Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah continues with the census taken at Sinai, and completes the counting of 8,580 Levite men between the ages of 30 and 50. The Levites have been separated out from the other tribes to do the work of transporting the Mishkan, and are therefore exempt from the military service required of the men from the other tribes. Moses is then given instructions for purifying the camp which requires certain individuals who have become tamai (ritually unfit) to temporarily leave the camp.
Laws are then given for bringing offerings to atone for certain kinds of theft. Moses is then given the law of the sotah, the situation of a husband suspecting his wife of unfaithfulness. Next, he receives the law of the Nazir. The Nazir is one who has taken on the temporary spiritual practice of renouncing wine and contact with the dead. The Nazir also grows out his or her hair. Aaron and his descendants, the kohanim, are then instructed on how to bless the people with the formula known as the Birkat HaKohanim. The parshah then concludes with an elaborate ceremony for the inauguration of the altar in which leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel each bring a set of identical gifts, each on their own day.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
צַ֚ו אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וִֽישַׁלְּחוּ֙ מִן־הַֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה כׇּל־צָר֖וּעַ וְכׇל־זָ֑ב וְכֹ֖ל טָמֵ֥א לָנָֽפֶשׁ׃
Command the Children of Israel to send out from the camp every tzarua (one with a particular skin affliction), every zav (one with a bodily discharge) and all who have become tamei (ritually unfit) from a (dead) person… - Bamidbar (Numbers) 5:2, Parshat Naso
Like many Hasidic rebbes, Rabbi Yehudah Zvi of Rozdol was hated by the mainstream rabbis of his day. Once, his wife asked him: “Why don’t you speak out against those who are trying to hurt you? And why is it that you even do them favors when you could be bringing down punishment upon them through the power of your prayer?”
He answered, “Did you ever wonder why people bring the tzaddikim gifts? It is because every building must have a foundation, and without it, the structure cannot stand. Now the structure of the world stands because of the tzaddik, as it is written: וְצַדִּיק יְסוֹד עוֹלָֽם The tzaddik is the foundation of the world – Mishlei (Proverbs) 10:25 And so, it is only right that everybody should support the one who supports everyone. But why should people bring me gifts as well, even though I am no tzaddik? I have thought about this for a long time. Then it occurred to me that the world requires still another foundation. For it is written: תֹּלֶה אֶרֶץ עַל־בְּלִי־מָֽה – The earth hangs upon Nothingness… – Iyov (Job) 26:7 And the Talmud comments on this: The world endures only in the merit of one who restrains oneself during conflict, as it is stated: “The earth hangs upon Nothingness.” (Talmud, Hullin 89a) “So you see,” said Rabbi Yehudah, “It is because people need Nothingness just as much as they need the tzaddik that they support me.” True spiritual strength is not the force of ego defending itself, but the capacity to rest in openness without needing to become the reaction, the argument, the craving, or the story. This is also the essence of meditation. The mind wants to grasp something solid as its foundation — an opinion, an agenda, a self-image. But beneath all of that is a much more reliable source of support: the silence within which it’s all happening. צָר֖וּעַ Tzaru’a means someone with a particular skin affliction, and is associated with lashon hara – gossip and slander. Since the skin is the boundary of a person, but also the place of intimate connection with others, this mythic disease is an expression of relationships getting tarnished through destructive speech, which has its root in negative thinking. זָ֑ב Zav means a person who has had a bodily emission, and is associated with sexuality. Metaphorically, it represents the way sexual thoughts can sometimes be a kind of “reaching” or “grasping” for gratification, which causes a loss of vital energy and Presence. These two represent the polarity of unconsciousness: tzaru’a is negativity (anger, malevolence), and Zav is craving, wanting, grasping, neediness. Both of these lead to an absence of Presence in the body, which brings us to the third: וְכֹ֖ל טָמֵ֥א לָנָֽפֶשׁ -…and all who have become ritually unfit from a (dead) person… To the degree that we become seduced by the energies of “I hate” and “I want,” our bodies become temporarily “dead” to the Divine Presence – that is, the Presence of Being that is not separate from our own innermost being. In order for the body to become a “sanctuary” once again, these forces and the thoughts they produce must be “expelled from the camp” in a sense – we must let go of our addictions to the inner noise and rest upon the Foundation of Silence.
