This week’s Torah reading, parashat Naso, is the second in the Book of Numbers. Introducing the reading, Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky writes, “Whereas Leviticus typically focuses on the ritual purity of the sanctuary, Numbers is concerned with maintaining the purity of the camp as a whole.” I must admit, I read this and sigh. Where does purity fit into my life and our life as a Jewish community? Most areas of life are complicated, some beautifully so and some frustratingly so – and many both at the same time. Purity sounds like something simple and distant.
Yet looking more closely, what Kalmanofsky calls the purity of the camp might also be understood as healthy functioning. There are in Torah constant examples of the times that people stray from our best paths – mistakes, actions motivated by pain or desire for revenge, and so on. The instruction in the text is straightforward: “When a man or woman commits any wrong toward a fellow human being, breaking faith with the Eternal, and that person realizes their guilt, they shall confess the wrong they have done. They shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one fifth to it, giving it to the one they have wronged.”
We can talk without end about the exceptions and complexities of implementing this instruction – there are wrongs that have no monetary implication, and others where the restitution is not obvious. But the basic instruction to take initiative when we realize we have mistreated another person, verbally acknowledge it, and restore what we can – this may be difficult, but it is anything but distant. It is, of course, the backbone of the vital practice of teshuvah, returning to our best selves, restoring and building the health of our relationships. Our text is teaching that this specific practice is what constitutes the foundation of our communities, our “camp.”
May we each find the courage to take this kind of initiative and to repair and make things right in all the ways that we can.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller
Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89), May 30, 2026
June 3, 2026 by Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller • D'var Torah, Julie Saxe-Taller
This week’s Torah reading, parashat Naso, is the second in the Book of Numbers. Introducing the reading, Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky writes, “Whereas Leviticus typically focuses on the ritual purity of the sanctuary, Numbers is concerned with maintaining the purity of the camp as a whole.” I must admit, I read this and sigh. Where does purity fit into my life and our life as a Jewish community? Most areas of life are complicated, some beautifully so and some frustratingly so – and many both at the same time. Purity sounds like something simple and distant.
Yet looking more closely, what Kalmanofsky calls the purity of the camp might also be understood as healthy functioning. There are in Torah constant examples of the times that people stray from our best paths – mistakes, actions motivated by pain or desire for revenge, and so on. The instruction in the text is straightforward: “When a man or woman commits any wrong toward a fellow human being, breaking faith with the Eternal, and that person realizes their guilt, they shall confess the wrong they have done. They shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one fifth to it, giving it to the one they have wronged.”
We can talk without end about the exceptions and complexities of implementing this instruction – there are wrongs that have no monetary implication, and others where the restitution is not obvious. But the basic instruction to take initiative when we realize we have mistreated another person, verbally acknowledge it, and restore what we can – this may be difficult, but it is anything but distant. It is, of course, the backbone of the vital practice of teshuvah, returning to our best selves, restoring and building the health of our relationships. Our text is teaching that this specific practice is what constitutes the foundation of our communities, our “camp.”
May we each find the courage to take this kind of initiative and to repair and make things right in all the ways that we can.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller