Sorting, packing, and carrying. These are unglamorous tasks in which I am immersed as I prepare to leave Beth Hillel and enter retirement. At the outset of the Book of Numbers, Parashat Bemidbar explains that the religious leaders of the ancient wilderness community will be immersed in similar tasks.
From all of the tribes save one, men, age 20 and up who can serve in battle, are counted in a census. (Num 1:1 ff) Thus, the name “Numbers” for this 4th book of the Torah. Only the Levite tribe will not go to war. They will serve instead in a ritual and spiritual role as priests. What will they be doing? They will serve as musicians and assistants to the Kohanim, the High Priests, and they will act as guardians over the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. But they also will do the menial work of packing up the Mishkan when it has to be transported and they will be the ones who carry its parts from encampment to encampment. “When the Tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down, and when the Tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up….” (Lev 1:51)
And so it is with me. I am packing up and moving the tools of my rabbinic career at Beth Hillel. While the task is menial, each file or folder causes me to pause and consider the impact and meaning of that moment; the goal of that program; the pain of that crisis or controversy; the content I was trying to convey in that class or sermon. In many ways, this process is poignant and holy work.
-Rabbi Dena A. Feingold
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