The ever-repeated story.

But Midbar takes up the story as we left it towards the end of Schmut.

The people who journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai.

There they received the Torah.

There they made the golden calf there.

They were forgiven after Moses' passionate plea.

And there they made the Mishkan, the tavernacle, inaugurated on the first of Nissan, almost a year

after the Exodus. Now, one month later on the first day of the second month, they're ready to

move on to the second part of the journey from Sinai to the promised land. Yet, there is a curious delay in the narrative.

Ten chapters passed until the Israelites actually begin to travel.

First, there's a census. Then there's an account of the arrangement of the tribes around the Ohamohet, the tent of meeting.

There's a long account of the Levites, their families and respective roles.

Then there are laws about the purity of the

camp, restitution, the Sotard, the woman is suspected of adultery, and the Nazarite. A lengthy series of

passages describe the final preparations for the journey. Only then do they set out. Why this long

series of seeming digressions? Well, it's easy to think of the

Torah as simply telling events as they occurred, interspersed with various commandments. On this view,

the Terror is history plus law. This is what happened. These are the rules we must obey,

and there's a connection between them sometimes clear, as in the case of laws accompanied by the reminder you were slaves in Egypt, sometimes less so.

But actually, the Torah is not mere history. As a simple sequence of events, the Torah is about the truths that emerge through time.

And that's one of the great differences between ancient Israel and ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece sought truth by contemplating nature and reason.

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