sphere of the sacred worm

A Numbers double feature.
A lot happens in these two portions. We open on the description of the red heifer and its preparation and use, before going to the death of Miriam, followed by the incident with the stone producing water that barred Moses and Aaron from entering the promised land. Aaron then died, Balak summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites and repeatedly failed, Balaam's ass spoke to him, another plague struck the people, Balaam reiterated G-d's blessings for Israel, and all throughout they petitioned kingdoms to pass though, were violently rejected, and destroyed and captures cities and kingdoms in response.

Lot happening!

We ended up coming back a lot to the question of the changing generations of the Israelites and how they keep repeating some of the same mistakes and making the same complaints and how they keep making missteps, but also how people really do keep dying and entire generations are condemned, and how their grievances are often kinda goofy but still coming from a real place, and just the ongoing pitfalls of building a society in their position.

Anyways, let's look at the sages.

We learn from Rashi that a quarter log is the minimum amount of blood necessary to maintain a human being. This is fascinating for 1) being wildly wrong and 2) being yet another unit we can convert to eggs- a quarter log is 1 1/2 eggs. This also leads us to the conclusion that, per laenan, "a human, preyed upon by a vampire, can produce as many as 140 eggs". @ vtm/vtr, take fucking note.

Rashi enlightens us to the nature of Mount Hor, a small mountain on top of a large mountain

Thanks Ibn Ezra¹

Yet again, the people complain about manna. Their problem? APPARENTLY, manna is so perfectly absorbed that you don't shit it out ever and this is a discomfiting experience

Snakes be manifesting in the Israelites' house

While traveling to King Balak, Balaam rode a she-ass who kept seeing an angel of the Lord and kept trying to stop him from getting cut down by the angel. Each of the three times she did this, he beat the hell out of her until she finally spoke and chewed him out. During their exchange, he wished for a sword to cut her down, prompting Rashi to give us another piece of sword law

So. Balaam. He kept being asked to curse Israel, and he kept going to G-d who was refusing to let him do that, and was in fact very deeply irritated at this man for the whole thing. In the second of the third attempts at this, G-d straight up bridled the man, thereby introducing an element of dubcon pony play the night was really missing.²:

1. incidentally the specific kind of death here being referenced is the painless and instant kind that was visited to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, here described as the "Divine Kiss", in case you wondered who G-d may have kissed.

2. this also led to us discussing the sidereal exalted charmset, specifically the ride charms Ordained Bridle of Mercury and Breaking the Wild Mortal, which together let you bridle people for very normal reasons.