Bamidbar before Shavuot: What Do We Really Want?

There is a longstanding custom that Parshat Bamidbar is read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Shavuot. Various explanations are offered for this connection, but one of the most striking is also one of the simplest.

The Torah was given in a desert.

Not in a great city, not in a fertile or comfortable place, not in the center of civilization, but in a barren wilderness — a place empty of distraction, empty of security, empty of everything except the encounter between Klal Yisrael and the Ribbono Shel Olam.

Chazal see something deeply significant in that setting. Torah can only truly be acquired, they teach, by one who is willing to make himself like a Midbar — a place not crowded with competing obsessions and endless noise. The desert represents a stripping away of distractions, dependencies, and competing preoccupations, a willingness to stand exposed before something greater than oneself.

And perhaps, as we prepare for Shavuot, that raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: What do we really want?

Not what we officially believe in, or publicly identify with, or dutifully perform — but what actually occupies the center of our emotional lives? What are we moving toward instinctively, naturally, when no one is forcing us?

At the beginning of Parshat Bechukotai, the Torah speaks about blessing flowing from a life shaped by Torah. Rashi famously explains the phrase “Im Bechukosai Telechu” as “Sheteheyu Ameilim Batorah” — that we should labor in Torah.

This is not limited — as it is often understood in the classic yeshivish sense — to expending great intellectual effort to understand a difficult Tosfos. Indeed, a few lines later, Rashi explains that this labor exists “al menas lishmor u’lekayem” — in order to observe and fulfill the Torah. Torah is not meant merely to pass through the intellect. It is meant to shape the heart, the instincts, and ultimately the desires of a person.

From Obligation to Desire

There is a profound difference between doing something because we must and doing it because we are drawn toward it.

A person can daven because the halachah obligates him to daven, all the while glancing impatiently at the clock. Another person can approach tefillah as the most precious part of the day, as a chance to step away from the noise of life and stand before Hashem. Externally, they may appear to be doing the same thing. Internally, they are inhabiting completely different worlds.

The same is true of Torah itself. One person learns because that is what religious Jews are supposed to do. Another learns because Torah has become the place his soul naturally wants to go.

The Ohr HaChaim offers a remarkable insight into the words “Im bechukosai telechu.” He connects them to the verse in Tehillim in which David HaMelech says, “Chishavti derachai va’ashivah raglai el eidosecha” — “I considered my paths, and my feet returned me to Your testimonies.” Chazal describe David as sometimes believing he was headed elsewhere entirely, only to discover that his feet had instinctively carried him to the Beit Midrash.

It is a beautiful image. Torah had become so deeply woven into his being that it no longer felt external to him. It was not simply an obligation imposed from outside. It had become his natural gravitational pull.

Perhaps that is what Chazal mean by ameilus baTorah. Not merely working hard at Torah, but internalizing it so deeply that in everything one does, one’s inner world begins moving one toward Torah on its own.

And that brings us directly back to Shavuot.

We stay awake not because exhaustion is holy, but because longing is holy

One of the best-known customs of Shavuot is to remain awake throughout the night learning Torah. Chazal explain that this serves as a tikkun for the generation that stood at Har Sinai, who, according to the Midrash, went to sleep the night before Matan Torah and had to be awakened by Moshe Rabbeinu.

At first glance, the criticism seems difficult to understand. Human beings need sleep. Why is this viewed as a failing?

But perhaps the issue was not sleep itself. The issue was anticipation.

A kallah does not sleep indifferently the night before her wedding. There is excitement, longing, emotional readiness. One senses that something life-changing is about to occur.

And so every year, before we once again stand at Sinai, we attempt to demonstrate not merely commitment to Torah, but eagerness for Torah. We stay awake not because exhaustion is holy, but because longing is holy.

The tikkun of Shavuot is not merely to remain awake learning Torah through the night. It is to become the kind of Jews who cannot easily sleep because Torah matters to us that much.

This idea appears again in a different form in the story of the Meraglim.

The Maggid Meishorim, attributed to the Malach who regularly revealed himself to the Beit Yosef, asks a fascinating question. If Hashem had already promised Bnei Yisrael that Eretz Yisrael was good, why send spies at all? And why did Moshe instruct them to examine whether the country was good or bad, or whether the fruit was beautiful?

Had Hashem not already promised them, back in Egypt and repeatedly thereafter, that it was a beautiful and abundant land? What difference should any of that have made?

The mission of the meraglim was not to investigate Eretz Yisrael. It was meant to cultivate love for Eretz Yisrael.

The answer he suggested is profound. Moshe was not gathering military intelligence. He was trying to awaken longing. He was, as it were, winking at them: Go see what a wonderful land it is! See its beauty! Experience its goodness! I want you to return and speak about it in a way that will make the people yearn to enter it.

