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In the opening of the book of Bamidbar, God commands Moses to organize the Tribes of Israel into specific formations, each under its own "flag" or standard. This divine directive initially filled Moses with dread. The Midrash records that Moses began to argue with God, fearing that this move would spark internal conflict.
Moses reasoned, “Once I start assigning specific positions—who travels East, who travels West, who leads, and who follows—the people will begin to fight. If I tell the tribe of Judah to travel East, they will demand the South. If I tell Reuben to lead, Ephraim will protest. How can I manage this? I know this will lead to machlokes (bitter dispute).”
God’s response to Moses was both comforting and cryptic: “Moses, what are you worried about? They already know their places. This system has been in place for generations; they received it from their father, Jacob.”
The Blueprint of the Coffin
How could this be? Jacob had died centuries before the Israelites ever reached the wilderness. The Sages explain that the formation the tribes took around the Mishkan (the Tabernacle) was the exact same formation they had used when they carried Jacob’s coffin from Egypt back to the Land of Israel for burial.
On his deathbed, Jacob had given his sons precise instructions: Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun would carry the coffin from the East; Reuben, Simeon, and Gad from the South; and so on. God was telling Moses that the tribes weren't just following a new military order; they were honoring a sacred family tradition.
The Thin Veneer of Civilization
Rav Mordechai Rogov, the late Rosh Yeshiva in Skokie, interpreted this Midrash as a profound lesson in human psychology. It is easy to act with civility and respect when life is secure and the environment is stable. However, when people are thrown into conditions of danger, scarcity, and extreme pressure, the "niceties" of humanity often begin to evaporate.
Moses was worried because the wilderness was a place of lurking death—predators, enemies, and starvation. He feared that under the duress of the desert, the Israelites would lose their menschlichkeit and turn on one another.
“Courage is grace under pressure.”
Moses feared that under the heat of the desert, that "grace" would melt away, leaving only a primitive "survival of the fittest" mentality.
Jacob’s Final Lesson: Character Under Fire
God’s reassurance was that Jacob’s legacy was not just about geography or military tactics. Jacob, the patriarch who had endured a life of constant struggle, knew his descendants would face pogroms, inquisitions, and exiles. He didn't just teach them where to stand; he taught them how to be.
Jacob taught his sons that even in a moment of personal tragedy—the death of a father—and even in the "wilderness" of life, a Jew must remain a mensch. He gave them a "moral DNA" that would allow them to maintain their dignity even when treated like animals.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
The Bread of the Angels
History is filled with thousands of stories of this legacy in action, particularly from the Holocaust. One such story involves a simple Jew in a concentration camp. In the camps, bread was not just food; it was the center of all thought. Survivors describe the mental exhaustion of "rationing": Should I eat it all now? Should I save a crumb for tonight so I can sleep? Should I nibble it slowly to make it last the day?
One day, this man was summoned to see the Camp Commandant—an order that almost certainly meant execution. Realizing his time was up, he followed the "unwritten code" of the camp. He recited his final prayers, then he began to distribute his meager possessions. He gave his shoes to a man whose own footwear was falling apart. He gave his winter coat to another. Finally, he took that precious, life-sustaining piece of bread—saved for his own survival—and gave it to a weak, half-starved friend.
By some miracle, the man was not killed. When he returned to the barracks, his friends were elated. The man who had received the bread immediately tried to return it, saying, “Here, take back your bread. You are still among the living; you need it more than I.”
The Spirit of the Tribes
Where does a person find the strength to act like an angel when they are being treated worse than a beast? This is the legacy of the Patriarch Jacob.
When Jacob instructed his sons on how to carry his coffin, he was teaching them how to conduct themselves in the "coffin" of exile. He was showing them that even when you are carrying a burden of grief and walking through a land of danger, you must maintain your position with dignity and respect for your brother.
God reassured Moses: “Do not worry about the disputes of the wilderness. These people carry the legacy of Jacob. They know that no matter how harsh the desert, they can never lose the image of God.”
The "Flags" of the tribes represented that choice. They remind us that our environment—no matter how desolate—does not have to dictate our character. We are the heirs of a tradition that chooses civility over chaos, and love over the pressure of the moment.