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Text from: Tanya I; Likkutei Amarim 36, 6-10
דִכְתִיב: ״וְלֹא יִכָּנֵף עוֹד מוֹרֶיךָ [פֵּירוּשׁ, שֶׁלֹּא יִתְכַּסֶּה מִמְּךָ בְּכָנָף וּלְבוּשׁ], וְהָיוּ עֵינֶיךָ רוֹאוֹת אֶת מוֹרֶיךָ״, וּכְתִיב: ״כִּי עַיִן בְּעַיִן יִרְאוּ וְגוֹ׳״, וּכְתִיב: ״לֹא יִהְיֶה לָּךְ עוֹד הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ לְאוֹר יוֹמָם וְגוֹ׳, כִּי ה׳ יִהְיֶה לָּךְ לְאוֹר עוֹלָם וְגוֹ.׳״
It is written, “Your teacher shall no longer be concealed from you [literally: (Divinity) will not concealed from you with robe and garment]…but your eyes shall see your Teacher.” (Isaiah 30:20). It is also written, “For they shall see eye to Eye…” (Isaiah 52:8) and “You shall no longer have the sun for light by day…for Hashem shall be to you for an everlasting light….” (Isaiah 60:19-20).
וְנוֹדָע, שֶׁיְּמוֹת הַמָּשִׁיחַ, וּבִפְרָט כְּשֶׁיִּחְיוּ הַמֵּתִים, הֵם תַּכְלִית וּשְׁלֵימוּת בְּרִיאַת עוֹלָם הַזֶּה, שֶׁלְּכָךְ נִבְרָא מִתְּחִילָּתוֹ
It is well known that the Messianic Era, and especially the time of the Resurrection of the Dead, is the fulfillment and culmination of the creation of the world, for which purpose it was originally created.
וְגַם כְּבָר הָיָה לְעוֹלָמִים מֵעֵין זֶה, בִּשְׁעַת מַתַּן תּוֹרָה, כְּדִכְתִיב: ״אַתָּה הָרְאֵתָ לָדַעַת כִּי ה׳ הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים אֵין עוֹד מִלְּבַדּוֹ״ – ״הָרְאֵתָ״ מַמָּשׁ, בִּרְאִיָּה חוּשִׁיִּית, כְּדִכְתִיב: ״וְכָל הָעָם רוֹאִים אֶת הַקּוֹלוֹת״ – ״רוֹאִים אֶת הַנִּשְׁמָע.״
And also, there was already something like this for the worlds, at the time of the Giving of the Torah, as is written, “You have been shown to know that the Hashem is Elohim; there is nothing else besides”—“have been shown” literally with physical vision, as is written, “And all the people saw the sounds”—they saw what is [normally] heard.
וּפֵירְשׁוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ־זִכְרוֹנָם־ לִבְרָכָה: מִסְתַּכְּלִים לַמִּזְרָח וְשׁוֹמְעִין אֶת הַדִּבּוּר יוֹצֵא אָנֹכִי כוּ׳. וְכֵן לְאַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת וּלְמַעְלָה וּלְמַטָּה, וְכִדְפֵירְשׁוּ בַּתִּיקּוּנִים ״דְּלֵית אֲתַר דְּלָא מַלֵּיל מִינֵּיהּ עִמְּהוֹן כוּ׳״.
And the Rabbis, of blessed memory, explained, “They looked eastward and heard the speech issuing forth: ‘I Am,’ etc., and so [turning] toward the four points of the compass, and upward and downward,” as is also explained in the Tikkunim that “There was no place from which Hashem did not speak to them….”
