(Farewell Drashah to Minyan Ma’at, June 6, 2026)

חמישה מי יודע? Who knows five? חמישה חומשי תורה, “Five are the books of Torah.” We all know this, and so do our kids. But could there be seven, like the branches of the Menorah described at the start of our portion? Or as few as three? Probably not–the five books of Torah are well established. Nevertheless, there are literary clues in our portion that suggest otherwise. Let’s start with seven.

In the middle of our parashah appears a brief passage which is bracketed off from the rest of the text. If you look closely in the Torah scroll, you can see what appear to be inverted nuns surrounding two familiar verses (Num. 10:35-26):

׆ וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה קוּמָה  ה’ וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ׃ 

וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה ה’ רִבְבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ ׆

׆ When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O ETERNAL One! May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You!

And when it halted, he would say:

Return, O ETERNAL One, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands! ׆

Moses here appeals for the Lord to lead Israel into battle, and then to return them to a tranquil encampment. Like other ancient peoples, Israel marched into battle bearing symbols of its God. We know from later biblical history that the Holy Ark was used this way and was once taken captive by the Philistines (I Samuel Ch. 4). In fact next week we will read about the incident of the ma’apilim who go to battle without the permission of Moses, and without the aron kodesh, and they are massacred by Amalekites and Canaanites (Numbers 14:40-45).

We understand the power of the Holy Ark, but why is its military function mentioned here, when the people are not marching into battle, and why are these verses demarcated by characters that look like inverted letters nun? 

Today we use these two verses to bracket the Torah service, singing the first as we remove the scroll, and the second as we return it to the ark. We imagine that the Lord of Israel is marching along with us. Not into battle, but in a royal procession which adds majesty to the Torah service. Psalm 24, which we recite when returning the Torah on weekdays and holidays, functions in a similar fashion. God is on the move, and God’s movement inspires awe and celebration. But moving through the world can be a challenge, as 40 years of complaints in the desert well illustrates. Taking the Torah along is an Israelite strategy for success. Still, why are these verses bracketed off in the Torah? 

The inverted nun is called נו”ן מנוזרת‎ “isolated nun” or נו”ן הפוכה‎ “inverted nun” and indicates that something is amiss in the text. This is the only location in the Masoretic Text of the Bible where inverted nuns appear, but they are also found in the Septuagint and Qumran texts. What do they mean?

In Midrash Sifrei BeMidbar (84:1) Rabbi Shimon says that these marks before and after the passage indicate that the verses are in the wrong place:

 ר’ שמעון אומר: נקוד עליו מלמעלה ומלמטה, מפני שלא היה זה מקומו.

Rabbi Shimon says, the marks above and below [this passage] are because this was not the [original] placement.

A similar statement is found in Avot D’Rabbi Natan (A 34):

רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר ראויה היתה פרשה זו שתעקר ממקומה ותכתב במקום אחר.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, this passage should be removed from its place and written somewhere else.

Ancient Greek texts have a similar sign known as an antisigma which looks like a backwards sigma or C [Ͻ] and is used as a bracket to indicate when lines of poetry are out of place. According to Rabbi Shimon, that’s the case here as well. Something is out of place. But what is off here? Our parashah narrates the march of Israel into the desert, so why not mention the role of the ark? 

In the Talmud (B. Shabbat 116a) we hear again that this passage was removed from its original location. The rabbis reveal their theory of the proper place: the description of the tribal flags about which we read just above (and also in Numbers, Ch. 2). The Torah says over there (v.34), כֵּֽן־חָנ֤וּ לְדִגְלֵיהֶם֙ וְכֵ֣ן נָסָ֔עוּ, that the tribes encamped by their flags, and so did they march. The rabbinic theory of proper location of these verses is plausible, but why then were the verses moved? 

According to the Talmud, the verses were uprooted and placed into our parashah for a special purpose–to break up two accounts of puranut, or suffering. What accounts of suffering are broken up in our portion? In v.34 we read that the people of Israel traveled from the mountain of the Lord–וַיִּסְעוּ מֵהַר ה׳. And then at their very first stop, the people complained bitterly, and God sent a fire that burned the edge of camp, וַתִּבְעַר־בָּם֙ אֵ֣שׁ ה’ וַתֹּ֖אכַל בִּקְצֵ֥ה הַֽמַּחֲנֶֽה. 

“Traveling from the mountain of the Lord” sounds like a neutral start to their journey, but some interpreters find fault with Israel. Ramban says that they gladly rushed from the mountain like schoolchildren fleeing before the teacher could assign them more homework. [Note 2]

I’d suggest a more charitable reading of puranut, following its more common usage as suffering. Turning away from Sinai, the place where they had encamped and learned so much Torah was painful for the people. And so too was arriving at their next encampment, an unfamiliar location. Relocating is difficult, and so this passage comes to reassure Israel that they are not alone, that the Torah is traveling with them and will help them find their way. 

This explanation of the inverted nuns means that the Torah text has been sundered and rearranged, edited. How does this rearrangement change the nature of the Torah? In Midrash Sifrei Bemidbar, Rabbi Judah the Prince makes a bold claim.[Note 3] He says that these two bracketed verses constitute a book unto themselves:

רבי אומר: מפני שהוא ספר בעצמו.

