Parshas Behaalotecha: Dispel the Darkness with the Light of Divine Love

The Torah reading this week, Parshas Behaalotecha: Bamidbar (Numbers) 8:1 - 12:16, continues with a consciousness raising theme, this time related to the lighting of the Menorah in the inner chamber of the Tabernacle. The kindling of the wicks and ever burning light represents a psychic shift from a unreliable, self conscious human mind to a Divine consciousness, unwavering and always available to us.

God entrusts Aaron with lighting the everlasting flames of the first Menorah. It is fashioned out of a single piece of gold, rather than welded together.The seven branches all face the center, signifying a unified Divine consciousness of people capable of dispelling darkness and evil in our world. 

Passover Observance Requires Purity

Moses instructs the Israelites on the Passover observance, marking the first anniversary of the passing over of the angel of death preparatory to the Exodus from Egypt. Now, people are dying from injury, exposure, and sickness after leaving Egypt and camping at Mt. Sinai for months.  Anyone attending to the needs of the deceased becomes ritually impure.

Those who are ritually impure due to contact with a human corpse may not participate in the Passover rituals. They complain and demand a modified observance, which is declined. Instead, they are given a chance to purify themselves and observe a second Passover a month later, as is anyone who had been distant from the camp during the earlier observance.

Departure and Disorder

The cloud covering the tabernacle lifts to signal a departure. Trumpets sound. 600,000 military aged men and their families, nearly 2.5 million people, begin their journey into what looks like no mans land.

Problems arise on the edges of the camp, a good distance from the holy activities of the priests at the center. People at the perimeter lack moral support for this new way of life introduced to them just a few months earlier. Old ideas and behaviors return, triggering a holy fire that consumes many of them as well as the 70 elders who failed to correct them. 

Inundated with complaints from the people, a disgusted Moses protests to God, who offers to imbue 70 new proven leaders with Moses' spirit who will help Moses keep everyone behaving themselves. So prevalent is the quarreling that even Miriam succumbs by finding fault with Moses' divorce. She gossips to Aaron about it, triggering her banishment from the camp with a case of leprosy for a week.

Our Haftorah portion, Zechariah 2:14 - 4:7, reflects the Torah portion by alluding to a vision of a golden seven branched Menorah that will blaze when the God of Israel once again resides in Jerusalem. The rewards will be great after His people repent from their unholy lifestyles and return to living in a Divine consciousness. "Not by military force and not by physical strength, but by My spirit,' says the Lord of Hosts."

Mental Health Restored

When the Tanakh mentions ritual impurity from close proximity to a human corpse, I think about the thousands of people who experience or do abortions, which deliberately turns a living human being into a human corpse. I think about the spiritual death that happens to post abortive parents, family members, and providers of the deed. 

The idea of killing babies as a solution to problems can only exist in a human mind disturbed by mental confusion or distorted thinking. Jeremiah 7:30 tells us that the Divine mind cannot house such a dreadful thought.

“For the Children of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight, saith the Lord; they have set their detestable things in the house whereon My name is called, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind.” 

A restoration of holiness through a Divine consciousness is the only true and lasting remedy for the human mind sickened with ungodly thoughts, a far more effective and long lasting treatment than talk or drug therapy - with no negative side effects!

God gives us many chances. Like the unwavering light of the Menorah, He offers His mercy continuously, day and night, to people who sincerely regret abortion. Until the spiritual sickness of everyone involved is acknowledged, addressed and treated, society will continue to suffer. Our Tikvat Rachel Healing Program addresses this problem in the Jewish community.

Even those who will not concede guilt are not a lost cause. They may be reached through persistent, peaceful and loving outreach as Aaron, our patriarch, modeled for us. His life teaches us that a person should pursue peace in Israel among all people, as it is stated in Psalm 34:14, Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. (Avot DeRabbi Natan 12:6)

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. Cecily envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.

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