sphere of the sacred worm

We continued in Numbers and boy did we have a time!
The parsha opens with the episode of Moses sending spies into Canaan; you may recall that they confirm the wealth of the land but are also afraid of the big big lads they see, so when they return, they foment fear and panic in the Israelites. This leads to more complaining, and then they threaten the lives of Joshua and Caleb¹, causing Moses to speak with G-d and intervene. After a back and forth where G-d declares their desire to destroy the Israelites on account of their endless complaining, Moses points out that this would look so fucking bad in the eyes of the other nations, and also aren't you slow to anger and forgiving and so on? G-d concedes this point², but then hands down their punishment: that they would wander the wilderness for 40 years, by which point every person 20 or over who was counted in the earlier census would have died³. Only their children would reach the promised land.

The parsha closes out with a discussion of adding wine libations to the sacrifices upon reaching the promised land; what to do if improper worship was performed by accident, i.e. accidental v purposeful idolatry; the commandment concerning the wearing of tzitzit, or tassels; as well as an episode where a man violated the sabbath (possibly the second sabbath ever) and was put to death.

There was a lot of discussion in the open about how unreasonable the spies were actually being, as well as the nature of G-d's relationship with Moses and the people and how they often feel like they're still working out a relationship from an immense remove. We also discussed the wandering in the wilderness and the deaths of the previous generation as a punishment- as vengeance or discipline, of whether it was necessary to remove the old generation from power, of the accrual of deservingness of punishment that per the commentary began since the golden calf only now reaching a peak. It's messy! And it comes at the eve of a conquest, which gives everything a discomforting overcast because we know what will come next. In the final chapter, we talked about the possible particulars of the sabbath incident, as well as the symbology of the tassels and why they were placed there, right after a discussion of idolatry and the sanctity of the sabbath.

Rich discussion this week.

Also a lot of stuff from Rashi, such as a hot Business Tip

The distances the spies had to travel to reach, explore, and return to Canaan were observed to be such that it would take a year to traverse, but the Torah states it only took 40 days. Here we see one of our first miracles concerning G-d's relationship with time and space and the ability to foreshorten it, as well as why the Dune guy is called that.

Rashi later follows up and gives us a Lying Tip:

Numbers and the commentary take pains to let us know that the people they saw in the promised land were so fucking big yall. We even get a shout-out to the Nephilim as well as a predecessor to furry macro art from Rashi in the 10th century

Ibn Ezra continues on this vein, letting us know that every man possesses about him qualities such as size

Also we received some modern nephilim conspiracy theory stuff fresh from instagram

also Rashi says this which, you know, take it as you will.

During the exchange between Moses and G-d, we find this commentary from Rashi, that "The Lord is long suffering", both for the righteous and the wicked alike, and it's fascinating both for how it characterizes the relationship between Moses and G-d further, but also for how simply and well it sums up G-d's relationship to humanity and Israel- the nature of their love is one they are willing to suffer through in their moments of anger and in mercy.

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1. Moses sent twelve spies; ten came back afraid, while Joshua and Caleb did not and reported honestly, sparing them from the oncoming punishment

2. This continues the ongoing thread that started in Exodus, when the Pharaoh, using his astrology, saw that the Israelites were under an inauspicious star that would spell their destruction, and G-d interceded to prove him wrong; this continued in the episode of the golden calf

3. Notably, this did not include the Levites, and quite possibly didn't include the women either