A Moment of Torah with Rabbi Neil Sandler

"When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sacred objects and all the furnishings of the sacred objects at the breaking of the camp, only then shall the Kohathites come and lift them, so that they do not come into contact with the sacred objects and die" (Numbers 4:15).

This week as we read the last portion of the triennial reading of the Parshat Bemidbar, we will see that much of it is devoted to getting the Tabernacle and all the articles within it ready to move with the Israelites as their journey to the Land of Israel continued. The Kohathites were the porters of these holy objects. They occupied a very special place within the Israelite community. How striking it is to read that a Kohathite who inadvertently touched one of those objects would summarily die, according to the tradition, at the hand of God! How is such a shocking outcome possible?

Echoes of this troubling verse can be heard in the story of Uzzah and the Ark of the Covenant during King David's reign. King David had decided to bring the Ark up to Jerusalem. When the journey begain, Uzzah and his brother, Ahio, stood on either side of the cart on which the Ark had been placed for transport. Along the way the Ark apparently began to tip, and Uzzah reached out to keep it from falling. A praiseworthy action, right? Apparently not…" The Lord was incensed at Uzzah. And God struck him down on the spot for his indiscretion, and he died there…" (2 Samuel 6:7) Really?! Uzzah's intentions were noble… and God killed him because he touched the Ark as he attempted to keep it from falling off the cart! What are we to make of this disturbing story?

The norm of the Bible is to view a negative outcome in a narrative as punishment and whatever precipitated it as sin. Indeed, medieval biblical commentators offer several reasons to "rationally" explain Uzzah's "punishment." But do such explanations satisfy us? Do they really make sense? I don't think so.

Instead, I think we need to view the Kohathites who inadvertently touched a sacred object when moving the Tabernacle and certainly Uzzah who protected the Ark as righteous individuals who sought to uphold the holiness of these objects. They had not "sinned." They were not "punished."

Instead, I think our ancestors viewed the Tabernacle and its sacred objects as inseparable from the Holy One, a direct connection to the God of Israel. As such, each of those objects was truly "kadosh"; not "holy" as we translate the word, but "separate" as the Torah understands it. These holy objects were to remain separate from the vast majority of the community. Very few people had permission to handle them. Therefore, if someone touched one of these sacred objects, even to protect it, something in the divine-human relationship was disturbed. It's as if the Israelite who touched a sacred object, irrespective of the circumstances, had impermissible contact with God. They had entered divine space that was not allowed them. Death was not a punishment. It was an outcome that somehow restored the intended divine-human connection and balance.

It is tempting to dismiss such disturbing parts of the Bible. But if Torah is the wellsprings of our tradition, we best struggle with such laws and stories in order to lend meaning to them that we can hope to understand and accept.

Shabbat Shalom.