There is a phrase, made popular on the Internet but used often enough in conversation too, to describe someone who fails at what is ostensibly a simple task: You had one job. Several memorable examples come from a website called “Cake Wrecks” which chronicles professionally decorated cakes that have gone horribly wrong, such as a Super bowl party cake that says “touch down” in chocolate icing surrounding a frosted baseball. You had one job.
B’nai Yisrael had one job in the desert. Stay put when the cloud rests. Pack up and follow the cloud when it begins to move. We read this morning in Bamidbar chapter 9:
וּבְיוֹם֙ הָקִ֣ים אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן כִּסָּ֤ה הֶֽעָנָן֙ אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן לְאֹ֖הֶל הָעֵדֻ֑ת וּבָעֶ֜רֶב יִהְיֶ֧ה עַֽל־הַמִּשְׁכָּ֛ן כְּמַרְאֵה־אֵ֖שׁ עַד־בֹּֽקֶר׃
כֵּ֚ן יִהְיֶ֣ה תָמִ֔יד הֶעָנָ֖ן יְכַסֶּ֑נּוּ וּמַרְאֵה־אֵ֖שׁ לָֽיְלָה׃
וּלְפִ֞י הֵעָל֤וֹת הֶֽעָנָן֙ מֵעַ֣ל הָאֹ֔הֶל וְאַ֣חֲרֵי כֵ֔ן יִסְע֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וּבִמְק֗וֹם אֲשֶׁ֤ר יִשְׁכׇּן־שָׁם֙ הֶֽעָנָ֔ן שָׁ֥ם יַחֲנ֖וּ בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
עַל־פִּ֣י ה יִסְעוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְעַל־פִּ֥י ה יַחֲנ֑וּ כׇּל־יְמֵ֗י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁכֹּ֧ן הֶעָנָ֛ן עַל־הַמִּשְׁכָּ֖ן יַחֲנֽוּ׃
On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of the Pact; and in the evening it rested over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so: the cloud covered it, appearing as fire by night.
And whenever the cloud lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly; and at the spot where the cloud settled, there the Israelites would make camp.
At a command of the LORD the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of the LORD they made camp: they remained encamped as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle.
We followed the cloud. In so doing, we followed God’s guidance. And so it was meant to be, for as long as the journey would take to reach Eretz Yisrael.
But at the end of our parashah, in Bamidbar chapter 12, we see something else entirely. Miriam, you may recall, spoke disparagingly about Moshe to her brother Aharon, she is stricken with tzara’at. Moshe prays for her healing, and seven days later, she is healed, purified, and rejoins the camp.
But something very significant happened in the midst of this episode.
וְהֶעָנָ֗ן סָ֚ר מֵעַ֣ל הָאֹ֔הֶל וְהִנֵּ֥ה מִרְיָ֖ם מְצֹרַ֣עַת כַּשָּׁ֑לֶג וַיִּ֧פֶן אַהֲרֹ֛ן אֶל־מִרְיָ֖ם וְהִנֵּ֥ה מְצֹרָֽעַת׃
The cloud lifts from the tent, revealing that Miriam has tzara’at.
We know what is supposed to happen. We just read about it three chapters earlier, we pack up and follow the cloud! We had one job!
But that isn’t what happened.
The parasha ends with a description of what seems to be an act of disobedience:
וַתִּסָּגֵ֥ר מִרְיָ֛ם מִח֥וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֖ה שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֑ים וְהָעָם֙ לֹ֣א נָסַ֔ע עַד־הֵאָסֵ֖ף מִרְיָֽם׃
וְאַחַ֛ר נָסְע֥וּ הָעָ֖ם מֵחֲצֵר֑וֹת וַֽיַּחֲנ֖וּ בְּמִדְבַּ֥ר פָּארָֽן׃
So Miriam was shut out of camp for seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted. After that the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.
But weren’t we supposed to pack up and follow as soon as the cloud lifted? Miriam should have followed us from behind until she was healed and purified from tzara’at.
Just a few chapters earlier we were told that when the cloud moves, we pack up and follow. Here, when the cloud moved we stayed behind. The apparent disobedience is so striking that some of the classic commentaries introduce a second cloud into the narrative to reconcile our waiting for Miriam in Chapter Twelve with the command to follow the cloud in Chapter Nine.
