Camp and Congregation (Beha'alotcha 5779)

The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2019

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I am delighted to share with you the newest cycle of Covenant & Conversation essays on the weekly parsha (Torah reading). I am particularly excited to introduce a Family Edition accompaniment to this year's series which has two main aims. First, to present the ideas in Covenant & Conversation in a simplified way, making my ideas more accessible to children and teenagers. Second, to act as an educational resource for parents, teachers and anyone else to engage their children and students in meaningful and stimulating conversations about the parsha." Main edition: rabbisacks.org/sages-and-saints-naso-5779/ Family edition: rabbisacks.org/cc-family-edition-naso-5779/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.
0:14.6	In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the Torah reading of the week.
0:27.4	Bahalotaha, camp and congregation. The parshah of Balotaha speaks about the silver trumpets, clarions.
0:37.3	Moses was commanded to make.
0:39.6	The Lord spoke to Moshe's saying,
0:41.2	make two trumpets of silver,
0:43.2	make them of hammered work,
0:44.8	they shall serve you to summon the congregation,
0:47.7	the Eda,
0:48.7	and cause the camps,
0:50.3	the Mahanot, to journey.
0:52.8	This apparently simple passage became a springboard for one of the
0:56.9	most profound meditations of the late Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. It appears in his great essay called
1:03.2	Dodi Del Feik on the Jewish approach to suffering. There are, says Rabbi Soloveitch, two ways in which
1:10.0	people become a group, a community, a society, a nation.
1:13.6	The first is when they face a common enemy.
1:17.6	They band together for mutual protection.
1:19.6	Like all animals who come together in herds or flocks to defend themselves against predators,
1:25.6	we do this for our survival. Such a group is a
1:29.3	machane, a camp, a defensive formation. There's another quite different form of association.
1:36.3	People can come together because they share a vision, an aspiration, a set of ideals.
1:41.3	That's the meaning of EDA, congregation. EDA is related to the word
	...

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