IN THE WILDERNESS

בס"ד
10 Sivan


I remember reading the Bible when I was 7 years old. I was one of those nerdy kids who would do that in their spare time - read the Bible, read encyclopaedias. In fact, that's how I taught myself the Hebrew Alefbet. Studying the letters & drawing them out from the "H" volume of our New Book of Knowledge set.

We're now in Sefer B'midbar. "In the Wilderness", as the English translation of my childhood read. I recall so many instances where the Israelites complained to Moses & cried out to G@d. There was no water. There was no food. They were lost.
I remember wondering how anyone could complain about being in the wilderness. I would love to live in the wilderness. It was the best place on Earth.
I'm a native British Columbian, so my idea of "wilderness" was forests of huge pine, spruce, cedar & fir. Streams, moss, mushrooms & flowers. There was salmon to catch, roots to dig & berries to harvest. Lakes to swim in. I envisioned the Israelites having something of a Grizzly Adams experience.

It wasn't until I was older that I realized that "wilderness" in the Middle East means "desert".
Ah. Now I see their problem.

The letters of midbar, Mem-Dalet-Bet-Reysh, means pasture-ground, waste-land, prairie. Midbari means "barren, arid, wild", while midbariyut means "desolation".
But the gematria of midbar is 246, which is the same as that of "vision", "sight" or "aspect", mar'ah (as in mar'it ayin). Mirror.

The morning before the get I ran a bath for myself in the beautiful & huge clawfoot tub that came with my room at the B&B in Olympia. As the room filled with steam, the antique mirror magically revealed the shape of a joyful, heady, freely dancing woman.
From the left:


From the right:


From straight on:


I have no idea how she got there. But there she was.
Like the Israelites, as we journey through life's midbarim, may we remember that there are resources to be found; & when they aren't apparent, may we be granted the faith that we can rely on G@d.




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