Ben Bag Bag said: Turn her over, and [again] turn her over, for everything is in her. And look into it; And become gray and old therein; And do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it.
(א) וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר יְהֹוָ֧ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֛ה בְּמִדְבַּ֥ר סִינַ֖י בְּאֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֑ד בְּאֶחָד֩ לַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֜י בַּשָּׁנָ֣ה הַשֵּׁנִ֗ית לְצֵאתָ֛ם מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לֵאמֹֽר׃
1. This lofty spiritual transmission is delivered via "echad lachodesh hasheni", literally "the first of the second month", but here, echad, "one" is famously the numerical equivalent of ahava, of love (the letters add up to thirteen, and it is an important meditation when reciting the Shema prayer, for example). It is through love that chidush, hitchadshut, renewal, is consummated, love renews the hearts of the people, because love means the care for the spiritual state of the sheni, of the Other. Love for the Other brings about a spiritual renewal so dramatic that it can transform even time, even time that has passed; the years of the spiritual poverty brought about by the hegemony of Egypt are now "b'shana hashenit", shenit (second) being similar to the term hishtanut, transfiguration; even the past gets a second chance and is reconstructed in holiness.
2. As an alternative reading to the latter part of the verse, he also suggests that "b'echad lachodesh hasheni" could insinuate that like the Echad, a term which is also a descriptive name for Gd, through Gd the uniquely One, who we are taught "each day mechadesh, recreates with His goodness", one can become a "mishneh", Gd's aide-de-camp, in reconstructing the world toward the good, in tikkun olam. This can be accomplished by "shana hashenit". Shana numerically is equivalent to "sefira", similar to the Hebrew word "sapir", "sapphire", which glows from within itself (in other places the period of Sefirat HaOmer is thought of as a way to achieve an inner "glow"). Thus, one who is enlightened, through his or her own light, can bring about this same "shinui", renewal, in others; this shinui is a result of each individual's exodus from their own "metzarim", those gnawing inhibitions which keep one from manifesting their own greatest potential.
The Daat Moshe was a hasidic master, Rabbi Moshe Elyakim Beriah Hopsztayn of Kozienice (1757-1828). His posthumously published work was entitled Daat Moshe (Lemberg, 1879)
Mark Kirschenbaum, Bamidbar, Tikkun Magazine,
(from a longer passage where the view of the Daat Moshe is explicated)
https://www.tikkun.org/perashat-bamidbar/
I accounted to your favor
The devotion of your youth,
Your love as a bride—
How you followed Me in the wilderness,
In a land not sown.
(16) Assuredly,
I will speak coaxingly to her
And lead her through the wilderness
And speak to her tenderly. (17) I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as an ..[opening] of hope.-i
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
When she came up from the land of Egypt. (18) And in that day
—declares the LORD—
You will call [Me] Ishi,
And no more will you call Me Baali.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hefker
(ז) וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי (במדבר א, א), לָמָּה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, מִכָּאן שָׁנוּ חֲכָמִים בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים נִתְּנָה הַתּוֹרָה, בָּאֵשׁ, וּבַמַּיִם, וּבַמִּדְבָּר. בָּאֵשׁ מִנַּיִן (שמות יט, יח): וְהַר סִינַי עָשַׁן כֻּלּוֹ וגו'. וּבַמַּיִם מִנַּיִן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שופטים ה, ד): גַּם שָׁמַיִם נָטָפוּ גַּם עָבִים נָטְפוּ מָיִם. וּבַמִּדְבָּר מִנַּיִן וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, וְלָמָּה נִתְּנָה בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, אֶלָּא מָה אֵלּוּ חִנָּם לְכָל בָּאֵי הָעוֹלָם כָּךְ דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה חִנָּם הֵם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה נה, א): הוֹי כָּל צָמֵא לְכוּ לַמַּיִם, דָּבָר אַחֵר, וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, אֶלָּא כָּל מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה עַצְמוֹ כַּמִּדְבָּר, הֶפְקֵר, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לִקְנוֹת אֶת הַחָכְמָה וְהַתּוֹרָה, לְכָךְ נֶאֱמַר: בְּמִדְבַּר סִינָי.
