Beha’alotcha 5785: And/or
Like millions of people, earlier this spring I binge-watched the second and final season of Andor, the Star Wars TV series starring Diego Luna as the titular character: a reluctant, yet willful and highly effective agent in the growing rebellion against the Empire.
For many Star Wars fans, Andor is probably the greatest thing the 48-year old franchise has ever made. The quality of the scripts, acting, and production value is exceptional. And it’s unusual in the Star Wars universe: Over two seasons, we see not a single light saber, no Jedi, no Darth Vader (even though he is alive and kicking at this point in the timeline). Rather than tell the story of leaders at the highest levels of institutional power (emperors, lords, princesses), Andor mostly focuses on life at more mundane—but, it turns out, no less important—registers: bureaucrats who execute the Empire’s policies, soldiers conscripted into military service, farmers and businesspeople and retired mothers who just want to live their lives in peace.
You can read about all of this in other places, and of course you can watch the show yourself (with a Disney+ subscription). But one thing I have found myself wondering about is the name of the show and Luna’s character. My own read is that the name Andor should, perhaps, be read with a silent slash: And/or. Because I think that’s part of what the series is getting at: The coexistence of simultaneous truths and experiences, the possibilities and limits of our choices, the promise and peril of our agency. Some things in life are “and”—they’re just true, no matter what, though they may only become “and”s to us when we’re aware of them—and some things are “or”s: options, possibilities, things that could otherwise be true or not true, things we may bring about by our choices or that may be chosen for us. Part of the point of Andor (or, “And/or”), it seems to me, is to complicate what may feel like a simple story line of rebels (=good) versus Empire (=evil) by showing how all of these big concepts are made up of individuals and their manifold contradictions.
This brings us to Parashat Beha’alotcha, which, as much as any Torah portion, moves in this space of both-and. Famously, the parasha is divided into three sections: Before Numbers 10:35, after Numbers 10:36, and the two verses in between, which are bracketed and, according to the Talmud, counted as their own “book.” In the first section, the people make their final preparations to leave Sinai, and then journey forth “by the word of YHVH.” There is, seemingly, perfect alignment and attunement between the Divine and the entire Israelite camp.
In the third section, we experience what has always felt to me like a Bizarro version of the story: “The people took to complaining bitterly before YHVH,” it begins (JPS translation). “YHVH heard and was incensed: a fire of YHVH broke out against them, ravaging the outskirts of the camp. The people cried out to Moses. Moses prayed to YHVH, and the fire died down.” If there is an opposite to perfect alignment and attunement, this seems like it. And, of course, from here it’s one story of complaining, fighting, and suffering after another. It reads like a photonegative of the previous 10 chapters.
Yet perhaps take note of that little story (but, if we pause long enough, we may realize, not so little—it could certainly be an episode in a Disney series on Numbers) of the fire breaking out. Note what happens: “The people cried out to Moses”—not the Holy One directly—and “Moses prayed to YHVH and the fire died down.” Here is Rashi, quoting the Sifrei: “A parable: This may be compared to the case of an earthly king who was angry with his son, and the son went to a friend of his father and said to him, ‘Go and ask forgiveness for me from father!'” Rashi highlights the breakdown in relationship, trust, and communication that brings about this result that nobody really wants, as if the Israelites and the Creator have become middle schoolers reduced to passing notes. How far they have all fallen together.
Eventually, Moses himself unloads on the Holy One. In response, the Divine brings about a sharing of the burden. And here we get the seeds of another potential side-series off the central canon: “Two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, had remained in camp; yet the spirit rested upon them—they were among those recorded, but they had not gone out to the Tent—and they spoke in ecstasy in the camp” (11:26). What was meant to be an ordination only to an authorized set of 70 elders winds up touching lives beyond the boundaries. The Divine spirit, it seems, cannot be fully contained. The story as it was meant to be is not the only story that winds up happening.
While that’s always true, it feels especially so today. Between the time I write this and the time you read it, the headline stories will likely have shifted. Wherever we live, violence may have broken out. Protesters, soldiers, bureaucrats, and regular folks may have confronted choices about reading their situation as “and” or “or,” and, concomitantly, dilemmas about whether and how to speak, act, be. As Andor reminds us, the work of making, unmaking, and remaking the world (or the galaxy) doesn’t only sit with those who hold institutional power—it is work that belongs to all of us.
The middle “book” in this parasha is a two-line poem about when the Ark would begin to travel and when it would come to rest. That is, it is about the constant going out and coming in, journeying away from home and finding our way back to it, a beating heart of the Torah and of our own lives. Perhaps it comes to remind us that you and I are constantly discerning between “and” and “or,” constantly dancing with the storyline of our individual and collective lives, constantly breathing out and in. Our spiritual practices can support us in navigating that journey of discernment. May they be that for us now, and may we support one another in mindful and courageous speech and action.