Community Identities

Rabbi Melanie Aron

May 30, 2003

Torah portion Bamidbar, the beginning of the book of Numbers, which in Hebrew is called "in the wilderness".

The book begins in the 2nd month of the 2nd year of the Israelites desert wanderings.

A lot has happened since they left Egypt- the deliverance at the Sea, God providing Manna and water in the desert, the giving of the Torah at Mt Sinai, and the building of the mishkan, the portable tabernacle.

Just a glance at the camp, tells you that things have changed. Rather than being a motley crew, an erev rav, straggling along, the old and weak lagging behind the strong and healthy, the camp now has a formal arrangement.

The tabernacle with the ark of the covenant, containing the ten commandments, sits protected in the center of the encampment, flanked on each side by three of the tribes, guarded along the perimeter by all the men age 20 and above.

Each tribe camps under its own banner, which the midrash tells us the Israelites learned to make by observing the banners of the ministering angels at Mt Sinai.

According to Rashi, each banner was of a different color and these colors matched the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest.

According to Ibn Ezra the banners each had images related to the history of the tribes, the blessings that each son received from Jacob on his deathbed and images from their future history. The tribe of Judah for example had a lion on its banner and Dan, an eagle.

These banners and the organization of the camp encouraged identification with one's own tribe. The administration of justice was also organized by tribes as was leadership in the camp. This helped turn a disorganized group of individuals into a community and created a sense of people-hood. It helped maintain order and gave everyone a sense of place and purpose.

Later on though, this identification with the tribe rather than with the people of Israel as a whole will cause some challenges. During the period of the Judges, for example, people were more loyal to their tribe than to the nation. Sometimes tribes failed to help each other out, and on occasion even went to war, one against the other.

The identification with smaller groups within the whole continues to have its positive and negative aspects. Within our congregation we have found that being part of some smaller entity, a Havurah, the choir, youth group, Sisterhood or Men's Club, the social action committee, or even an adult education study group, helps people feel more a part of the congregation as a whole. Within the congregation it tends to make people feel more connected and I have not seen it become a competing loyalty.

On a global scale though we have often seen national or religious identities pulling people away from their sense of being part of one humanity. Sitting under the banner of nation or faith has not enhanced their identification with the whole, but distracted them from it. That is one of the challenges of our own times- how can feeling proudly American make me more conscious also of my shared humanity with every other person on earth, how can my being more active as a Jew make me more sensitive to the religious truth that every human being is created in the Divine image.