Naso 5764
Parashat Naso is the longest Parasha in the Torah as it has 176 Pisukim. One of the reasons why it is so lengthy is because the Korbanot (sacrifices) of the tribe presidents are listed in detail. These were the inaugural Korbanot brought for the opening of the Mishkan. All twelve Korbanot by the twelve tribal leaders are listed in detail in the Torah in this Parasha. So it’s actually a lot of repetition of the same Korban over and over again, just by a different Nasi (president) of a different tribe.
But the Rabbis of Musar (ethics, conduct, morals) point out that probably the most important man that brought the Korban, the most significant Korban, was Nethanel Ben Zuar. And it wasn’t the fact that he brought anything different, but the fact itself that he brought the same exact Korban as the person that preceded him. The first person who offered the Korban was Nachshon Ben Amminadab. It seems that Nachshon set the standard of what to bring. [Listen to the audio clip to hear the details of what was brought.] Among other items, he brought 5 rams, 5 goats, and 5 sheep. This lesson here is that the second person to offer the Korban, Nethanel Ben Zuar, could have acted like most people and increased the amount of items and upstaged his predecessor. But he did not. If he would have started and added just one or two more sheep or goats, then what would have the third person offered? There would have a precedent set if Nethanel Ben Zuar would have increased the offering. Each following tribal president would then have had to further increase the ante. By the time the last person would have reached their turn, it would have been 50 goats and 50 sheep, etc. Then already things would have gotten out of hand.
The greatness of Nethanel Ben Zuar was that he followed what happened and preceded him. That’s a very important lesson when it comes to parties, and different types of events today in our community. Sometimes we get involved in trying to outdo somebody else. We don’t want to keep the status quo. If someone had a certain amount flowers, so we want to show that we are richer or better than them, and it becomes an ego issue, and so we try to outdo them. The greatness here is to keep the same standard.
That’s why the Torah maybe lists all twelve Korbanot. For the Torah, this is not considered repetitive. It is showing a great lesson that everybody did the same thing, and nobody upmanshipped his fellow man. Nobody was looking for more respect. There was no jealousy amongst them. They were able to do the same thing twelve times and the Torah finds it important to write it.
Let this be a lesson to us, that sometimes it’s more important to keep the standard rather than uping the standard and changing it. We would not only waste money or exhibit bad character, but we would be setting a precedent for others to follow. We would become responsible for the actions of others because they would be following and taking our lead.
The Torah is teaching us today the importance of uniformity when it comes to bringing Korbanot. So all the more so when it comes to making affairs and parties, there should be a certain system. The time has come to make Takanot (decrees) as we have mentioned many times. We should make an edict or some type of guideline for our community to keep. Things have run wild and it has come time to set standards. Hence, Nethanel Ben Zuar’s Korban, in some people’s opinion would be the most important.
