The upcoming holiday of Shavuot, the celebration of our receiving the Torah, along with the name of the book we are now beginning – “Bamidar” (“in the desert”) – gives us an opportunity to reflect on the fact that G-d chose to give us the Torah, and to begin our nation’s history, in a desert.
Why the desert? Why didn’t G-d wait until we came into the land, built homes and communities, and got ourselves settled?
One Rabbi answered that the Torah was given in the desert precisely because it is in “desert” conditions when we show that we’re up to the task, that we are truly committed.
Imagine going to sleep at night without a morsel of food in the house. Nothing. The cupboards, the fridge and the freezer are EMPTY. And, there is no plumbing, so you have not a drop of water.
One other thing – your bank account is down to zero. There’s not even a penny. You have no job and no source of income.
Sounds pretty scary.
Somebody then tells you not to worry, because when you wake up in the morning, all the food your family needs is going to fall down from the sky. And you’re going to have plenty of water – it’s going to come out of a rock.
This is how Beneh Yisrael lived in the desert, for forty years. They went to sleep each night with absolutely nothing, with not even a crumb of food. All they had was the promise that manna will fall the next morning and water will flow from a rock.
True commitment to Hashem is shown in the “desert,” in times of instability. This is when we show that we trust in Hashem, that we believe that He is the source of our sustenance and our wellbeing.
We crave stability. It’s one of our most important needs. But we look for it in the wrong places. We look for it in our jobs, our businesses, our source of income, our house, our car, our wealthy relative or friend. The Torah was given in the most unstable condition possible – in the desert, where the people had no possibility of sustaining themselves, to teach them, and to teach us, that OUR SENSE OF STABILITY MUST COME FROM HASHEM, and from nothing else.
In the times of the Bet Ha’mikdash, the nation would come to the Bet Ha’mikdash every Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. The Gemara says that on these holidays, the kohanim would display to the people the shulhan – the special table in the Bet Ha’mikdash, which had on it the לחם הפנים, special bread. The bread remained on the table for a full week until it was removed and eaten by the kohanim, but it miraculously remained fresh all week.
The kohanim displayed this miracle to the people to show them that THE MANNA IS STILL FALLING. The bread on our tables, even now, is as miraculous as the manna in the desert. Hashem is sustaining us just as He sustained our ancestors in the most unstable place imaginable.
We are living in a time of instability like we’ve never experienced before. We cannot be certain of anything anymore. We have no idea – nobody has any idea – what our world or our lives will look like in another two months, let alone in another year. Everything we are used to relying on for our sense of stability is suddenly unreliable. We are back in the desert.
And it is specifically for times like this that Hashem gave us the Torah in a desert – to teach us that it is here where we show our faith, where we make it clear that we place our trust in Him, and not in anything else.
In this unstable world, we find stability through our faith Hashem. He has been the one caring for us until now, and He will be caring for us going forward. Nothing has really changed. He cared for us before lockdown, He cares for us during lockdown, and He will care for us after lockdown. It’s all the same for Him. And the more we realize this, the more stability we will experience in our lives.