Author: Hollisa Alewine

Bullet points from the Four Winds:

These Torah portions are always timed to bookend the moed of Shavuot.  The opening verse of the text associates it with Sinai in the wilderness, the place where the Torah was given.
With the Mishkan built, now the tribes are counted for organizing into their boundaries for camping, movement, judgment, and for war.  Their tribal blessings or clan (Leviim) attributes will influence their arrangement.
According to the Midrash, the arrangement was rectangular.  The kohanim, families of Moses* and Aaron, camped close to the entrance of the Mishkan on the east side. The other clans of Levites camped north, west, and south a farther distance from the Mishkan.
Outside the Levites were the twelve tribes, and each of the four “corners” were given to livestock (hint-hint).
The clouds of glory surrounded the Camp on all four sides.  The wilderness asks the question:  “Are you ownerless like the midbar?”
The wilderness specifically tests for pride.  It’s a pre-Jerusalem, pre-Garden step.  It’s an “in-between” place between salvation and elevation.  A saved human being must disentangle himself/herself from dependence upon the previous Egyptian serpent/multi-beast owner and their systems: government, economic, agricultural, sports, medicine, literature, music, etc.  We covered this in the ”History of the Beast.”  Dependence shifts to the Holy One of Israel.