Closets and the Desert: B’midbar

Last week, after recovering from that terrible post-vaccine week, I had a burst of energy and did a lot of cleaning out, both physical and emotional. 

I had treated myself to some new summer blouses (first time in over five years--on sale, mind you), and took the opportunity to weed out the clutter of old clothes I don’t feel good in anymore, and make room for the new. 

I started with my dresser and soon got caught up in the cleaning frenzy, finding myself not in one closet, but two, removing all that blocked my path, an accumulation of years, out of breath, sweating despite the cool weather, throwing things out onto the floor, making a huge mess that I then needed to sift through.

My husband came in at one point and said, “You know you’re crazy, right?” I said I knew how it must look—like a cartoon character throwing things up and behind a hunched body in rapid fire.

But it got the job done. By the end, I had filled five large bags that I took to the thrift shop the very next day—I just had to get them out of the house, and finish by vacuuming. The clearing I felt afterwards was incredible, like my refrigerator before Passover (which is still beautiful, if you wanna know). You could say I got swallowed up by the task—and it was exhausting. The work was so intense, it took a few days to recover afterwards.

This week we begin the Book of Numbers, B’midbar in Hebrew, meaning in the desert. 

It’s a very repetitive reading: a census of the twelve tribes, males above a certain age capable of fighting, and with instructions on where each tribe is to encamp in relation to the Sanctuary, as the Israelites make their way through the desert.

There is one group, the Levites, that is excluded from this. They are responsible for dismantling, transporting and reassembling the Sanctuary at the center of the next encampment.

Among the Levites is a special sub-group, the Kohathites, that is responsible for carrying the Sanctuary’s vessels, things like the Ark and the menorah. They are carefully instructed, more than once, not to be allowed to look at or touch the vessels, or they will die—and they must not die or be cut off from their people. There are special coverings for the vessels to protect the Kohathites from the power of the vessels, to be placed by the Levites.

The verb used to describe the covering of sacred objects and dismantling the Sanctuary is a word that means “swallow,” as in, the objects will be swallowed up by the coverings. There is an element of destructiveness to this word, since the sanctuary is dismantled in preparation for moving forward on the journey through the desert. So while there is destruction, there is also protection of both the objects and those carrying them, and the idea of forward movement; the people are moving towards something, though it’s not explicit what.

While one wonders at this, one must also wonder at the power of the sacred objects, the energy they carry, to the point that it can kill the Kohathites, but not the other Levites. Is there a certain level of purity of soul and devotion needed to be able to handle, literally and figuratively, these powerful vessels? What makes a person capable of handling such energy? And how does it connect with forward movement?

I’m just an ordinary person, and I’m constantly looking for ways to improve myself and deepen my spiritual practice and connection. I could look at my cleaning and clearing out last week as simply psychological. On the physical level, I literally cleaned out my closets, allowing for space in my home for energy to flow.

On the psycho-emotional level, it was also my mother’s birthday, three years since her death, and I dealt with lingering feelings of anger and regret. I found pictures in my closet in old boxes. I cried a lot.

I’m also involved in a case of sexual harassment and other abuse.

For me, personally, it’s bringing up other past traumas in my life and setting endless conversations in motion—all of it exhausting. But I agreed to do it because I’m hoping to be among those who help effect societal changes for future generations.

No community is immune. Inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment is coming out of closets all over the place, including in the Jewish world (great article this week in the Jewish/Yiddish paper, the Forward), which is a good thing, but it’s also painful.

Cleaning and clearing out, being swallowed up in the process, is painful, exhausting, but ultimately cleansing. Old things have to be dismantled in order for new things to be birthed.

We are now approaching Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, seven weeks since Passover, when we harvest the first fruits and bring them as an offering to God. The harvest is a destruction and dismantling of the fields that hold the fruits, and the bounty of our work is presented in a different form, on an altar or in our kitchens.

Part of the practice of this time is in the daily “Counting of the Omer” (an “omer” refers to an ancient measure of dry grain). This practice involves working on personal qualities, getting ourselves ready for that moment to receive Torah as if we had each personally been present at Mt. Sinai with Moses and the rest of the Israelite population.

It’s scary to face cluttered closets, open old boxes that may contain memories and bring up painful feelings that it may be easier not to feel, but if we are to move forward and get to a place of pure heart and soul, we must go through the process, and make sure that we protect each other as we dismantle, so that maybe, one day, we might be both capable and worthy of touching the sacred vessels that hold something new for the future.

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