This week’s reading, Naso, is the longest single portion in the Torah, containing 176 verses. The reading starts with a continuation of the Levite census and a discussion regarding their Tabernacle duties. The laws of the sotah woman and the Nazirite follow. The portion concludes with the Priestly Blessing and the offerings which the Tribal leaders brought in honor of the Tabernacle inauguration.
Let’s read the last verse from the Parsha:
Num 7:89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.
Based on an article by Yitschak Meir Kagan
According to Rashi (Jewish commentator) when Moses heard God’s voice in the Sanctuary, a miraculous phenomenon occurred. Although the divine voice was as loud as at Mount Sinai when all two million people heard it, so loud as to be audible far beyond the confines of the Sanctuary, the sound was miraculously cut off at the Sanctuary entrance and went no further. Moshe was compelled to enter the Sanctuary in order to hear it.
Jewish commentary finds a significant explanation as to why it was necessary for the voice of God to be cut off at the Sanctuary entrance and go no further: It is God’s desire that Man serve Him out of free choice, and that “God’s voice”—His call, message and teaching—be brought into the world by man’s service.
The “voice of God” is a revelation of God. A place which the Almighty sets aside as an established location for repeated revelations of Godliness, a place where His voice is heard again and again, is a place possessing a higher order of sanctity. Such a place was the Sanctuary, which was named the “Tent of Meeting” because God’s Presence was regularly encountered there. God’s voice, the same great voice that was heard at Sinai, regularly and repeatedly filled the Sanctuary.
If the voice and the speech of the Almighty had gone forth into the world, repeatedly and regularly, then the world would have become one great “Tent of Meeting,” a sanctuary in which Man could not choose to go contrary to God’s wishes. Man’s service of God, through free choice, would be impossible. It was God’s desire that we transform because we want to transform—not through divine intervention. That we want to make an environment in which His Voice is “not heard” into a fitting dwelling place for His presence.
This can be compared to parents raising up a child. At a certain point they stopped telling their child what to do. But they did not stop because they had tired of the task. On the contrary: every time their child faced a new choice or dilemma, it took every iota of self-control they had to restrain themselves from offering their advice and guidance. But they understood that if their child was to develop as an independent, responsible, moral human being, they had to hold back. They could instruct him up to a point, but beyond that point they must give him the space in which to grow. Many times, in facing a decision, the child found himself imagining what his parents would have said. He made mistakes, but was usually aware that he was making a mistake and eventually tried to correct it. He was appreciative of his strengths and aware of his imperfections, and thus carried himself with a combination of pride and humility that endeared him to all who knew him. In the end, the proud parents will be able to say of their child, “We couldn’t have done it better ourselves.”
So to with our Father in Heaven. God instructs us as to how to live our lives, but His infinite voice carries a certain distance and then stops. It does not stop because it gradually weakens until it reaches the point that it is no longer heard. He speaks to us with infinite power and authority. Yet He allows His voice to reach a certain point and no further, so that we hear the power and infinity in His voice, and also the restraint. We have the choices to make. As we apply the instruction we receive from our Father in making our choices we allow Him to say of us: “I couldn’t have done it better Myself.”
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