If Rabbi Judah is to be believed, then the relocation of these verses breaks the book of Numbers into three parts, meaning that there are no longer five books of Torah, but seven. [Note 4] This miniature book–two verses in total, only 85 characters long–is dedicated to a small but essential subject–when to travel, and when to rest. It acknowledges the anxiety of dislocation, and the importance of taking the Torah with you to provide direction and protection on your path.

That’s the argument for seven books of Torah. What would suggest that there are only three? Again, there is a literary clue, though this one is more subtle. In the fourth aliyah we read that when the divine cloud rested on the tabernacle, the people would encamp, and when the cloud rose off the tabernacle, that was their signal to hit the road again. If this passage sounds familiar, good, because we have heard it before, at the very end of the book of Exodus, chapter 40. 

Modern Bible scholars call this literary device an inclusio. It is a way of saying that everything in between the repeated texts is one unit. What a long and rich unit! That means that the entire book of Leviticus and the first quarter of Numbers is bracketed off from the rest of the Torah. We might expand the bracket even a bit further, back to Exodus, Chapter 19. That is when the people of Israel arrive at the foot of Mt Sinai, in the third month since the Exodus. They don’t move again until 57 chapters later, in Numbers, Chapter 10. 

If so, then we may divide the Torah into three sections: 

• Early Travels: From Eden to Sinai [Genesis 1-Exodus 18]
• Instruction at Sinai [Exodus 19-Numbers 9]
• Later Travels: From Sinai to The Land [Numbers 10-End of Deuteronomy]

The first third of the Torah is rich in travel narrative and builds a mythic history for the people of Israel. But it is relatively poor in providing useful information for how to live later as an Israelite or a Jew. 

The final-third of the Torah, consisting of Numbers 10 until the end of Deuteronomy, is again a travelogue. We read about Israel’s later travels: 40 years of bickering in the desert, leading finally to arrival at the border of Jericho and the promised land. Many laws are discussed in the final third of the Torah, but they are mostly repeats of what we have already learned. The third-third of Torah is dedicated to the bumpy road from the sacred mountain to the sacred land. 

But then there is the middle third of Torah, and here the focus is on how to live together as a people in covenant with God. The Revelation at Sinai, the construction of the tabernacle, and the entire complex of priestly legislation–sacrifices, purity, ethical codes and the festive calendar–all of this information and more was revealed during their stable period at the base of Mt. Sinai. 

And how long was that momentous sojourn? Apparently just under one year, since Exodus 19 says that they arrived in the third month of the first year, and Numbers 10:11 says that they departed in the second month of the second year on the 20th day, the cloud lifted from the tabernacle of testimony, and off they went: וַיְהִ֞י בַּשָּׁנָ֧ה הַשֵּׁנִ֛ית בַּחֹ֥דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֖י בְּעֶשְׂרִ֣ים בַּחֹ֑דֶשׁ נַעֲלָה֙ הֶֽעָנָ֔ן מֵעַ֖ל מִשְׁכַּ֥ן הָעֵדֻֽת׃. 

The heart of the Torah is found in the middle third, the extended encampment at the foot of Mt Sinai, the place where the people of Israel became covenantal partners with God. Having accomplished this transformation, it is time for them to travel on. As Moses later recalls in Deuteronomy (1:6), God spoke to Israel at Horeb and said, “enough time dwelling on this mountain” רַב־לָכֶ֥ם שֶׁ֖בֶת בָּהָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה׃. And so the people of Israel moved on, taking the Torah with them, and the journey of Judaism to become a world religion began.

The Torah contains five books, but they may be divided into as many as seven and as few as three sections. It’s confusing perhaps, but then isn’t it always difficult to discern the periods of our lives? How many have there been and how many remain? What are the through lines? What departures are permanent, and which are round trips? In retrospect we can often understand the chapters of our lives, but even that takes interpretive effort. 

Sometimes we plan our journeys with great intention and care. Other times it is as if the cloud has lifted up and beckoned us to follow. We all crave agency and control, but the spirit of adventure, of traveling without knowing exactly where and for how long, is also compelling. Sometimes a passage of Torah must relocate to fulfill a new need. And sometimes we too must move to serve a new purpose. Still, marks remain like the inverted nuns of our parashah to remind us of our history, and to help us find our way back. 

Lynn and I first joined Minyan Ma’at in 1992 and stayed for two years while I finished rabbinical school. We then left for Michigan–who knew for how long? Thirteen years later we came back with three children, and it has been 19 years now as part of this wonderful minyan. 

We have learned much here in this place of Torah, and we are grateful to all of you and also to many others who are not here today, for making this minyan a deep and welcoming place to live our Judaism. We are changed and improved by the encampment here and we will take the Torah of this place on our journey forward. And so the cloud has lifted, and seems to be leading us to a cloudy land. For how long we don’t exactly know. Still, we do not travel alone, but accompanied by the friendship of this community, and that gives us strength and joy. Thank you, friends. Shabbat shalom, u’lehitraot.

Notes: