of the giving of the Torah at Mount Si. And we're thinking to ourselves, perhaps, I don't know, I'm more excited for the cheesecake than I am the Torah. I feel spiritually like I'm just in a desert. I'm spiritually dried up and I'm just my atahara is just ravaging waiting for me. I'm just I don't feel safe. I don't feel spiritually secure. And maybe maybe this just it you know I'll go through the motions. I'll hear the ten commandments. I'll eat my cheesecake and whatever. Meet my friends. Move on. But can I really have a meaningful connection relationship with God? So the alik's perspective is yeah I'm going to trigger you. We'll talk about what really took place in the desert. But the way explains it even in the desert you can still have a connection with God. Even when you feel most distant. So you could say I'm not going to connect until I'm closer. Or you could say, even in the distance, there's a part of you that's still close. Even in the desert, the words of God penetrate deeply. Even in the desert, even when you feel most distant, there's a part of you where that relationship is still there on some level. I was listening to Dave Ramsey a little while ago and he could thank me later by the way for mentioning him on my podcast. No, I'm just kidding. Um, I was listening to Dave Ramsey and he was talking about his journey, his pre-wealth journey where basically he had a ton of money, gotten a ton of debt, lost all his money, and he said everything was just falling apart. His marriage was falling apart, his home was being possessed, repossessed, and everything, properties being taken away, bankruptcy. It was just a a real ugly time which motivated him to start his whole financial situation. And he says that some sort of religious leader says to him at this really difficult time, you know, you really should have more faith. And he blows up at the guy, all I have is faith. What are you talking about? They took everything. The bank took everything else. But sometimes we feel spiritually that we're missing everything. I don't have anything. But we still have faith. Even in the desert, we still have that that that little bit of light, that little bit of Torah that's holding that we're holding on to, that little bit of connection that we're holding on to, it's still there on some level. Everything in the world of kipa, everything in the world of of negativity, of spiritual negativity, in the world of superficiality, in the paradigm of the animal soul, which is self-centered and about me and about breaking connection so I could preserve my own self, has perfect symmetry in the world of holiness. iness in the world of sacredness, in the world of self-sacrifice, in the world of I'm living for something beyond myself, these two worlds parallel one another like King Solomon says in the book of Cohellet. No, I can never get it. Ecclesiastics, there we go. In the book of Ecclesiastics, God created the world in perfect symmetry. And sometimes a desert in the world in the in the paradigm of kipa in the paradigm of the animal soul can mean this place where there's just spiritual dryness because there's just nothing else here. It's desolate. I'm missing everything. Even there, I could receive the Torah. But there's a parallel in the world of Kadusha. There's a holy desert. You know what the holy desert is? My connection to God is so real. I don't need anything. It's like a desert. I'm empty. And I'm okay with that because I'm my connection is not about things. It's not just about how much Torah I know. It's not just about how much love I experience. It's not about how good it feels. It's this raw pure connection. And sometimes the way we get out of the desert mentality which is I don't have anything with which to connect is by being in the spiritual sacred desert mentality. I don't have anything. And that's how I know I'm just so connected. There's nothing else holding us together other than faith. I I I to me it's fascinating to see this with couples when they come in and it's like there's something gluing them together. They're going through a difficult time and for some reason they decided to pick up the phone. They may feel like they're in a desert where they're just the connection is so dry. But there's a spiritual desert where the connection isn't dependent on anything. It's open. It's free for all. It's free to rekindle. Free to reignite. I want to share with you one last explanation by the base aaran by the great sage and rebar of Carlin. He was a student of the mag of Mazvich. He goes back to the midrash, the same midash rabbaya quoted where it says that the Torah was given with fire. That was the smoke at Mount Si, the water and the desert. And he says what are the significance the spiritual significance or or the the psychological significance of these three things? Fire is discipline is passion. It's energy. Fire is initiation. Fire goes from below to above. And to initiate a relationship from bel below to above in order for us to initiate a relationship with God or with anybody, it takes courage. It takes discipline. It could be scary. But you got to just strike that match. You got to force yourself. In Cabala lingo, I had a rabbi used to say for the cabalists, keeping score. In Cabala lingo, it's gura. Then there's the water. Waters from above to below. Water rain falls from above to below. That's love. That's kindness. That's channeling the beauty of the relationship. That's being open to experiencing the beauty of the relationship for the cabalists keeping score. And then you have the desert. You know what the desert is? You know how you say desert in Hebrew? Midbar. Midbar is the same exact words just different vowels, vowelations, different nood. What makes the human species unique? Our voice, the ability to speak. And when we use our voice for the study of Torah, when we use our voice to davin, we trigger, we trigger the passion, we trigger discipline, we trigger love. What we talk about triggers inner feeling. And if we want to experience the connection even in the desert in the midbar we have to be a med to experience God in the desert we have to talk about God. And sometimes when our connection feels so desolate like a desert feels so empty we pause for a moment and we talk about the little bit of connection that is there despite being in a desert. in our relationship with God. That's the couple words of Torah that we're able to maintain even while being in the desert. That little bit of prayer that we can make meaningful even while being in the desert and in a relationship talking to talking about the part of the relationship that still is kindled, that still does have a little bit of fire, just a little bit. When we talk about that, it's triggering in a good way, in a positive way. It's inspiring, and that gets us ready for the holiday of Chio. That's my story and I'm sticking to