"Would that the entire people of God could be prophets, if God would but place His spirit upon them (Numbers 11:29)." Harvard psychologist and author of "Stumbling on Happiness," Daniel Gilbert, would describe Moses' wish (and probably Aaron's as described by Rashi at the beginning of the portion), as his "Big Wombassa."

Our scene begins with Moses in despair as he, "heard the people weeping in their family groups, each one at the entrance of his tent (Verse 10)." "Have I conceived all this people? Have I given them birth, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse bears the nursing child,' to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep to me, saying, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You do this to me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your eyes, and do not let me see my misery (12-14)."

"Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, that they may take a stand there with you. And I will come down, and I will speak with you there, and I will take of the spirit which is on you and will put it on them, and they will bear the burden of the people with you, and you will not bear it by yourself (16-17)."

God came down in a cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him, and gave it to the seventy elders, and when the spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but did not do it again. Two men remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other, Medad. And the spirit rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran and told Moses and said, "Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp."

Then Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, answered and said, "My lord Moses, forbid them (26-28)."

It was at this moment that Moses expressed his big Wombassa, "Would that the entire people of God could be prophets, if God would but place His spirit upon them," and where we can consider John Brockman's addition in "Thinking,""What you think you're going to get, and what you don't get, when you get what you want."

We have seventy sages prophesizing, we know not what, before the Tabernacle, and Eldad and Medad prophesizing in the camp that, "Moses will die, and Joshua will bring Israel into the Land," and Moses wishes for the entire nation to be granted the gift of prophecy! It seems that Golda Meir answered our questions about Moses' wish when, explaining to Richard Nixon that her job as prime minister of Israel was more difficult than his as president of the US, she said, "You are the leader of two hundred million citizens, but I am the leader of two-and-a-half million prime ministers!" Was Moses' wombassa for conflict?

Perhaps, it was.

Evolutionary biologist David Haig, when writing of intrapersonal conflicts, explains that even at the level of genetics, even at the level of the conflict between the genes you get from your mother and those you get from your father, madumnal and padumnal genes, there are opponent relations. I find it fascinating that the names of our two renegade prophets, the same prophets about whom Moses wishes for all the same level of prophecy, Eldad, "to the breast," and Medad, "from the breast," allude to conflict. "Moses will die - from the breast, and Joshua will bring Israel into the Land - to the breast."

Moses understands that a nation about to enter the Land of Israel, and, no longer living in a concentrated camp, about to settle a country, will have conflict. People will have different goals, different values, and different visions. "If God would but place His spirit upon them." God's spirit is infinite, each individual would have only a finite part of that infinite spirit, and conflict is inevitable and desirable.

Even the work Moses did with the Seventy Sages led to conflict! "And Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel. Now a wind from God started up, and it swept quail from the sea and let them fall beside the camp... And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail... While the meat was between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of God burned against the people, and God struck the people with a very great slaughter (30-33)." And the people managed to move on, "The people journeyed from Kibroth Hattaavah to Hazeroth, and they camped at Hazeroth (35)." They camped in Hazeroth, as in courtyards, or, in Rabbinic terminology, different domains.

"Would that the entire people of God could be prophets, if God would but place His spirit upon them," was Moses' wombassa for a nation able to readily move between multiple domains because of their madumnal and padumnal, Eldad and Medad conflicts, each accessing his part of the Infinite Spirit of God, and finding his place.

Ours is a portion about moving between worlds,  "And it was, when the ark set out, that Moses said,

'Rise up, God,

    and let Your enemies be scattered,

    and let them that hate You flee before You.'

 And when it rested, he said,

'Return, God,

    to the multitude of thousands of Israel' (10:35-36)."

Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg 

President 
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