In last week's parasha, there's something that occurs only once in the entire Torah. If you open up the Sefer Torah, in the middle of parashat Beha'alotecha, there are two Pesukim (verses) surrounded by backwards nuns (Hebrew letter nun). In the Torah, there's a nun, then two Pesukim, and another nun. And Rashi asks, “What is this? What are these Pesukim?” The Pesukim almost seem random. “What are these Pesukim doing here? And what are these nuns?” And Hashem answers his question. Hashem says, “Because there's a negative story before those two Pesukim, and a negative story following, and Hashem wants to put a break between the two negative stories.”
Okay, so let's look at the Torah and see those negative stories. If you look at the Torah, you see that the story following those two Pesukim is really negative. The Jewish people are complaining. They're upset. Hashem gets upset. They have desires. They want meat. They remember Egypt. They want to go back to Egypt. “Why did you take us here to die in the desert?” All kinds of epic and intense, negative, horrible complaints, and a really bad story.
But now let's look at the story before the backwards nuns. You look at the story. There's no story. There's nothing there. It says Hashem told the Jewish people it's time to travel from Har Sinai. And they do. That's the story. They traveled from Har Sinai. Hashem told them, “Now it's time to leave.” And they left. What's the negative story that we have to separate the two? And why do I have to separate two negative stories anyhow? And why with these Pesukim?
The answer is this: the Jewish people, when they left Har Sinai, were doing the right thing. Hashem told them, “It's time. You've been here for a year. It's time to leave.” But when they left, they had negative intentions. They wanted to run away from Hashem. They wanted to run away from greatness. They wanted to run away from Har Sinai. And the intentions were negative.
Okay, why is that so bad? So they have negative intentions. We really have to separate this story, of all the stories in the Torah? We have to separate this story from the other story? They did the right thing with the wrong intent.
The answer is this: a lot of times, just like people could have a momentum of Kedushah (holiness), sometimes people are in the opposite state and they're in a negative head. And they're just in a negative head. They didn't do anything wrong yet. But they're icky in their brain. They're down in their brain. They're upset in their brain. They're frustrated in their brain. They're lacking trust in Hashem in their brain. They're not optimistic about what's happening in their life. And what very often happens after a negative head is a mess. So the Torah says we're going to separate these two stories. Because don't let story A lead into story B. Don't let a negative head turn into a mess. Because sometimes the momentum is going against you. And you have to literally grab the steering wheel and turn the tide. And it's hard to do. Because you're like, “Oh, it's just not happening. I don't know what's going to do. You told me to do chesed (kindness). I did two acts of chesed. It went nowhere. Nobody cared. They didn't even appreciate it. And I made my spouse upset. My kids feel ignored. I'm just—this is just, it's not working.” And you get in this negative head. And once you get in this negative head, you follow with negative actions.
What you have to do is separate with these two Pesukim. What do these two Pesukim say? “Vayehi binso'a ha'aron,” when the Aron traveled, when it left Har Sinai, “Vayomer Moshe,” and Moshe told the Jewish people two words: “Kumah Hashem,” stand up, Hashem, stand up for Hashem. You have to be able sometimes the opportunity to create a momentum is right there in front of you. You're on stable ground. Take step one. But sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes you're on an escalator downward, and you have to literally turn around and “Kumah Hashem,” stand up, Hashem. And you know what happens when you stand up for Hashem? Just like the sprays in the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) on Yom Kippur, the one force upward will overcome everything that's pulling you down.
Like Moshe Rabbeinu continues: Your enemies, those that hate you—the enemies of the Jewish people—are not human beings. Enemies of the Jewish people are the forces of evil, those things that bring us down. They will disperse and they will run away. But first you have to be Kumah. First you have to be able to take a negative momentum and turn the tide. First you have to be able to have a bad head and not let it lead into bad actions. First you have to be able to create your own momentum of Kedushah, even when it feels like you're going upstream. And that's when it follows...