Our Goals and Desires

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The portion read from the Torah this week is called בהעלתך Beha'alotcha (according to Sephardic pronunciation). Numerous concepts are discussed in this portion. A quick summary goes as follows:

• Hashem (God) commands Aaron, the Grand Kohen (priest) through Moses to prepare and light the Menorah
  
• The male Levites are purified and some of their qualification are mentioned for service in the Tabernacle (later to be replaced by the Temple in Jerusalem)
  
• The first ever Passover is celebrated
• The second make-up Passover is introduced
• The signs and directions used by Hashem for the Jewish people's journey are presented and explained
  
• The commandment to make two silver trumpets
  
• The Jewish people's first journey, first and second complaints and their respective rebukes and punishments
  
• Miriam's sin of speaking about Moses and her punishment

The concept that I will be focusing on will be that of desires.
While many of us know what Passover is, the idea of a second make-up Passover may seem unusual if not unheard-of. The word Passover, or פסח Pesach in Hebrew, is referred to in original Torah texts as meaning the actual קרבן Korban (sacrifice) that was a lamb that was slaughtered by a male Kohen on the alter in the Tabernacle (and later the Temple in Jerusalem) and then eaten by its owner. In order for this to take place, the people involved in the slaughtering and the eating had to be spiritually pure. Spiritual purity, in this context, meant that a person had to have not had contact with a human corpse within at least the past seven days.
Considering that the Passover sacrifice was done for seven days, as the holiday of Passover is currently celebrated for seven days in the land of Israel, any spiritually impure person during this period, was not able to participate and fulfill their obligation of this mitzvah during the required time.

For some, this may seem like a great way of getting out from an obligation. For others, this may seem extremely troublesome. So what occurred in this Torah portion was that during the time of Passover, spiritually impure men came to Moses and complained. They said something like, "Why should we get 'shafted' from not doing the Passover sacrifice?" (to quote Rabbi Yitzhak Lerner). Moses acknowledged this problem and went before Hashem to ask what could be done. Hashem's reply was that a second chance to do this mitzvah was to take place on the fourteenth day of the second month, which is the month of אייר Iyar.
The deeper concept within this story is of desire. Some of our ancient Jewish sages have explained that had this occurrence not happened and the spiritually impure men not come forward with their complaint to Moses, that this mitzvah would not have come into existence. Furthermore, according to Rabbi Yeruchom Lebovitz (ca. 1873-1936) of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Poland, the entire Torah was revealed to the Jewish people by Hashem due to our questions to Hashem. Note: not our questions of Hashem, but our questions to Hashem.

This episode of the second Passover is a mirror image of what transpired later in the Torah portion. During the Jews first complaint to Hashem through Moses, they wept and remised of how wonderful the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic were in Egypt and how at the time, all they had to eat was Manna. To clarify, Manna was a grain-like food that came down onto the ground with the dropping of the dew and was ground up and made into cakes. For the righteous, the Manna had the additional magical ability to taste like whatever one desired. The Jews complained and wept at the entrances to their homes about this culinary problem. Hashem got anger (how that works in unknown to me) and Moses went to Hashem and furthered his complaint about this problem, to put it mildly. Hashem responded with spreading Moses' divine connection among the nation's seventy elders, gave the Jews quail until they were nauseated and killed a tremendous amount of Jews.

Now, how do these two stories in the portion mirror each other? And how are they related to desire?
In the first story, due to the desire of the spiritually impure men to connect with Hashem through the mitzvah of the Passover sacrifice, they complained and were given miraculous results. In the second story, the Jewish people were so focused on the physical aspect of their lives that they found a miracle that Hashem provided for them to be completely useless and lusted to return to Egyptian slavery where they had not yet been given the responsibilities by Hashem of the Torah. The Torah says that the Jews had been sustained with the Manna. It provided for all of their dietary needs. Clearly, the problem wasn't something like bad cafeteria food. The problem was the Jews and their desires. For the Jews that complained about the Manna, they focused, desired, and lusted for only the physical. The result of their lust was a severing of the connection between themselves and Hashem that meant death. The comparison between these Jews and those who desired for a connection with Hashem to do the Passover sacrifice is immense. One group received a negative response from Hashem and the other received a miraculously positive one.

What are we to learn from this week's Torah portion? What can we bring into our daily lives out of this holy and ancient text?
We need to be sure that our desires are for holiness and for an improved connection with Hashem.
We need to strive to make the paths that we take and the directions that we follow be toward spirituality. When we do these things, Hashem will help us fulfill these goals. Hashem desires that we connect with Him and follow His Torah. Our complaint needs to be that we are not able to connect with Hashem, just like our ancestors complained about the Passover sacrifice.

When one focuses on the physical all that can usually be seen is that we do not have enough or the best. Looking at the sizes of our houses, the number or price tag of our cars, clothes, and other belongings, we compare what we have to what other people have, we miss the point, and we disconnect ourselves from the eternal being that provides every creature in the universe with all of its need. We need to not look at what we own and say that it is not good enough. We need to fulfill the teaching from the Mishnah of Ethics of our Fathers that says, “Who is the one who is happy? The one who is happy with his lot”.
We need to sit down, take a breathe, and ask ourselves: What are our complaints in life about?
What are our desires, foci and goals?

As Shabbat approaches, I want to bless everyone that our desires and aspirations always be for a closer connection with Hashem and deeper understanding of Hashem’s world through the eternal and holy book of the Torah.

Sources: Various places in the Written and Oral Torahs and Rabbi Ari Goldwag