Ilustration Credit: Rivka Tsinman
When Benei Yisrael traveled through the wilderness, the אָרוֹן (aron, ark) went first.
וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה
קוּמָה ה' וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ׃
וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה ה' רִבְבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
When the aron would set out, Moshe would say:
“Arise, O God!
May Your enemies be scattered,
And may those who hate You flee before You!”
And when the aron came to a rest, he would say:
“Return, O God,
The many thousands of Yisrael.”
- What do you notice? What do you wonder about?
- When the aron set out on a journey, why might Moshe have mentioned scattering Benei Yisrael’s enemies?
- When the aron came to a rest, why might he have mentioned God’s returning? Who is being returned? Where had they gone?
Do these pesukim sound familiar? They’re from the Torah service at shul!
We sing the first pasuk when we open the אֲרוֹן קֹדֶשׁ (aron kodesh, holy ark) to take out the Torah to read from it.
The second pasuk is part of what we say when we put the Torah away after it’s read, just before we close the aron kodesh.
In shul, these pesukim connect the aron kodesh that’s in front of us with the aron from the mishkan. This way we link our Torah reading with Benei Yisrael’s journey through the wilderness.
- Try it! Next time you hear these pesukim at shul, think about hearing Moshe say these words at the beginning or the end of a journey. Can you close your eyes and imagine yourself in the wilderness? How might it have felt?
- Learn more about the meaning of the second pasuk in the tefillah section!
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