The Parcha of Nozzo seems on the face of it to be a heterogeneous collection of utterly unrelated items,

a jumble of ideas. First, there's the account of the Mishbachot-Talaviyim, the Levitical families of Gershain and Marari,

and their tasks in carrying parts of the tabernacle when the Israelites

journeyed. Then after two brief laws about removing unclean people from the camp and about restitution,

there comes the strange ordeal of the Sota, the woman suspected by her husband of adultery. Next comes the law of the Nazir,

the person who voluntarily, and usually for a fixed period, took on himself special holiness

restrictions, among them the renunciation of wine and great products, of haircuts,

and of defilement by contact with a dead body. This is followed again,

seemingly with no connection, by one of the oldest prayers in the world still in continuous use,

the birkut koanim, the priestly blessings. And then with inexplicable repetitiousness comes the account of the gifts

brought by the princes of each tribe at the dedication of the tabernacle, a series of long paragraphs

repeated no less than 12 times since each prince brought an identical offering. Why does the Torah spend so much time

describing an event that could have been stated far more briefly by listing the princes

and then simply telling us generically that each brought a silver dish, a silver basin and so on?

But the question that overshadows all the others is what is that each brought a silver dish, a silver basin, and so on.

But the question that overshadows all the others is,

what is the logic of this apparently disconnected series

of laws and events?

The answer, I think, lies in the very last word

of the priestly blessing, shalom, peace. In a long analysis, the 15th century

Spanish commentator Rabbi Yitzhak Arama explains that shalom does not simply mean the absence

of conflict or strife or war. It means shlemut, completeness, perfection,

...