(לה) ׆ וַיְהִ֛י בִּנְסֹ֥עַ הָאָרֹ֖ן וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֑ה קוּמָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֗ה וְיָפֻ֙צוּ֙ אֹֽיְבֶ֔יךָ וְיָנֻ֥סוּ מְשַׂנְאֶ֖יךָ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ׃ (לו) וּבְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ ׆ {פ}
(35) When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say:
Advance, O יהוה !
May Your enemies be scattered,
And may Your foes flee before You!
(36) And when it halted, he would say:
Return, O יהוה,
You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!
Shabbat 115b:
And The Holy One, Blessed be He, made signs in the Torah for this portion, above and below, i.e., before and after it, in order to say that this is not its place, as the previous portion does not discuss the nation’s travels.
(1) יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Have two silver trumpets made; make them of hammered work. They shall serve you to summon [military bodies of] the community and to set the divisions in motion. (3) When both are blown in long blasts, the whole company [of fighters] shall assemble before you at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; (4) and if only one is blown, the chieftains, heads of Israel’s contingents, shall assemble before you. (5) But when you sound short blasts, the divisions encamped on the east shall move forward; (6) and when you sound short blasts a second time, those encamped on the south shall move forward. Thus short blasts shall be blown for setting them in motion,... (9) When you are at war in your land against an aggressor who attacks you, you shall sound short blasts on the trumpets, that you may be remembered before your God יהוה and be delivered from your enemies. ... (11) In the second year, on the twentieth day of the second month, the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle of the Pact (12) and the Israelites set out on their journeys from the wilderness of Sinai. The cloud came to rest in the wilderness of Paran. (13) When the march was to begin, at יהוה’s command through Moses, (14) the first standard to set out, troop by troop, was the division of Judah. In command of its troops was Nahshon son of Amminadab;
[the tribes are listed in order, with their respective leaders]...
(28) Such was the order of march of the Israelites, as they marched troop by troop. .....
(33) They marched from the mountain of יהוה a distance of three days. The Ark of the Covenant of יהוה traveled in front of them on that three days’ journey to seek out a resting place for them; (34) and יהוה’s cloud kept above them by day, as they moved on from camp.
Shabbat 115b:
As it was taught in a baraita that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: In the future, this portion will be uprooted from here, where it appears, and will be written in its proper place.
(ג) רבבות. מתיבות חסרות בי״ת כמו כי ששת ימים עשה ה׳
(3) רבבות אלפי ישראל, “unto the tens of thousands of families of Israel.” The expression means that Moses wished for the Presence of the glory of the Lord to be manifest in the midst of the tens of thousands of families comprising the Jewish people. רבבות, this is one of the words that loses the prefix letter ב, such as we find the first time already in Exodus 31,17: כי ששת ימים, which we would have expected to be: כי בששת ימים, “for during six days.”
Shabbat 115b:
Rather, the signs are there because this portion is considered a book unto itself..... It is according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, as by his count there are seven books of the Torah: Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers until: “And when the Ark traveled”; the portion: “And when the Ark traveled,” which is considered its own book; the remainder of Numbers; and Deuteronomy.
אִיבַּעְיָא לְהוּ: הַגִּלְיוֹנִין שֶׁל סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה, מַצִּילִין אוֹתָן מִפְּנֵי הַדְּלֵיקָה אוֹ אֵין מַצִּילִין אוֹתָן מִפְּנֵי הַדְּלֵיקָה? תָּא שְׁמַע: סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה שֶׁבָּלָה, אִם יֵשׁ בּוֹ לְלַקֵּט שְׁמוֹנִים וְחָמֵשׁ אוֹתִיּוֹת, כְּגוֹן פָּרָשַׁת ״וַיְהִי בִּנְסוֹעַ הָאָרוֹן״ — מַצִּילִין, וְאִם לָאו אֵין מַצִּילִין.
A dilemma was raised before the Sages: With regard to the blank folios of parchment of a Torah scroll, does one rescue them from the fire on Shabbat, or does one not rescue them from the fire? Come and hear a resolution to this from that which we learned: With regard to a Torah scroll that is worn, if there is enough in it to compile eighty-five complete letters as in the portion of: “And when the Ark traveled,” one rescues it from the fire, and if not one does not rescue it.
Shabbat 116a
And why was it written here, even though it discusses the travels of the children of Israel, and the portion before it does not? It is in order to demarcate between the first punishment and the second punishment. What is the second punishment that appears immediately afterward? It is the verse: “And the people complained wickedly in God’s ears, and God heard and became angry, and the fire of God burned in them and it consumed the edge of the camp” (Numbers 11:1). What is the first punishment? It is the verse: “And they traveled from the mountain of God [mehar Hashem] for three days” (Numbers 10:33), and Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: That they turned from after God [me’aḥarei Hashem] and hurriedly fled Mount Sinai.
[As] found in the Agadah, that “they set forward from Mount Sinai with joy, just like a child who runs away from school, saying: ‘Perhaps He will give us more commandments [if we stay]!” This is the first “punishment” [i.e., the first sin, as explained further on], and then He interrupted [with the section on the ark] in order that there should not be three punishments one after the other, so that it would have established a basis for further punishment. He called the [first] sin “punishment” even though no actual punishment occurred to them because of it, [but since they deserved to have been punished, it is called a “punishment”]. Perhaps were it not for this sin of theirs He would have brought them into the Land immediately [and so there was indeed a “punishment”].
Q: What sense do you have at this moment as to what the future holds for the Israelites?
Q: What is curious about these sentences? Do they fit the narrative?