According to this understanding the cloud that lifts, revealing Miriam’s condition, was a localized cloud that had hidden Miriam. The cloud that directed B’nai Yisrael through the desert waited for Miriam to return to the camp before departing and, according to this reading, the story becomes one in which Moshe prays for Miriam’s recovery, and God instructs all of B’nai Yisrael to wait for her before continuing.
But the more convincing and straightforward way to read the pesukim (at least to m, at least this year), is the way that Seforno and the Ohr HaHayim HaKadosh, and R. Baruch HaLevi Epstein in the Torah Temimah, read the verses. There was only one cloud. That cloud lifted. The people, B’nai Yisrael on our own, decided to wait for Miriam.
Why did we do that?
We have rules about tzara’at and the exclusion of those stricken with tza’raat from the camp. This is a major theme in Sefer Vayikra and the beginning chapters of Sefer Bamidbar. Many verses describe and delineate these rules. And, indeed, Miriam followed these rules adn stayed outside of the camp until she was purified from her tza’raat.
We followed those rules, but we refused to leave without her. We maintained our commitment to the laws of tzara’at but we also demonstrated our solidarity with every member of our community.
Every commitment, even a noble commitment to the Torah itself, can become extreme when we follow what we think is right and perform what we perceive to be our duty, no matter what the human costs. The Torah’s laws of purity create boundaries. Every healthy community creates boundaries. But a boundary becomes pernicious when the people outside the boundary cease to matter to those inside of it. Miriam was temporarily excluded from the camp. Yet the camp refused to exclude Miriam from its concern.
And every ideology, no matter how important, can lead to fanaticism, when we apply our ideological commitments to a messy world that doesn’t easily conform to abstract ideological preconditions.
A good way to test whether or not our commitments are extreme and distorted is to see what human suffering they cause. One way to see if our ideological commitments are fanatic or grounded in reality is to see who must be excluded and who must be ignored in order for our ideology to remain intact.
Looking at the world confronting the Jewish people, I see universalist lovers of humanity who somehow, time after time, exclude Jews from their universal concerns. Looking at our response to a frightening and hostile world, I see Jews racing to exclude one another from fellowship in the name of Jewish solidarity.
We thought that we had one job: Follow the cloud. But we had another job: Leave nobody behind.
I like to quote Rabbi Yehuda Brandes who said that “Judaism is a religion for adults.” Only in children’s stories are there obvious heroes and villains and clear black-and-white choices between good and evil. Jewish life entails choosing between conflicting goods and lesser evils. We obey the laws of purity and we follow God’s guidance through the desert. And we look out for those who are excluded and our care and concern for them never ceases.
Every commitment and every belief and our very way of life needs to be evaluated by the causes we champion and by the direction in which we are marching. And every commitment and every belief and our very way of life needs to be tested by checking on who we are tempted to turn away from to protect our own identities, and who we might leave behind.
Sometimes I wish I had only one job!
But the condition of modernity is that all of us have many jobs and usually lack clear guidance about how to prioritize among them. Our professional roles are complex and most of us answer to multiple stakeholders. Our families and communities make conflicting demands on our time and attention and we all have multiple loyalties of gratitude and support to numerous communities and institutions.
We all have choices to make.
This weekend the shul is celebrating our annual Spring Gala and that occasion is an appropriate time to appreciate the amazing work of the honorees on behalf of our community and to benefit from the hours of dedication by the volunteers who planned the event. We all get to enjoy this community because so many of you on so many occasions prioritized this community over hundreds or thousands of other competing demands for your time, energy, money, and commitment.
This community punches above its weight, accomplishes far more than a shul of our size out to be able to accomplish, and that’s possible because of the amazing spirit of volunteerism that animates so many of you. And even in the midst of a weekend of celebration, we have to ask ourselves: who is being excluded, whose needs are not being met, and are we certain we’ve identified the job that God is asking us to perform?
This coming week marks the anniversary of my family’s move to DC. I know more than ever that no congregational rabbi can only have one job. At Neilah as Yom Kippur ends we say: מְרֻבִּים צָרְכֵי עַמְּךָ וְדַעְתָּם קְצָרָה, the needs of your People are Greater than their ability to express them. But, in my experience, baalabatim, shul members, are pretty good about expressing their needs, at least to rabbis if not to God. But we all, rabbis and baalabatim, need to keep our eyes and ears openfor the unexpressed need, for the unobserved neglected individuals, and for the priority that has no champion.
This cannot be accomplished by one person, but I am filled with gratitude to live in a community with so many people who are searching so hard for ways to be helpful and for jobs that need someone to take them on.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 