וְהַיְינוּ, מִפְּנֵי גִּילּוּי רְצוֹנוֹ יִתְבָּרֵךְ בַּעֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת, שֶׁהֵן כְּלָלוּת הַתּוֹרָה, שֶׁהִיא פְּנִימִית רְצוֹנוֹ יִתְבָּרֵךְ וְחָכְמָתוֹ, וְאֵין שָׁם הֶסְתֵּר פָּנִים כְּלָל, כְּמוֹ שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כִּי בְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ נָתַתָּ לָּנוּ תּוֹרַת חַיִּים״.
This was so because of the revelation of the Divine Will of the Blessed One, in the Aseret HaDibrot constituting the essence of the whole Torah, which is the Innermost Will of the Blessed One and the Divine Wisdom, wherein there is no concealment of the Face at all, as is written, “For by the light of Your Face You gave us the Torah of life.” (Liturgy, Amidah Prayer)
This passage from the hasidic text, Tanya, points to a single possibility: that human beings can awaken from the trance of the “ordinary” and behold the miracle of Being Itself in all Its transcendent incomprehensibility. This is the meaning behind all of these prophetic descriptions of the Messianic Era – “Your eyes shall see your Teacher,” “they shall see eye to eye,” and “Hashem shall be your everlasting light.” These are not merely predictions about distant future events; they are descriptions of a transformation that is possible now.
The text says that the Divine is ordinarily concealed behind “robe and garment,” as though reality itself is veiled behind layers of covering. The ordinary mind imagines this concealment as if God were some hidden object somewhere “out there,” blocked from our perception by a cosmic curtain. But from the perspective of meditation practice, the “concealment” is not something external – it is our own conditioning. Our thoughts, habits, assumptions, emotional reactions, and endless mental preoccupations create the “veil.” We have become so accustomed to life that we are unable to actually behold it; but there is Way out of this conditioning, to realization, to a profound awakening to What is right in front of (and within) us. Awakening in the spiritual sense does not mean seeing a different world; it means seeing this world differently. The trees, the sky, the faces around us – we have seen them all uncountable times, yet everything becomes luminous with Presence when we let go of time. The ordinary moment reveals itself as Extraordinary. The familiar becomes the miraculous. One wakes in the morning not merely into another day of burdens and routines, but into a living reality shimmering with wonder. This, says the Tanya, is the essence of the Messianic vision. These “days of Moshiach” to which time moves us represents the fulfillment of creation itself. Why does the world exist? Why has consciousness evolved through countless forms of life until human beings emerged with the capacity for self-awareness and awe? The purpose, perhaps, is precisely this unfolding recognition: that existence itself is Divine, that the apparent multiplicity of life is rooted in a deeper unity. The text explains that Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah at Sinai, offered humanity a taste of this realization. “All the people saw the sounds.” They perceived what is normally hidden. The opening of the Ten Commandments, “Anokhi – I Am,” was heard from every direction simultaneously, driving home the point: God is the inner identity of all things. And this is why Torah is called Torat Hayim, Torah of Life. The purpose of Torah is not merely belief or doctrine, but awakening to this Presence that is Ever-Present. It is meant to help us remember what we forget again and again: that beneath the anxiety, irritation, judgement and self-concern there remains an ever-present miracle shining through Existence Itself. Sometimes people glimpse this Reality spontaneously – through beauty, through love, through meditation, even through hallucinogenics, when the ordinary structures of consciousness temporarily fall away. But a fleeting experience is not yet transformation. For awakening to become a way of life, it must be integrated through practice, contemplation, prayer, and continual returning. We need both the opening of consciousness and the inner wisdom that stabilizes and deepens it. The deepest “resurrection,” then, is not be something that happens after death, but something available in this very moment: the “resurrection” from spiritual sleep into aliveness; the “resurrection” of opening our eyes and truly behold the living Presence that shines from all things. This is the beginning of redemption – redemption from the ego-centered mode of being to a God-centered mode of Being.
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כְּגַוְונָא דָּא, (תהילים ק׳:ב׳) עִבְדוּ אֶת יְיָ' בְּשִׂמְחָה. חֶדְוָה דְּבַּר נָשׁ, מָשִׁיךְ לְגַבֵּיהּ חֶדְוָה אַחֲרָא עִלָּאָה הָכִי נָמֵי הַאי עָלְמָא תַּתָּאָה, כְּגַוְונָא דְּאִיהִי אִתְעַטְּרָת, הָכִי אַמְשִׁיךְ מִלְעֵילָּא.
