Numeri

In the desert, one cannot simply camp or march haphazardly. Israel must be organized in a regular and predictable formation, where all know where they belong and under whose command they advance through the inhospitable landscape. The twelve tribes of Israel are therefore divided into four groups, and each group—always consisting of three tribes—takes its place on one side of the Tent of Meeting. God’s dwelling extends in all directions of the compass, protected day and night by a ring of Israelite thousands. The people form a wreath in whose center the Mystery resides. Judah, camping and marching on the east side, is named first. It is he who will lead the people into the Promised Land, foreshadowing this tribe’s leading role in the time of the kings.

The tribes stick together, but the uniqueness of the specific tribes journeying with God in their midst does not disappear. They travel under the banner of their ancestral houses. They camp by their standard, facing the Tent of Meeting, above which hovers the cloud, a sign of the covenant. 

Our own customs and traditions do not merge into an all-encompassing, uniform grayness. On the contrary, everyone proudly identifies with one’s own flag. Those who in history colonized others did not know, or arrogantly overlooked, that the good news of God’s offered hand in Christ—that is, the gospel—must be embodied: in a specific person, in a specific culture and time.

If my gospel is personified by me and my tradition, it must naturally be different from that of my neighbors. By adopting the cross as its emblem, my tribe’s banner is not set aside. For a moment, the camp in the desert sand reflects a fantastical image hovering somewhere in the air: People from every tribe, nation, and tongue. On the way to where Judah entered first. Each by their own standard, under the banner of their ancestral houses. All with an eye on the Lord. Meanwhile, in the Sinai heat, families are on the move, clans are gathering together, tents are being pitched. Above the camp, the coats of arms flutter, and the people turn their faces to God.

Israel has done everything as the Lord had commanded. At the moment, all is still well.

So far, we have focused on the census of the Israelite men and their arrangement into military units so that the people will be protected from external danger, as well as from the heat emanating from the Holy Place in the very center of the encampment. The following episodes, found in chapters 5 and 6, address everyone (not just men) and suggest that the camp—positioned between God’s Dwelling and the surrounding wild places—is a kind of sacred zone with a high degree of sensitivity to the essence of Being.

Take, for example, the ritual impurity. Despite its name, it did not represent anything morally wrong but pointed to moments when a person experienced something overwhelming and out of the ordinary. The priestly system recognized three main sources of such “uncleanness”: contact with a corpse, a serious skin disease (inaccurately called leprosy), and genital discharge. These circumstances resulted in temporary isolation because cultic impurity was considered infectious. Until the appointed time, ending by a cleansing bath, the afflicted person had to stay away from other people and, above all, from God’s Abode.

The genital discharge, as well as the loss of blood, palpably points to the life force carrying the human race onward. The ordinances for ritual impurity highlighted these conditions and encouraged temporary cessation from normal activities, but also offered a path to make the heaviness of Being a little more bearable.

Our lives are governed by rules and customs different from those operating in ancient Israel. However, some of the biblical principles surprisingly correlate with liminal situations that are deeply felt even today. Although we are culturally and historically removed from the enchanted world of ancient Israelites, we, too, can suffer from the elements beyond our control. The death of a loved one or a lengthy illness can leave an enduring mark on us. If our lives are interrupted by a life-giving force—or, on the contrary, a life-taking force—it is impossible to move on as though nothing had ever happened. Instead, we become strangely “unclean,” needing space and time to cope with the new situation.

The question is whether our scientific worldview, which has long since overcome such old- fashioned ordinances, does not lack the tools to help us become more deeply attuned to the enfleshed nature of our existence. We go through life without stopping. No directives hold us back, but neither do they remind us of the unobvious nature of our animality.

Complaints have now taken hold of the center of the camp, specifically the leadership trio. Miriam has incited Aaron to slander Moses’s marriage. He had, after all, taken as his wife a foreigner from Ethiopia, a darker-skinned woman, and thus violated even the most basic criteria that his prescriptions instill in others.

