The Hebrew title, Bamidbar, means “in the wilderness.” The English title, derived from the census recounted in Chapter 1, is “Numbers.”
What does “in the wilderness” evoke? The desert provides an essential metaphor for the Jewish spirit. Our Rabbis teach that one must be open like a desert to receive Torah (Tanhuma Bamidbar 6:1). Receptivity, creativity and openness are the essential qualities for a life of Torah. The dynamism of the tradition depends on the impulse of internal freedom to create and innovate. Even in cramped quarters one should feel that there is an open sky overhead.
Yet creativity without discipline is like a blender without a top. To be creative alone is to invite chaos. “Numbers” evokes discipline, exactitude, precision. Counting is the bridle of creativity without which the rider cannot hang onto the horse. Think of the pianist who plays the most magnificent composition with brio and seeming abandon. Behind that performance lies hours of hand exercises, fingers running routinely up and down the keys, the metronome ticking off intervals – the discipline that alone releases creativity.
Picasso said once that it took him four years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child. He needed to acquire the discipline of the painter before he could release the creativity of the artist.
God took an inchoate people into the most boundary-less place on earth in order to teach Israel the boundaries of the law. Discipline as the foundation for creativity is emphasized by our greatest sages. Last week’s parasha concerned the sabbatical year. The sabbatical year canceled debts, but as a result, people were less willing to lend as the sabbatical approached. The great Hillel in a famous burst of rabbinic creativity enacted the Prozbul, a way to turn debts over to the court so they would not be canceled, and could still be given with assurance. It was an innovative solution to an economic deadlock in the law. Both wonderful and characteristic is that this same Hillel said, (Chagigah 9b) “One who learns Torah and reviews it 100 times cannot be compared to one who reviews it 101 times.” In other words, Hillel’s originality was rooted in his mastery. Bamidbar and Numbers go hand in hand.
The theme of discipline and creativity is continued when in the wilderness Israel is organized into tribes. In some ways this fourth book of the Torah recaps creation; the wilderness is a kind of tohu vavohu, a place formless and void, empty of structures. As God made forms and order within chaos at creation, so the Israelites learn how to form themselves into a society amidst the emptiness of the wilderness. What God has done for the world, Israel must now do for society. And as God has created with words, the fourth book is called Bamidbar, with its suggestion of dibbur, language, since communication is at the heart of social organization.
Since it is the formation of society it is no surprise that Numbers is also the book of rebellion. There will always be people enchanted by the openness of the world, who neglect the necessity for order. We chafe against restraints until we discover how awful it is to exist in anarchy.
G.K. Chesterton once remarked that the most important thing about a painting is its frame. Bamidbar teaches us to hold fast both to the spring of creativity that gives vitality and color to the world, and the laws and boundaries that maintain a loose order on our expressive impulses. Chaos and order, creativity and discipline – combine the two, and you get the children of Israel.
The writer is Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of David the Divided Heart. On Twitter: @rabbiwolpe.