Parshat Bamidbar: Becoming in the Wilderness - When the desert is not a detour, but the path itself

Introduction: When Life Turns Into Wilderness

There are moments in life when the ground beneath us doesn’t shatter, it subtly shifts. Not with a dramatic crash, but with a quiet unraveling. A child who once smiled stops making eye contact. A relationship that felt strong begins to strain. The confidence we once carried flickers like a candle in the wind. We try to hold on to what we knew, but something has changed.

And suddenly, we are no longer where we were.

We are somewhere else entirely. Somewhere unnamed. Somewhere uncertain.

The Torah has a word for that place: Bamidbar, the wilderness.

The wilderness isn’t merely a physical location, it’s an emotional and spiritual condition. It is the space between what was and what will be, the stretch of terrain where old maps fail and new ones have not yet appeared. It is what happens when familiar tools stop working, when direction feels elusive, when the only honest answer is I don’t know.

And yet, that is exactly where Sefer Bamidbar begins. It doesn’t begin in triumph or stability, but in disorientation, right as the journey starts to unravel, not after it’s resolved. That’s no accident. It’s the Torah’s deepest truth: the wilderness is not the opposite of becoming, it is its birthplace.

Transformation does not happen after the storm. It happens in the eye of it. Healing does not begin once clarity arrives. It begins in the confusion. The Torah doesn’t ask us to avoid the wilderness. It invites us to walk through it, and to discover, along the way, that the very place we feared was empty is, in fact, where the deepest revelations will come.

I. The Torah of the Desert, Why Bamidbar Begins in Confusion

It is no coincidence that the Torah was given not in a settled city or cultivated land, but in the barren expanse of a desert. The Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7) teaches that the Torah was given in the wilderness to teach humility, for just as the desert is ownerless and open to all, so too is Torah only truly received by those who make themselves like a desert: receptive, humble, and unentitled. But there is another, deeper truth in this setting: the midbar is not simply the backdrop to revelation, it is the precondition for it.

Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains that the wilderness represents a stripping away of all human dependencies. No homes, no systems, no illusions of control. Just a people, exposed and vulnerable, learning to rely entirely on God. In that openness, real transformation can begin. As he writes, the desert "un-teaches" us our false securities so that we can finally learn something real.

The Torah could have begun its national story in Eretz Yisrael, in the land of fulfillment. Instead, it begins after Mitzrayim but before arrival. It begins not in comfort zones, but in the raw in-between. This reveals a fundamental truth about spiritual growth: it does not begin when things are certain. It begins when they are not.

Anyone who has lived through upheaval, the loss of a job, a mental health crisis, a child’s sudden rebellion, a long and silent struggle with God, knows this terrain intimately. It’s the space where we lose the frameworks we once trusted. Where we ask different questions than we ever thought we’d ask. And where answers, if they come, are quieter and deeper than we expected. Bamidbar is not a metaphor for those who failed to arrive. It is a model for those who are brave enough to keep walking when nothing makes sense.

The Sefat Emet takes it even further. He teaches that midbar (מִדְבָּר) shares the root with dibur (דִּבּוּר), speech. It is in the silence of the wilderness that the true dibur of Hashem emerges. In other words, when the noise of the world fades, when distractions fall away, when we are finally still, that is when we can begin to hear the deeper voice that was always speaking.

So why does Bamidbar begin in confusion? Because that is where we become able to receive. The laws of Vayikra give us the structure of holiness. But the desert gives us its soul. It teaches us how to hold space for uncertainty, how to surrender control without collapsing, and how to walk forward even when the path isn’t clear. That is where holiness begins, not in order alone, but in the willingness to step into chaos with faith.

But before people can step into roles or responsibilities, something deeper must happen, they must know they are seen.

II. Every Soul Counts, The First Act of Healing

The first Divine command in Sefer Bamidbar is not to march, or to fight, or to build. It is to count:

"שְׂאוּ אֶת רֹאשׁ כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל"

“Lift the head of each member of the Children of Israel” (Bamidbar 1:2).

It’s an unexpected phrase. The Torah does not say simply “count them,” but lift their heads. Rashi explains this phrase as a respectful form of accounting, but Chassidic thought takes it deeper. The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that this language reflects the Torah’s view of every human being: that each soul is infinitely precious, and that to “count” someone is not to reduce them to a number, it is to affirm their essential worth. The act of counting becomes a spiritual elevation.

This is especially powerful in the context of the wilderness. The midbar is where people feel lost, unseen, and forgotten. It is the place where identity fades. But Hashem’s first message is clear: Before you take your next step, in service, in movement, in struggle, you must first be lifted. You must be seen.

And so the Torah’s first move in the chaos is not to impose structure, but to restore dignity. It does not begin with discipline or hierarchy, it begins with visibility. I see you. You matter. That alone is the beginning of healing.