(7) "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" (Numbers 1:1). Why the Sinai Wilderness? From here the sages taught that the Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness. How do we know it was given through fire? From Exodus 19:18: "And Mount Sinai was all in smoke as God had come down upon it in fire." How do we know it was given through water? As it says in Judges 5:4, "The heavens dripped and the clouds dripped water [at Sinai]." How do we know it was given through wilderness? [As it says above,] "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness." And why was the Torah given through these three things? Just as [fire, water, and wilderness] are free to all the inhabitants of the world, so too are the words of Torah free to them, as it says in Isaiah 55:1, "Oh, all who are thirsty, come for water... even if you have no money." Another explanation: "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" — Anyone who does not make themselves ownerless like the wilderness cannot acquire the wisdom and the Torah. Therefore it says, "the Sinai Wilderness."
וענין ב' הוא השפלות והענוה כי אין דברי תורה מתקיימין אלא במי שמשפיל עצמו ומשים עצמו כמדבר, וכנגד זה אמר ויחנו במדבר פירוש לשון שפלות וענוה כמדבר שהכל דורכים עליו:
Chaim ibn Attar or Ḥayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar (b. c. 1696 - 7 July 1743) also known as the Or ha-Ḥayyim after his popular commentary on the Torah, was a Talmudist and Kabbalist. He is arguably considered to be one of the most prominent Rabbis of Morocco, and is highly regarded in Hassidic Judaism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_ibn_Attar#:~:text=1696%20%2D%207%20July%201743)%20also,highly%20regarded%20in%20Hassidic%20Judaism.
Only when you are "like a wilderness" are you ready to have God's presence rest upon you and merit the light of Torah. "Like a wilderness" means that you have not yet been touched by human hands, that you have never been cultivated or planted, that you must rely on your own strength, as in the teaching, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" (Mishnah Avot 1:14).
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
Itturei Torah [Hebrew], vol. 5, by Aharon Yaakov Greenberg [Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1996], p. 9
אין התורה מתקיימת אלא במי שמשים עצמו כמדבר הפקר לעניים ולעשירים בדעת ואינו גדול יותר מחבירו אדרבא בטל במציאות נגדו ובזה מתאחדי' ונכללי' זה בזה
(R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk)
The Torah only stands firm in one who makes himself like a midbar hefker before those who are poor of mind and rich of mind, and he doesn’t think of himself as better than his friend. On the contrary, he should be completely nullified before his friend, and it is through this that they become united and bound up one with the other.
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk (1730?–1788),[1] also known as Menachem Mendel of Horodok, was an early leader of Hasidic Judaism. Part of the third generation of Hassidic leaders, he was the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. From his base in Minsk Menachem Mendel was instrumental in spreading Hasidism throughout Belarus.
You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great....
True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.....
People often silence themselves, or "agree to disagree" without fully exploring the actual nature of the disagreement, for the sake of protecting a relationship and maintaining connection. But when we avoid certain conversations, and never fully learn how the other person feels about all of the issues, we sometimes end up making assumptions that not only perpetuate but deepen misunderstandings, and that can generate resentment.
Wandering Word of God. It was for its echo the word of the wandering people. No oasis for it, no shade, no peace, only the vast and thirsty desert, only the book of this thirst. ....
For after all, why is it in the desert that God chose to speak? And what is the desert if not a place denied its place, an absent place, a non-place?
And who is this God who, ashamed of having served time as a local deity, suddenly wanted to be invisible, indulged in an unpronounceable name and through His and His name's transparency made the universe His Kingdom?
So that He is where He is not and is not where He is because He is at the same time here and everywhere, because here is always only the beginning of elsewhere, and because being everywhere means abolishing place in favor of all places.
Being nowhere or everywhere nearly comes to the same thing.....
If God chose to speak in the desert, was it not to make all words His own, all words but an echo of His? And can we infer that silence is forever the echo of a first silence, that of the divine Word perceived at its borders of oblivion? As if only oblivion were audible? Thus the desert acquires a significance to which we will have to pay some attention.
The desert is pulverized words of men, countries, scattered people, words which once were swooped down on by an incomparable celestial word so disturbing that the Hebrew people first refused it, forcing Moses to break the Tables of the Law. And if, in order to be understood by the creature, God's Word and commandments had to burst into pieces so that the pieces could make it perceptible, that is human. As if, besides, it were only through formless fragments, only through its infinite fracture that we can approach the Totality........
Edmond Jabès (April 16, 1912[1] – Paris, January 2, 1991) was a French writer and poet of Egyptian origin, and one of the best known literary figures writing in French after World War II.
Bamidbar, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bamidbar/wilderness-and-revelation/
Parshat Bamidbar, Mark Kirschenbaum, Tikkun Magazine https://www.tikkun.org/perashat-bamidbar/
May 31st, 2011