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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Moses sent twelve spies; ten came back afraid, while Joshua and Caleb did not and reported honestly, sparing them from the oncoming punishment
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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
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Notably, this did not include the Levites, and quite possibly didn't include the women either
i was sleepy today so you get bullet points and it’s a little vague
- discussion of the generational nature of punishment/curses, and how blessings almost always go way further than curses
- why is THIS (the false report of the spies; rebelling and trying to go back to egypt) the 40 years dungeon, and not like, the golden calf? is this a kinder punishment, or a harsher one? (general consensus in our group was that it’s kinder than mass slaughter but still: harsh) rashi, on 14:33, suggests that this also rolls in punishment for the golden calf, just that g-d delayed doing anything until “the measure of sin was full.”
- we discuss whether adult women (not counted by the census) would be included in the punishment, or if it would be only the men—footnotes seem to suggest that they would be included, but the language is ambiguous in several places due to, like, the general status of women and how much people were thinking about women for a long time. [sad trombone, or perhaps happy trombone if they survived]
- some arguing in the commentary about whether erring in observing commandments refers to idolatry (rashi, i think), or if it’s some other unclear thing (ramban), although the case is made that if you were going to pick a singular commandment to break that would just kind of flout the whole thing it’d be idolatry
- the best way to engage with foreign gods and not do idolatry is to simply treat them like just another Type of Guy, apparently
- getting to the bit about stoning for breaking the sabbath; we’ve been pulling out robert alter’s commentary also who suggests that it’s a particularly harsh punishment here since it represents going against the law after having been warned. (since legally you can’t be executed for a crime you didn’t know you were committing)
- we get COLOR FACTS from robert alter regarding the blue fringes on the tzitzit; he suggests it’s really more of an indigo based on the location and availability of certain dyes. in this case it’s a very fine dye and the color indigo would suggest royalty or priesthood. (the indigo comes from a particular kind of mollusk called a mirex apparently) (apparently the color word is also kind of a sound-alike for the word for "termination" in hebrew, which ends up kind of a pun re: "the end of all colors")
- and then we got into a really long deep dive into ancient colors. normal stuff