However, as we read on, we discover that Miriam and Aaron are not concerned with Moses’s private life but with their own roles. “Does the Lord speak only through Moses? Does he not also speak through us?” Here we see the crux of the matter: Miriam and Aaron envy Moses’s privilege as God’s spokesperson, for they feel overshadowed by him. But to voice such a grievance publicly would reek of pettiness and quickly draw attention to their envy. Since envy only thrives in secret, they must divert attention elsewhere and point to another’s perceived fault. Shouldn’t we, the religiously observant, replace the one who so visibly errs?

To the envious words, God responds quickly. Moses is a steward in the house of Israel; he has an exclusive position. However, this does not mean that God does not speak to others. After all, God’s Spirit just fell on seventy elders! And Miriam, herself, appears as a prophetess elsewhere in the Bible. Unfortunately, envy has clouded her eyes. As the Latin term invidio suggests: to envy is to see poorly.

God departs, and behold, Miriam is a leper. The Cushite woman, Moses’s wife, is not the only woman of a different skin color in the camp. Miriam, Moses’s sister, also looks different. Her pale, anemic skin reflects her inner self, for, as Cyprian of Carthage said, “envy is a rust that eats away at our hearts.” Miriam’s personality slowly falls apart. She does not perceive that God also speaks through her and that, for a person of her esteem, everyone must ultimately wait. She sees only what she lacks. Consequently, she is now smaller than she was. The rust has done its work.

Then Moses speaks. He reacts to Aaron’s dismay, hears his plea, and stutters earnestly: “I beg you, God, heal her!” Moses is too humble to savor a moment of satisfaction. As Evagrius of Pontus already observed, humility represents the opposite of envy. Envy perceives its own inadequacy above everything else whereas a humble person sees self and others realistically. Envy wishes harm to others while humility lifts them up, generously showering the envious with attention, for it knows the depth of lowliness.

Both groups that criticized the exclusive role of priests perished. Interestingly, the narrative does not dwell on their terrible demise but, rather, turns its attention to the questions with which Korah initiated the entire dispute: who is a priest, and why can’t everyone be one? This emphasis hints that the story is primarily concerned with matters of ritual, with ethical considerations taking a back seat.

God, through Moses, calls Eleazar to retrieve the censers from the site of destruction in front of the tabernacle—the censers that had been carried there by the men longing for the status of priests. Eleazar is not a random choice. His two older brothers had already died while bringing incense; the terror of God’s fire is not foreign to him. From the fiery ashes, he must recover the bronze pans, for nothing that approaches the center of the camp—and therefore of Being remains untouched. While the sinners who had come near of their own accord died, the censers they brought near underwent a completely opposite transformation: they became holy. They cannot be returned to the camp but must permanently serve a sacred purpose. Eleazar is to melt them down into hammered sheets to overlay the bronze altar dedicated to sacrifice. The censers thus become an object lesson demonstrating the essence of the priesthood.

On the one hand, they are a reminder that no human being appoints oneself to the service of the Lord. No priest, pastor, or preacher arbitrarily chooses this role. Each must be invited, if not persuaded. On the path to ordination, we follow the voice of God, confirmed by time and the community of those who know us well. In fact, as testified by Gregory the Great, a monk who at the end of the 6th century became Pope somewhat against his will, a true priest resists his priestly calling tooth and nail. He does not feel worthy of it.

On the other hand, the place where the censers ended up enduringly exemplifies the nature of the priesthood. Just like those bronze plates, the pastor is indelibly affixed to the altar. Only one who, in a metaphorically deeper sense, dies is immune to the fire raging within the sanctuary. Whatever the practical expression of this lot—some churches advocate celibacy, others regularly move priests to a different diocese—the brand of death belongs to the service inside all temples. The priestly privilege of making the God of heaven accessible to others belongs only to those who have already descended into the very depths of hell.