(ז) וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי (במדבר א, א), לָמָּה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, מִכָּאן שָׁנוּ חֲכָמִים בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים נִתְּנָה הַתּוֹרָה, בָּאֵשׁ, וּבַמַּיִם, וּבַמִּדְבָּר. בָּאֵשׁ מִנַּיִן (שמות יט, יח): וְהַר סִינַי עָשַׁן כֻּלּוֹ וגו'. וּבַמַּיִם מִנַּיִן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שופטים ה, ד): גַּם שָׁמַיִם נָטָפוּ גַּם עָבִים נָטְפוּ מָיִם. וּבַמִּדְבָּר מִנַּיִן וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, וְלָמָּה נִתְּנָה בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, אֶלָּא מָה אֵלּוּ חִנָּם לְכָל בָּאֵי הָעוֹלָם כָּךְ דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה חִנָּם הֵם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה נה, א): הוֹי כָּל צָמֵא לְכוּ לַמַּיִם, דָּבָר אַחֵר, וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֶל משֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי, אֶלָּא כָּל מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה עַצְמוֹ כַּמִּדְבָּר, הֶפְקֵר, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לִקְנוֹת אֶת הַחָכְמָה וְהַתּוֹרָה, לְכָךְ נֶאֱמַר: בְּמִדְבַּר סִינָי.
(7) "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" (Numbers 1:1). Why the Sinai Wilderness? From here the sages taught that the Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness. How do we know it was given through fire? From Exodus 19:18: "And Mount Sinai was all in smoke as God had come down upon it in fire." How do we know it was given through water? As it says in Judges 5:4, "The heavens dripped and the clouds dripped water [at Sinai]." How do we know it was given through wilderness? [As it says above,] "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness." And why was the Torah given through these three things? Just as [fire, water, and wilderness] are free to all the inhabitants of the world, so too are the words of Torah free to them, as it says in Isaiah 55:1, "Oh, all who are thirsty, come for water... even if you have no money." Another explanation: "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" — Anyone who does not make themselves ownerless like the wilderness cannot acquire the wisdom and the Torah. Therefore it says, "the Sinai Wilderness."
ליה לא תיתיב אכרעך עד דאמרת לי פירושא דהדין מילתא מאי דכתיב (במדבר כא, יח) וממדבר מתנה וממתנה נחליאל ומנחליאל במות א"ל כיון שעושה אדם את עצמו כמדבר שהוא מופקר לכל תורה ניתנה לו במתנה שנאמר וממדבר מתנה
Rav Yosef said to Rava: Do not sit on your feet until you tell me the explanation of this matter: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And from the wilderness Mattana and from Mattana Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel Bamot” (Numbers 21:18–19)? Rava said to him that it means: Once a person renders himself like a wilderness, deserted before all, the Torah is given to him as a gift [mattana], as it is stated: “And from the wilderness Mattana.”
אמר רב מתנה מאי דכתיב (במדבר כא, יח) וממדבר מתנה אם משים אדם עצמו כמדבר זה שהכל דשין בו תלמודו מתקיים בידו ואם לאו אין תלמודו מתקיים בידו
Similarly, Rav Mattana said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “The well that the princes dug out, that the nobles of the people delved, with the scepter, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah” (Numbers 21:18)? If a person makes himself humble like this wilderness, which is open to all and upon which everyone treads, his Torah study will endure and be given to him as a gift [mattana]. And if not, his Torah study will not endure.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
Only when you are "like a wilderness" are you ready to have God's presence rest upon you and merit the light of Torah. "Like a wilderness" means that you have not yet been touched by human hands, that you have never been cultivated or planted, that you must rely on your own strength, as in the teaching, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" (Mishnah Avot 1:14)
(quoted in Itturei Torah [Hebrew], vol. 5, by Aharon Yaakov Greenberg [Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1996], p. 9). Source: Jeffrey W. Goldwasser, "Becoming a Wilderness"
Rabbi D. Shoham, in Itturei Torah
Another reason that the Torah portion of Bamidbar is always read right before Shavuot, the time of the giving of Torah: to teach you that if you want to merit receiving Torah, you must make yourself like the wilderness, to have a great measure of humility and to feel no reason for pride, to know that you are bare and lacking all, like the wilderness.
Source: https://www.jewishrecon.org/sites/default/files/resources/document/bamidbar-wilderness.pdf
Eitan Fishbane, "Becoming Like the Wilderness"
R. Bahya asks, restating an earlier midrashic teaching (Tanhuma, 6;
Bemidbar Rabbah, 1:7): why does the Torah emphasize God’s speech to
Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai ( בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי )? It was to teach that “a person
does not attain the Torah until they have made themselves empty and
abandoned like the wilderness” ( אין אדם קונה התורה עד שיעשה עצמו הפקר
כמדבר ) [commentary to Num. 1:1]. To receive the revelation of Torah—or
perhaps a bit less grandly, to let Torah take root in one’s heart—a person
must first make themselves into a midbar, an inner empty wilderness that is
cleared of all the weeds and brush that obstruct true perception and feeling. A
wilderness that returns to the first purity of nature.
Just as divine revelation and the Torah arise from the physical space of
wilderness, of midbar—at the burning bush and then at Mount Sinai—a heart
infused with divine Torah arises through a person’s mindful cultivation of
their own interior wilderness. One should seek to attain the level of hefker—of
feeling unbound by the pride and egoism of ownership, of being unattached
to materialism. In hefker consciousness, we train our spiritual sight to see the
Divine Presence that dwells beneath the surface, beneath the many golden
calves of our obsessions, possessions, and wayward priorities. This is a radical
reinvention of the concept of hefker, a neutral halakhic category of
abandonment and ownerlessness (e.g. BT Eruvin, 45b).
In this transformed reading, the midbar may be said to embody a pure state
of emptiness—an inner cleansing that allows us to go deeper into the spiritual
path. Becoming hefker kemidbar is a process of letting go of our
imprisonment in materiality, in ephemeral and finite desires—to be liberated
into the vastness of an inner wilderness.
...
As the early Hasidic rebbe R. Menahem Mendel
of Vitebsk (Pri Ha’aretz, Letter 27) taught, true wisdom and humanity rises
from the cultivation of deep humility:
The Torah only stands firm in one who makes himself like a midbar
hefker before those who are poor of mind and rich of mind, and he
doesn’t think of himself as better than his friend. On the contrary, he
should be completely nullified before his friend, and it is through this that
they become united and bound up one with the other.
True spiritual refinement, the deepest attainment of hefker kemidbar, must
not remain at the level of individualistic mystical growth and the personal
quest for divine revelation. To realize the ideals of piety, to ensconce the
living Torah in the wholeness of oneself, a person must aspire toward a
genuine humility, to avoid the harmful path of judgmentalism and arrogance.
It is in the bond of loving friendship and fellowship, in kindness and humility
toward the other, that the Torah—and God—are most radiantly revealed.