As it is written, “Worship the Divine in joy” (Ps. 100, 2), that the joy of a person may draw down upon them supernal joy. So, too, does the lower sphere affect the upper: according to the degree of awakening below there is awakening and heavenly joy above. — Zohar II, 184b; Tetzaveh 11, 94
At first, this can sound like a description of some distant metaphysical system: we create joy below, and then a corresponding joy descends from some supernal realm above. But the deeper meaning is something we can verify directly in our own experience: the “upper world” need not be understood as a place somewhere else, but rather, as the dimension of awareness itself — the field of consciousness within which all experience arises. Awareness is always present; every thought, emotion, sensation, and perception appears within it. But usually, awareness remains in the background while our attention is absorbed in the movements of mind and emotion. We are busy thinking, reacting, judging, resisting.
But when we intentionally practice awareness — when we become present on purpose — something changes. The qualities inherent within awareness begin to infuse our lived experience: spaciousness, receptivity, intimacy, unburdened openness. The act of becoming present is the “awakening below” – our intentional turning toward whatever is present. The “awakening above” is then the blossoming forth of the deeper qualities already inherent within awareness itself, including joy. In order to awaken the “upper joy,” we need not “pretend to be happy.” Joy in the deeper sense is not forced positivity. Rather, it arises naturally when we live in the moment for its own sake. When we consciously open to life as it happens, we become receptive to the deeper joy that isn’t dependent on any circumstance or on “getting what we want.” – the lower movement awakens the higher. Or perhaps more accurately: when we create inner space through Presence, the deeper joy that was always present can fully reveal itself.
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Parshah Summary – P’shat (literal level)
The parshah opens on Mount Sinai (b’har – “on the mountain”) with the laws of the Sabbatical year: every seventh year, all work on the land should cease, and its produce becomes free for all to take, human and beast alike…
Seven Sabbatical cycles are followed by a fiftieth year— the Yovel, the “Jubilee” year, on which, in addition to ceasing work on the land, all indentured servants are set free, and all ancestral estates that have been sold revert to their original owners. Additional laws governing the sale of lands, and the prohibitions against fraud and usury, are also given…
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
What is non-duality? Or as it says in the language of Torah, that God is One? The affirmation of Divine Oneness is the central practice of Judaism underlying everything else – but what does it really mean? And what is the connection between non-duality and the festival of Lag B’Omer? There is a wonderful hint in a Torah verse from Parshat Behar, which talks about the Sabbath of the earth that happens every seven years: וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְיְ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בְּהַ֥ר סִינַ֖י לֵאמֹֽר׃ דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם כִּ֤י תָבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י נֹתֵ֣ן לָכֶ֑ם וְשָׁבְתָ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ שַׁבָּ֖ת לַיי׃ שֵׁ֤שׁ שָׁנִים֙ תִּזְרַ֣ע שָׂדֶ֔ךָ וְשֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים תִּזְמֹ֣ר כַּרְמֶ֑ךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ֖ אֶת־תְּבוּאָתָֽהּ׃ The Divine spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai saying, “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall rest – a Shabbat for the Divine. Six years you shall sow your fields and six years you shall prune your vineyards and gather in your yields…’” - Vayikra (Leviticus) 25:5-6; Parshat Behar
What does this Shabbat of the earth have to do non-duality and Lag b’Omer?
