We've begun the book of Numbers, which opens with a census of the Israelites, discusses the layout of their campsite around the Tabernacle and how the twelve tribes are arranged, and is followed up with a discussion of the redemption of the firstborns with the Levites and the various duties of the component lineages in regards to the transportation of the Tabernacle, as well as the specific ways they should pack the components to safely move them, particularly without exposing them inadvertently to the most sacred place.
On the one hand, not too much is going on this chapter, but there was a lot to unpack about how power and politics are encoded in space. Back in the end of Genesis, there was a discussion by Jacob that we've joked about as him assigning fursonas to the twelve tribes, but in the discussion of the Israelite encampment, it's developed by the sages into a layered series of correspondences that encode cosmic values and sociopolitical stances into how they arranged themselves in space. We also discussed why G-d counts the Israelites, and how enumeration can be a form of knowing and intimacy from G-d.
The haftarah this week is also of special note, because it's the end of the story of David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel. If you're unfamiliar, the key thing to know is that David and Jonathan are a bit fruity with it.
And now for the commentaries:
Rashi, describing the particular way in which G-d is kinda autistic and likes counting things they love
Thanks Ibn Ezra
You may ask, "how did the Levites transport the copper altar of the Tabernacle, which contained in it a fire from Heaven?" Well you see, it turned into a lion and they put a lid on it.
Rashi offering some profound commentary on the story of Jonathan and David, when they discuss how Saul (who wanted David dead) would notice that he wasn't coming to dinner with him.
There was also a brief aside concerning the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, in which we learned that health was tracked by your clothes falling off until you were only left in your designer jeans. We then learned that the jeans were Real and Available To Purchase at the time. This all came up because we were talking about a guy whose name contained the "shaddai" element that's also one of G-d's names.
IT'S ME I'M DOING THE POST TONIGHT
as mentioned previously a lot of this is 1) counting guys and 2) naming who's the leader of each group of guys. as we have wisdom from the future (future readings, which we read last year), we know that eventually this census is used in some ways to determine who lives and who dies before reaching the promised land, so Rashi suggests that it's prescience about like, wanting to set apart the Levites and not count them to not mark them for death.
when talking about the levites and behavior around the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant, we had a brief aside of realizing that, "oh, Raiders of the Lost Ark was pulling from something with the ark melting faces."
the haftarah this time is Hosea 2:1-22, which is a kind of... story-poem that's about a guy who is kind of a metaphor for the transgressions of the people, who is also kind of a jerk (or alternately a guy who does a lot of things for metaphorical or symbolic reasons, and is kind of a jerk) and is not very, uh, kind about sex workers?1 although at the end of the reading it gets into how after all the punishment then G-d will lead Hosea's wife2 through the wilderness and give her comforts and good things, which is kind of an extended metaphor for "hey. you're going to get into the finding out for the golden calf incident but the promised land at the end doesn't go away"
which is maybe, overall, about how screwing up isn't the end of everything, although you're going to kind of go through it in the middle?3
but also. we are perhaps forgiving for the golden calf but not forgetting. the hebrew people will apparently never live that one down.
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rashi tells us about the ways of adulteresses, which apparently involves uh. titjobs? rashi where are you sourcing this.
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hosea's wife in a long tradition of women personifications of civilizations and nations
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think positive i guess. because this is the jennachat chavurah i guess i could speculate that means we're in the road of trials genre.
I've been doing these writeups for more than a year and been getting a bit fatigued with them, so Carly is writing some!
Agree with them that I really wanna know what Rashi's lead on this titfuck factoid is though