The mission of the meraglim was not to investigate Eretz Yisrael. It was meant to cultivate love for Eretz Yisrael.

And that, perhaps, was their deepest failure.

Rav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal חי"ד developed this idea with extraordinary emotional force in Eim HaBonim Semeichah. Writing during the horrors of the Holocaust, after rethinking many of the assumptions with which he had grown up, Rav Teichtal returned again and again to one painful realization: Jews had become too comfortable in the Galut.

For centuries we prayed for Eretz Yisrael, cried over Eretz Yisrael, spoke passionately about Eretz Yisrael — yet our desire to return was often more theoretical than real, for we had grown too comfortable where we were to go there now.

He compared this to the generation that slept on the night before Matan Torah. If Chazal believed that a lack of visible anticipation for Torah required a tikkun for all generations, how much more so must we repair the failure to cultivate genuine longing for Eretz Yisrael.

His words are especially powerful because he himself never merited reaching the Land. He wrote with urgency, heartbreak, and longing, trying desperately to awaken Jews to the gift standing before them, but he was murdered before he could arrive.

Preparing for Shavuot Means Preparing the Heart

Perhaps that is part of what genuine preparation for Shavuot demands from us.

Not merely more learning, but deeper longing.

Parshat Bamidbar reminds us that the Torah was given in a wilderness, in a place stripped of distractions and competing loyalties. To receive Torah fully requires more than observance alone. It requires a willingness to let Torah become central — not merely something we fit into our lives, but something around which our lives begin to revolve.

The question, ultimately, is not only whether we are keeping Torah, but whether our hearts are moving toward it. Whether Torah has become a place to which we naturally gravitate; whether mitzvot feel merely obligatory or deeply precious; whether the things that are holy still occupy the center of our emotional lives.

Because the strongest and most enduring forms of Jewish life are rarely sustained by obligation alone. They are sustained by learning, slowly and sincerely, to desire the right things.

Lag BaOmer Is Over. So Why Are We Still Mourning?

 Lag BaOmer has come and gone.

The bonfires have burned out, the music has faded, and for a brief moment, the heavy customs of mourning that accompany the weeks of S’firas HaOmer lifted. Weddings resumed, haircuts were taken, and there was a palpable sense of relief.

And yet, for many communities, the mourning has now quietly returned.

Which raises a simple but surprisingly profound question: If Lag BaOmer marks the end of tragedy – if it commemorates the day when the talmidim of Rabbi Akiva stopped dying – then why do so many continue to observe mourning even after the day has passed?

The most straightforward answer is technical. Since the month of Nisan is a time of joy, during which mourning practices are avoided, some communities simply shift the 33 days of mourning to the period after Nisan. In that sense, what we are experiencing now is a kind of “make-up” period.

But that explanation, while correct, feels incomplete. It tells us how the calendar works, but not why this second custom took hold with such persistence and emotional weight, or why it was so important to have a full 33 days of mourning of those talmidim.

To understand that, we have to look beyond the familiar story of Rabbi Akiva’s students and consider another, less frequently discussed chapter of Jewish history – one that unfolded many centuries later, but left a mark deep enough to reshape our calendar.

During the First Crusade in 1096, Jewish communities across the Rhineland – cities like Speyer, Worms, and Mainz – were devastated. As the Crusaders made their way toward the Holy Land, they turned their fury on the Jewish populations they encountered along the way.

The choice they offered was brutally simple: Convert or die.

Entire communities chose to die.  Families gathered in synagogues. Parents and children stood together. And rather than abandon their faith, they accepted being burned to death al kiddush Hashem. These massacres took place specifically during the weeks of Iyar – the very period we are now in.

Their memory did not remain confined to historical record. It entered our liturgy, most notably in the t’filah of Av HaRachamim, recited on Shabbos, and in the Kinos of Tish’ah B’Av. And in certain communities, it reshaped the observance of S’firas HaOmer itself, giving rise to the custom of continued mourning after Lag BaOmer.

This introduces a striking contrast.

The deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s talmidim, as they are commonly understood, are often associated – at least in some traditions – with a moment of national struggle, possibly connected to the Bar Kochba revolt. That was a story of visible heroism: Jews fighting for independence, attempting to reclaim their place in history, even at enormous cost.  It was the last gasp of an attempt to fight for national independence, ending in a heroic but terrible disaster.

The Crusades tell a very different story.

There were no organized revolts, no armies rising in defiance. And yet, in their refusal to abandon their faith, those communities showed a courage no less real – only far less visible. It was the courage of endurance rather than action, of unwavering faith rather than open resistance.

