By Rabbi Eitan Cooper

This week’s Torah portion is Beha’alotecha: Numbers 8:1 — 12:16

This week’s Torah portion contains two important verses — so important that we recite them every time we take out and return the Torah from the ark (Numbers 10:35-36):

When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O LORD! May Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You! And when it halted, he would say: Return, O LORD, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!

What are these verses about? And why do we say them when we take out and put away the Torah?

In context, they describe the prayers that the Jewish people recited when they traveled through the desert, as they packed up the Ark. On the simplest level, it makes sense to say these verses as we take out our Torah from the aron. Our synagogues are considered by our rabbis to be a version of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), and thus, our ark is, in a way, a version of the ark that the Jewish people used. Saying the same prayer that they did, as we receive and part ways with the Torah, resonates.

If we look more closely, though, one might wonder how these verses can apply to our modern context. The verse we say upon taking out the Torah asks God to scatter our enemies. Yes, the Jewish people have had and certainly still have enemies. But why should we invoke this message upon taking out the Torah?

Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin comments that the word “enemies” in this context refers not to those who literally are attacking us, in the moment, but rather to those who hate us in their hearts. They have plans to destroy us — because of their hatred for us and their desire to see us suffer. As we take out the Torah, the book that gives us our identity and our values, we ask God to rid us of all of those who threaten that very thing that the Torah fosters within us.

I would take this a step further: I wonder if “enemies” can be understood not only as external forces, but also internal forces. That is, perhaps we all have what to contend with in our own psyche, within our own character, that may put our connection with the Torah in jeopardy. There are some days when we may not feel as excited about learning or living the Torah, or days when we do not act in accordance with the values that the Torah demands of us. We ask God to remove not only the external enemies, but also the “enemies” within — that is, whatever it might be within us (as individuals or as a community) that pushes us away from the Torah. In other words, we ask as we take out the Torah that we continue to love the Torah.

And what of the verse we say upon returning the Torah? This verse is a plea to God that our numbers remain strong — that the Jewish people continue to thrive (in the “thousands”).

And indeed, what held true in the times of the Torah still resonates to this day, albeit not in the same visceral sense (we are, thankfully, no longer facing the existential crisis of wandering in the desert). Still, we may all wonder, at times, what the future of the Jewish people may hold. And so, we ask of God, as we part ways with the Torah and return it to the ark, that its values (i.e., the ones we just encountered when we read from it) be transmitted throughout our community, and of course, to our children, our grandchildren, etc. It is only through transmitting these values that the Jewish people will continue
to thrive.

Eitan Cooper is the associate rabbi at Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah in Potomac, Maryland.