Numbers: Israel in the Desert

by Tzemah Yoreh

Like beautifully layered rock formations lining the walls of a desert canyon, so is the Biblical text. Story is piled upon story until the foundations are invisible. Those foundations tell a different story—one that only a trained geologist can tease from the rock, one that only a Biblical philologist, trained in the dissection of literature, can find in the text. In this earliest version of Israel’s desert sojourn, the Israelites did not spend forty years in the desert but rather only a few months. A much younger Moses actually led them into the land; they didn’t have to wait for Joshua or for God. Balaam, the foreign magician hired by the Moabite king to protect him from Israel, is strong-armed by God into blessing Israel, instead of doing it voluntarily. In this and many other respects, this early version of the Israelite’s desert sojourn is very different from what those familiar with the canonical text may recall. Israel In the Desert traces the development of this uniquely divergent account and its slow development into the canonical text we have today.

150 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2013

About the author

Tzemah Yoreh is one of the intellectual leaders of Jewish humanism and the head of the City Congregation in New York city. He attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he obtained his Ph.D. in biblical criticism in 2004. He earned a second Ph.D. in Ancient Wisdom Literature from the University of Toronto for the joy of studying ancient text. As a community leader on the spectrum, he is a passionate advocate for the inclusion of the neuro-atypical in the Jewish community and beyond.