People often celebrate one kind of heroism over another. Even in remembering the Holocaust, some chose to honor only those who fought back, while feeling embarrassed by those who “went like sheep to the slaughter.” They failed to see that many who did not resist made a conscious, heartbreaking choice: to avoid provoking even greater brutality, to stay with their terrified families rather than escape alone. Figures like Rav Elchonon Wasserman Hy”d embodied this quiet heroism, returning from America to stand with his students and community, helping them find the strength to face their fate together.

The fighter, the rebel, the one who takes up arms: that image is vivid, dramatic, easy to recognize. But Jewish history has never rested on a single form of strength.

The quiet decision to remain, to endure, to hold fast to one’s identity even in the face of certain death – that, too, is heroism, expressed in a different but no less profound way.

The quiet decision to remain, to endure, to hold fast to one’s identity even in the face of certain death – that, too, is heroism, expressed in a different but no less profound way.

And it is here that the figure most closely associated with Lag BaOmer – Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai – offers a deeper lens through which to understand both forms of courage.

The Gemara describes how, after years of elevated, secluded immersion in the deepest secrets of Torah, Rabbi Shimon emerged from the cave unable to tolerate the ordinary world. People engaged in mundane work – plowing, planting, earning a living – seemed to him to be missing the point entirely. His instinctive response was rejection.

But after returning to the cave and emerging once more, he saw something he had not been able to see before.

A simple Jew, running just before Shabbos, carrying two small bundles of myrtle: one for Zachor and one for Shamor.

This time, Rabbi Shimon did not dismiss him. He marveled: “See how beloved the mitzvos are to Israel.”

Nothing in the world outside had changed. What changed was the ability to see beneath the surface – to recognize the holiness embedded in the ordinary, the devotion expressed not in dramatic acts but in simple, faithful gestures.

Nothing in the world outside had changed. What changed was the ability to see beneath the surface

Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of this extended period of mourning.

Lag BaOmer does mark a turning point, but not an ending. It reminds us that Jewish history contains multiple layers – moments of visible struggle and moments of hidden greatness, acts of defiance and acts of quiet faith.

When some communities continue mourning beyond Lag BaOmer, they are not ignoring its message; they are expanding it.

They are reminding us that the story of the Jewish people cannot be reduced to a single narrative of strength. It includes the battlefield and the synagogue, the public act and the private sacrifice, the heroism that makes history and the heroism that sustains identity.

And perhaps, in a world that so often measures strength only by what can be seen, that is a message we still need to hear.

Lag BaOmer may be behind us. But what it teaches – about how to see, how to remember, and how to understand courage – is very much still unfolding.

Published in the May 6 edition of the Queens Jewish Link

The Issac Covenant: No Longer in the Jacob Exile

Behar–Bechukotai and the Meaning of Our Moment

In Parashat Behar–Bechukotai, we encounter one of the most sobering passages in the Torah—the Tochacha, the description of exile, suffering, and dislocation that has shaped so much of Jewish history. But suddenly, the Torah pivots from devastation to memory, from curse to covenant:

“Then will I remember My covenant with Yaakov; I will remember also My covenant with Yitzchak, and also My covenant with Avraham; and I will remember the land.” (Vayikra 26:42)

It is a familiar verse. But upon closer reflection, it is deeply puzzling.

Why the reverse order? Why begin with Yaakov and move backward to Avraham?

And why does the Torah speak of three separate covenants—“My covenant with Yaakov… My covenant with Yitzchak… My covenant with Avraham”—rather than presenting them as a single unified legacy?

Three Covenants

As Rav Hirsch explains, this is not merely a reference to three individuals, but to three distinct historical stages—three different modes through which the Jewish people live out their covenantal existence in the world.

For much of our history, we have lived in the world of Yaakov. It was a world defined by endurance: exile, vulnerability, and dependence on forces beyond our control. Like Yaakov preparing to meet Esav, we learned to navigate reality through a careful balance of prayer, diplomacy, and restraint. We bowed when necessary—not because we lacked dignity, but because survival demanded it. That long era forged a people of extraordinary spiritual resilience, a people who carried Torah through darkness with unwavering faith.

But the Torah in Bechukotai hints that this is not the final stage.

Between Yaakov and Avraham stands Yitzchak—often the least discussed of the Avot, but nevertheless the most relevant to us. Yitzchak’s life does not unfold in dramatic journeys or sweeping transformations. Instead, it takes place in a quieter but more complex reality. He is not celebrated like Avraham, but not beset with difficulties and torment like Yaakov. He is successful, prosperous, and firmly established—and at the same time, envied and resented.

It is difficult to ignore how precisely this reflects our present moment.

He builds, he plants, he develops—and again and again he is pushed back by those around him. He is told to leave because he has become too strong. His neighbors do not love him, but neither is he subject to them. And in the end, those same neighbors come to him and acknowledge what they cannot deny: that his success reflects something greater than himself.

