A major portion of Parashat Beha’alotkha devotes itself to the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness dictated by the movement of the Clouds of Glory hovering above the Tabernacle to guide and protect the Israelites along the way. Chapter 11 covers the departure from Mount Sinai, the first stage of the march being a three-day journey to Taberah in the wilderness of Paran. The Israelites immediately take to complaining bitterly, and God angrily responds by raining down fire upon the outskirts of the camp. Although the fire eventually subsides after Moses’ supplications, the people continue to moan, once again gluttonously craving meat: “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt…” (Numbers 11:4-5) The Sages do not interpret the word “free” literally as free food but rather understand it homiletically to mean free of moral obligations.

In between the recounting of the departure from Mount Sinai in chapter 10 and the subsequent complaints above in chapter 11, we find two verses familiar to us from the service of taking the Torah from the Ark and returning it to the Ark before and after the Torah reading:

וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָֽאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה קוּמָה הי וְיָפֻצוּ אֹֽיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ: וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה הי רִֽבֲבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:

When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: “Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You!” And when it rested, he would say: “Return, O Lord, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!” (Numbers 10:35-36)

This two-verse paragraph is bracketed by symbols that resemble an inverted letter nun. Other examples of inverted nuns are found seven times in Psalm 107. While the exact meaning of these symbols is uncertain, there have been attempts to explain them. One such explanation is that the nuns separate verses 35 and 36 because these verses would more logically seem to belong in the narrative of the tribal formations outlined in Numbers chapter 2. Since they are set off from the rest of the Torah, the Talmud in tractate Shabbat 115b-116a speaks of them as a separate “book”. In another interpretation, one ancient midrash postulates the inverted nuns highlight the section because this was not its original place. Similar signs were used in ancient Greek sources to indicate that the enclosed text was out of place. In the instance of Numbers 10:35-36, Rashi explains that the nuns indicate to us that these verses were placed here to interrupt between the two recounts of punishment. The punishment that follows these verses, namely the complaints and the fiery deaths that ensued, is quite clear. What exactly the punishment preceding these verses was requires further explanation. All that is stated is that the Israelites left Mount Sinai. The Clouds of Glory determined their movement as before. So, what was the issue? The Ramban explains that the Israelites left Mount Sinai “as a child flees from school.” Rather than wanting to stay, they left in a hurry. They were fleeing the burden of morality, the yoke of the mitzvot. Unlike after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds when Moses had to force the people to leave (c.f. Exodus 15:22), at Mount Sinai they were eager to go. This is the first instance deserving of punishment.

With regards to the significance of the inverted nuns and the verses between them, the Gemara relates a parable of Rabbi Akiva comparing the children of Israel to fish and the Torah as the water and life source which sustains them. Furthermore, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Ben Aaron Luntschitz, better known as the Kli Yakar, explains that the word nun means “fish.” A fish naturally turns toward the water. It does not turn its back on its life providing environment. However, the children of Israel, by gladly and hurriedly leaving Mount Sinai, did turn their back on their life source. They acted as a backward nun – a backward fish that moved from its life source – and that is why backward nuns surround these two verses (Numbers 10:35-36). In this light, it is ironic that in the following chapter the Israelites nostalgically crave the free “fish” they had in Egypt. It was not the wilderness wandering they were bemoaning, but the joyful burden of Mitzvot to which they had not yet become accustomed.

When we were vulnerable to outside enemies, our prayer was “Advance, O Lord! May your enemies be scattered!” In tranquil times, when the danger is not a formidable desert climate or persecution from an outside enemy but assimilation, our prayer is a homiletical interpretation of verse 36: “O Lord, return the thousands of Israel who have strayed”. May we not stray and fall victim to “fishful” and backward thinking but let us embrace the life source of the Jewish people that is the Torah. Shabbat Shalom.