This speaks directly to the emotional reality of so many families, especially those raising teens in crisis. When a child begins to spiral, when behaviors shift or boundaries collapse, parents often feel unmoored. They ask silently: Does my child still matter to the community? To God? To themselves? And deeper still: Do I still matter as a parent when I can’t make things better?

Bamidbar’s answer is profound in its simplicity: Yes. Every soul still counts. Every person must be lifted. Even, and especially, in the wilderness.

Elsewhere, the Sefat Emet writes that in the wilderness, each person is counted by name, according to their essence, because in a place of spiritual disorientation, the way to find direction is to return to the core. In a world that measures people by success or stability, the Torah begins with radical compassion: You are not what you’ve achieved. You are not the pain you carry. You are a soul. You are seen.

This is more than a theological comfort, it is a psychological and emotional anchor. For a struggling teen, just being recognized as not broken, but as a soul in process, can be the difference between despair and possibility. For a parent, hearing that your role does not diminish when things fall apart, it deepens can reframe the entire journey.

Before we assign roles, before we organize the camp, before we move toward any destination, the Torah tells us what must come first: dignity. Visibility. The lifting of the head.

Only then can the journey begin.

III. Identity in the In-Between

Once the census is complete, the Torah turns to order. Hashem organizes the camp: each tribe is given its own place, its own flag, its own unique identity. The Levi’im are stationed around the Mishkan, and the rest of the nation arranges itself around them, all facing inward, toward holiness.

But what’s most striking is when this happens. Not after entering the Land. Not after achieving spiritual mastery or national security. It happens in the wilderness, in the middle of uncertainty, amidst wandering, long before anything is resolved.

This is not just logistical. It is theological. It is emotional. The Torah is teaching us that a sense of self is not something we uncover once we’ve arrived. It is something we begin to form while still in motion. Before we’re whole. Before we’re clear. Before we’re even sure we belong.

In yet another teaching, the Sefat Emet illuminates this beautifully. He writes that the midbar is a space that strips us of illusions and false attachments, a place where our outer definitions fall away, so that our true inner essence can begin to emerge. In exile from structure, we start building something more real. In his words, “The desert is hefker, unclaimed, so that the heart can become fully claimed by Hashem.”

This has profound implications for those navigating emotional or psychological suffering. Depression, anxiety, trauma, disconnection, these inner deserts convince us that self-definition must be postponed until healing arrives. That clarity will only come once the fog lifts. But Bamidbar tells us otherwise: you do not need to be finished to begin. You do not need to be whole to be holy.

Hashem does not wait for arrival to give people their place. He gives them sacred roles as they walk. A tribe in pain is still a tribe. A soul in crisis is still a soul. A family struggling is still worthy of center-space around the Mishkan. Motion doesn’t erase who we are. It reveals it.

So many people live with the quiet fear that because they are unstable inside, they have no right to stand in holy space. That Torah, community, or clarity are reserved for those who have crossed into spiritual safety. But that is not the Torah’s model for how we grow.

The structure of Bamidbar is built around those who are still wandering.

That is the definition of faith. Not walking once the road is visible, but walking in order to see it. Not waiting until the healing is complete to claim a role, but stepping into sacred space while still holding pain. Hashem doesn’t expect perfection. He expects presence.

This is why the tribes camp around the Mishkan. Because at the center of the disorder, there must be something steady. And from that center, whether it is Hashem, or one’s truest self, or the presence of another who believes in you, a renewed sense of self can begin to form.

In the wilderness, we are not lost. We are being located.

IV. When You Are the One in the Wilderness

For some, the wilderness is not a metaphor. It is their daily reality.

They are not reading about disorientation, they are living it. The aching silence. The heaviness. The days that blur together. The smile that hides the sorrow. These are the souls who cry quietly during davening, who sit at Shabbat tables and feel a thousand miles away. Not because they don’t want to connect, but because they can’t find the way back to themselves.

For these individuals, Parshat Bamidbar is not a parsha of national history. It is a parsha of personal truth. The Torah is not just describing a wilderness, it is speaking from within it.

The Aish Kodesh, wrote a profound teaching on Parshat Bamidbar during the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto. In a world where mitzvot could no longer be fulfilled in their normative form, he offered a staggering reframe: “The broken heart, the silent prayer, the pain itself, these are now the korbanot.” The sacrifices we can no longer bring with our hands, we now offer with our anguish. The yearning, the tears, the loneliness, they too are holy.

This is not spiritual romanticism. It is radical faith. To declare that pain has value not only if it is resolved, but because it is real. That suffering, when borne with honesty and presence, is not a barrier to Divine connection, it is a form of it.

The Zohar teaches that the Shechinah never leaves a Jew in exile. Imo Anochi b’tzarah, Hashem is with us in our pain (Tehillim 91:15). The Mishkan in the wilderness proves this. God does not wait in Yerushalayim, in the stable and sanctified space. He travels with the people, into the dust, into the unknown, into the very places we’re most afraid to enter.