Yitzchak is not embraced.  But yet he stands strong.

It is difficult to ignore how precisely this reflects our present moment.

For the first time in nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people are no longer merely surviving history—we are participating in it, shaping it in visible and consequential ways. The return to the Land of Israel, the establishment and defense of the State, the rebuilding of Torah life on an unprecedented scale both in Israel and the Diaspora, and the emergence of Jewish strength and influence throughout the world — all of this represents a fundamental shift in Jewish existence.

And yet, alongside this extraordinary blessing, something deeply familiar persists. The nations do not relate to us with the acceptance we might hope for. Instead, we encounter suspicion, criticism, and at times open hostility — often wildly disproportionate to reality. The more visible our success becomes, the more it seems to provoke reaction.

In recent months, as Israel has been forced once again to defend itself under intense global scrutiny, we have seen this pattern play out with striking clarity — military necessity met with moral accusation, self-defense recast as aggression, and a world quick to judge yet slow to understand.

This is not a contradiction. It The Age of Yitzchak.

A Different Kind of Exile Has Ended

One of the great dangers of our time is that we may continue to think and respond as though we are still living in the world of Yaakov. The instinct is understandable. It has been ingrained over centuries. If we explain ourselves better, soften our tone, and be sufficiently careful and conciliatory, perhaps we will be accepted. Perhaps the hostility will subside.

But both history and Torah suggest otherwise. The strategies of Yaakov were not mistakes — they were necessities. They allowed us to survive when survival itself was uncertain. But they were suited to a particular reality. To continue operating exclusively within that framework when the underlying conditions have changed is not humility — it is a failure to recognize the nature of the moment Hashem has placed us in.

It is true that within the Torah world, there have been different reactions and attitudes toward the State of Israel and toward contemporary events. Among the Gedolim and leaders, some have rejected any recognition of the State as a positive force in Jewish history. Others have embraced it as a great privilege, even as the beginning of redemption. Most have taken positions somewhere between those poles.  It is not my place to take sides in that debate.

But it is very clear that Rav Hirsch, at least, understood that a time would come in which the old patterns of Jewish response to the nations around us would no longer apply in the same way. He envisioned a stage in which the Jewish people would no longer be defined solely by weakness and exile, but would have to navigate a reality of relative strength, prosperity, and visibility—while remaining faithful to their unique mission.

Rav Hirsch was not a proponent of secular nationalism. But everything we know about his thought suggests that had he lived to see our time, he would have recognized that we have arrived—far more clearly than in his own nineteenth-century Germany—at the stage he described as the Covenant of Yitzchak. The limited opening of the ghettos in his day, which he cautiously interpreted as a possible transition, pales in comparison to the transformation we are witnessing now.

This recognition carries with it both privilege and responsibility.

The Covenant of Yitzchak is not a celebration of power for its own sake. Yitzchak’s strength is never detached from an awareness of its source. His success points beyond himself. That awareness is what defines him.

So too in our time. The ability of the Jewish people—and of the State of Israel—to endure, to defend itself, and at times to prevail against overwhelming odds is not merely a geopolitical fact. It reflects a level of Divine assistance that is difficult to ignore. To recognize that is not a retreat from strength—it is what gives that strength meaning.

At the same time, to ignore the responsibility that accompanies this moment would be equally problematic. For centuries, Jewish life was largely reactive. We responded to what was imposed upon us. Today, we are called upon to be proactive—to build, to shape, and to define what Jewish life looks like not only in private, but in the public sphere of history.
That is a far more demanding challenge.

The Courage to Live as Yitzchak

It requires not only faith, but confidence. Not only resilience, but clarity. It requires the ability to stand without apology, while remaining deeply aware that our strength is not independent of the One who sustains it.

The trajectory outlined in Bechukotai does not end with Yitzchak. It moves forward toward Avraham—a stage in which the Jewish people are not merely tolerated or even respected, but recognized as a source of blessing. That stage has not yet fully arrived. But the path toward it runs through the reality we are now living.

We are, it would seem, in the age of Yitzchak.

For those interested in exploring this idea more fully, I have written a series of essays developing what I have called the “Isaac Covenant,” tracing this theme through Torah sources and contemporary events (available on this blog, starting here).

To live in such a time is a privilege that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. To recognize it, to understand its demands, and to respond to it with both strength and humility—that is the challenge before us.

Even after the darkest chapters of exile, the covenant does not simply restore us to what we once were. It moves us forward, stage by stage, toward what we are meant to become.

Our task is to recognize where we stand—and to have the courage to stand there fully.

This article was published in the May 8, 2026 edition of the Jewish Press