B'midbar
First day, second month Year two since leaving Egypt Intermission's done
This week we begin the fourth of Moses's five books. But it's been just a little more than a year since our ancestors crossed the parted waters of the Sea of Reeds, and only one month since the Tabernacle was set up at the end of ExodusExodus 40:17 - In the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the Tabernacle was set up.Numbers 1:1 - On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt ...Leviticus was a sort of "intermission" in the narrative. Not much action, but plenty about the ground rules for the rest of the journey through the wilderness and life in the Promised Land.Now the curtain rises on the appropriately named book B'midbar ("In the wilderness") which will cover almost 39 years of desert wandering. Image © Depositphotos.com/tobkatrina