So many of us are taught, implicitly, that holiness begins once we return. That once we’ve conquered the wilderness, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, then we can come back to Torah. But Bamidbar dismantles that myth. It tells us that Hashem speaks b’midbar Sinai, in the desert itself.

You do not need to be okay for your life to be sacred. You do not need to feel clarity to be beloved. You do not need to escape your wilderness in order to be worthy of revelation.

This is perhaps the most healing message Bamidbar offers: that your pain is not proof of failure. It is evidence that your soul is still alive, still reaching, still longing. And that longing, the cry that no one else hears, is the opening of the Mishkan.

Even in the dust. Especially in the dust.

V. For the Parents Walking Beside the Pain

And what of the parents?

What of those who watch their children wander, not in physical space, but emotionally, spiritually? Some stand at the edge of a closed door, hoping today will be the day it opens. Others sit in silence where there used to be stories. Most are just praying for one small moment of connection, a word, a glance, a sign that their child is still reachable.

They too are in the midbar. And theirs is a wilderness of its own, one marked not by their own internal chaos, but by the helplessness of watching someone they love slowly drift out of reach.

At Kol Haneshamot, we meet these parents every week. Brave, weary, loyal beyond measure. They carry love like a torch and pain like a secret. They are not saints. They are not sages. They are simply doing what Moshe himself did: remaining present when the path is unclear. Refusing to walk away. Holding space when there are no answers. Staying close, even when their child cannot.

This is not passive waiting. This is active presence. In the language of the Torah, this is avodah b’midbar, sacred service in the wilderness. And it is, perhaps, the hardest kind of spiritual labor there is.

The Mishkan, too, was built to be carried. It didn’t wait in Yerushalayim for the people to return. It was lifted onto shoulders and borne through the dust. Parents of struggling children do the same. They become the sanctuary itself, a place their child can return to, without fear, without judgment, without expectation. A moving Mishkan. This, too, is parenting b’derech Hashem, not when we walk ahead, but when we walk beside.

As Rabbi Shimon Russell so powerfully taught me: “You cannot rescue your child from the wilderness. But you can enter it with them, and become the compass they one day reach for.”

This kind of parenting is not what most of us imagined when we held our newborns. It doesn’t come with neat rules or predictable outcomes. It asks more than seems fair, to remain soft while your heart is breaking, to remain open while your child closes off. But in the eyes of Torah, this work is nothing less than priestly.

It is standing in the center of the camp, surrounded by disarray, and choosing not to move. It is walking through fire and not losing your faith, not in God, and not in your child.

There may not be clarity yet. There may not be healing yet. But there is presence. And presence, in the Torah’s language, is what builds sanctity. The Mishkan is not made of answers. It is made of availability. Makom, sacred space, is born of showing up.

And so if you are a parent in the wilderness: you are not failing. You are doing holy work. Your footsteps are not lost. They are leading your family, slowly, painfully, faithfully, toward the day when the cloud lifts, the child returns, and the journey continues together.

And this truth, about presence, patience, and love, is not just for parents. It is for all of us, wherever we find ourselves on the path.

Conclusion: The Desert Is Where Revelation Happens

Sefer Bamidbar does not resolve in its opening chapter, nor does it try to. It stretches across four decades of wandering, of stumbling, of rebellion and reconciliation, of loss and quiet transformation. But it is precisely through that journey, not beyond it, not in spite of it, that a new generation is born. One that can carry the Ark. One that can enter the Land.

The wilderness was not a detour. It was the path.

And so it is for us.

Whether you are a parent watching your child from the edge of hope, a soul navigating the storm of inner anguish, or a friend, teacher, or neighbor unsure how to support the ones in pain, the Torah offers no shortcuts. But it does offer truth: You are not alone in the wilderness. And you are not lost there either.

The work of holiness is not found only in the promised land. It is found in the walking. In the stumbling. In the remaining. It is found in the desert, the place where all false structures fall away, and something unbreakable begins to emerge.

Bamidbar literally means “in the wilderness,” but its letters also whisper dibur, speech, voice, revelation. That is not accidental. The deepest voice of Torah is not only heard on the mountaintop. It echoes from within the dust. It speaks through pain. It reveals itself in the silence between questions, and answers them not always with clarity, but with presence.

We are not meant to skip the hard parts of our lives. We are meant to sanctify them. To walk through them awake, if trembling. To name the struggle without shame, and hold one another through it without fear.

Bamidbar is the place where everything is stripped away, and something eternal is built in its place. Let it comfort you if you are tired. Let it challenge you if you are numb. Let it strengthen you if you are still walking.

Becoming does not happen once we emerge from the desert. It happens in the middle of it, in the exact place we thought we had nothing left to give.

Even here. Especially here.

Yaakov Lazar,

Executive Director, Kol Haneshamot