Lag b’Omer means the “thirty-third day of the Omer,” referring to the practice of counting the days between Pesakh and Shavuot. Lag is lamed ל – gimel ג, thirty-three. (Hebrew letters have numerical values; lamed ל is thirty, gimel ג is three.) These two letters, lamed ל – gimel ג, also have meanings: Lamed ל means “learn.” To learn means to go from a state of less knowledge to more knowledge; it is forward moving in time, filling a lack, going from incomplete to more complete without end, never reaching completion (since there is, of course, always more to learn). Gimel ג has the opposite connotation. As a verb, the word gamal means to “pay back.” When you’re able to pay someone back, then not only do you have enough for yourself, but you have extra to pay back someone else – so in this sense, gamal represents not only a state of completeness but of overflowing-ness. As a noun, a gamal is a camel, which carries its water in its hump as it traverses the desert; again, a symbol of being already-complete-within-oneself. These two opposite meanings – the never-complete of lamed ל and the always-already-complete of gimel ג – point to two dimensions of our experience, right now. On the level of form, we are ever-incomplete. Our bodies need constant nourishment and exercise, and our minds must actively learn new things and have new experiences to stay sharp. This is reflected in the ongoing spiritual practice of studying texts and contemplating meanings with the thinking mind. And this brings us back to the first half of our verse: שֵׁ֤שׁ שָׁנִים֙ תִּזְרַ֣ע שָׂדֶ֔ךָ וְשֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים תִּזְמֹ֣ר כַּרְמֶ֑ךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ֖ אֶת־תְּבוּאָתָֽהּ׃ Six years you shall sow your fields and six years you shall prune your vineyards and gather in your yields…’” Six years you shall sow (tizra) your fields… Tizra תִּזְרַ֣ע, “sowing” or “seeding” is the work we must do on the “fields” of our minds. This is lamed ל, “learning.” But on the level of consciousness, the open space of awareness within which all experience comes and goes, there is a direct sense of completeness to this moment; there is a wholeness available to us when we “arrive” into the present. This is the gimel ג. But to experience this fullness, we paradoxically need more emptiness; we need to “prune” away excess thought, so that we can sense the underlying Presence beneath our thoughts – which brings us to the second part of our verse: וְשֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים תִּזְמֹ֣ר כַּרְמֶ֑ךָ – six years you shall prune (tizmor) your vinyards… Tizmor תִּזְמֹ֣ר, “pruning,” is the work we must do on “grapevine tendrils” of our own thinking minds; this is meditation. “Sowing” and “pruning,” learning and meditation, thinking and not-thinking, are non-duality in practice, because together they comprise two sides of the same transformative coin. Now let’s look at the repeating phrase that introduces both sides of this inseparable duality: שֵׁ֤שׁ שָׁנִים֙ תִּזְרַ֣ע שָׂדֶ֔ךָ וְשֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים תִּזְמֹ֣ר כַּרְמֶ֑ךָ Six years you shall sow your fields and six years you shall prune your vineyards… The word shanim, “years,” also can mean “change.” “Six” also represents change, as in the story of the “six days of creation” in which the universe is developed stage by stage. Furthermore, the Hebrew letter that represents the number six is vav ו which, as a prefix, means “and” – again, implying adding, transforming, doing the dual spiritual work of “sowing” and “pruning.” But there is also a level at which all work stops. It stops not because the “sowing” and “pruning” are no longer happening, but because at this deep level, there is the recognition that is not “me” who does the work; there is the recognition that everything comes from and returns to the same Reality; we can’t “take credit” for any of it. This level is represented by Lag B’Omer. In terms of the sefirot, Lag B’Omer is Hod Sheb’Hod, or “Humility of Humility.” What is humility? The essence of humility is not some kind of self-deprecation or belittlement; it is the recognition that the “me” comes from beyond “me.” Existence is a gift, everything I have and everything I am is a gift; this is the inner dimension of Shabbat. וְשָׁבְתָ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ שַׁבָּ֖ת לַיי: – The land will rest a Shabbat for the Divine… This is the deeper, non-dual dimension of the practice, which we do not instead of sowing and pruning, learning and meditating, but while we’re learning and meditating. It is the simple recognition of the One in the midst of duality. And not just in learning and meditating, but you can “let the land rest a Shabbat for the Divine” any time. Before you learn, before you meditate, before you do the dishes, whatever – take a moment to recognize Reality, to simply stop, to let the “me” dissolve and let this moment be One. This is non-duality – the recognition of Divine Oneness, in and as this moment, just as it is.
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