The Book of Numbers, which opens with this week’s parashah, recounts the story of the Israelites during their years of wandering through the desert on their way to the promised land. Almost none of those who took part in that journey ever entered the land of Israel; they all perished in the wilderness. The portrait of that generation that emerges from Numbers is, to put it mildly, unflattering. The Torah depicts them as mired in sin and conflict, fighting amongst themselves, with their leaders and even with God. On several occasions, the entire cohort comes close to turning back for Egypt. It is in anger God asserts that they will not be allowed to enter the promised land. Little wonder, then, that in the Mishnah, Rabbi Akiva asserts that generation has no share in the World to Come (Sanhedrin 10:3).
Remarkably, the Zohar sketches the wilderness generation in an entirely different light:
When Israel went forth from Egypt, they issued from the side of Jubilee, and all those 600,000 derived from the supernal world. In that very image they journeyed through the wilderness, and not one of them entered the land — only their children, their offspring fittingly so, for they were the restoration of the Moon; and all the works of the earth belonged to the restoration of the Moon …
And all those who entered the land bore the likeness of the former ones, yet they did not possess the same supreme elevation as they, so that there would never arise, nor had there ever been before, a generation like those first ones — to whom the radiant glory of their Master was revealed face to face.
Zohar 1:21b–22a
The Zohar describes members of the wilderness generation as having attained a uniquely elevated spiritual level. They are attributed to the Jubilee, the sefira of Binah, which is one of the highest sefirot. In contrast, the generation that comes after them, those who enter the land of Israel, are the “restoration of the Moon,” associated with the sefira of Malkhut, the lowest of the sefirot. Given the Torah’s inverted depiction of these two generations, the assertion is surprising.
In truth, even in earlier Jewish literature, there are voices defending the wilderness generation. In response to Rabbi Akiva’s astonishing claim in the Mishnah that they have no share in the World to Come, Rabbi Yohanan rejoins in the Gemara: “Rabbi Akiva has abandoned his piety! As it is written (Jeremiah 2:2): ‘Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem … I remember for your sake the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown'” (Sanhedrin 110b). Rabbi Yohanan sees the wilderness generation through the eyes of the prophet Jeremiah, who emphasizes their devotion to Moses and to God. Jeremiah also likens them to God’s bride, sharing a love that casts a positive light on the relationship, despite all the difficulties and failures.
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The Zohar’s praise of the wilderness generation goes even further. The special character of that generation is, in the Zohar’s view, both qualitative and essential — as though that generation is fashioned from an altogether different material. In the Zohar’s view, the wilderness generation represents the very pinnacle of human excellence: There never was, and never will be again, such a generation. The Zohar goes on to explain that the true reason the wilderness generation did not enter the promised land is that the land is the domain of the Shekhinah, the lower sefira of Malkhut. Because of this association, the land itself was incapable of receiving and containing this magnificent cohort.
Why does the Zohar take such an elevated view of the wilderness generation? In short, because they are the generation to whom the “radiant glory of their Master” was revealed, face to face. Their experience of the divine was unprecedented, and since then unrepeated. The exodus from Egypt was the first, a formative event in which God was revealed through the sefira of Binah. Likely, the Zohar also has in mind the crossing of the Red Sea, of which it is said: “And Israel saw the great hand which the Lord had used against Egypt” (Exodus 14:31). And, of course, the subsequent giving of the Torah at Sinai was another moment of divine encounter. All of these were, in the Zohar’s understanding, mystical experiences because it was in these moments that God was revealed to the people.
In the Zohar’s view, mystical experiences are a crucible, refining the spirit. The generation of the wilderness, who lived through multiple intense manifestations of Binah, was irrevocably changed by those experiences. And because these revelations were unprecedented and unrepeated events, the souls shaped by them were also singular.
The Zohar offers here its vision of the power of revelation, particularly mystical revelation. Perhaps even more than genetic, environmental or cultural factors — spiritual and mystical experiences indelibly shape a person’s personality and character for the better.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
