This week's parshah is Beha’alotecha. The parshah discusses a few different topics including the Levites being consecrated to G-d as well as the commandment of the second Passover. I would like  to focus on the part where the Jews start traveling through the desert. When the Jews start traveling, G-d tells Moses “Make for yourself two silver trumpets - make them hammered out, and they shall be yours for the summoning of the assembly (Edah) and to cause the camps (Machaneh) to journey.” (Bamidbar Chapter 10, Verse 2). When reading this verse, there seems to be two different ways of referring to the Jewish people. What is the significance of these two terms? 

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik explains that there are two ways in which people become a group - a community, society, or nation. The first is when they face a common enemy. They band together for mutual protection. Like all animals who come together in herds or flocks to defend themselves against predators, we do this for our survival. Such a group is a machaneh - a camp, a defensive formation.

There is another, quite different, form of association. People can come together because they share a vision, an aspiration, a set of ideals. This is the meaning of edah, congregation. Edah is related to the word ed, witness. Edot (as opposed to chukim and mishpatim) are the commands that testify to Jewish belief – as Shabbat testifies to creation, Passover to the Divine involvement in history, and so on. An edah is not a defensive formation but a creative one. People join together to do what none could achieve alone. A true congregation is a society built around a shared project, a vision of the common good, an edah.

Rabbi Soloveitchik distinguishes between two fundamental ways of existing and relating to the world: camps and congregations. Camps are formed reactively, shaped by external influences and historical events, while congregations arise from proactive internal decisions, driven by shared aspirations for the future. This distinction highlights that camps, which can exist even among animals, are fundamentally different from congregations, which are unique to humans. Congregations embody the ability to think, communicate, and collaborate towards a vision of a better society, rooted in human creativity and purpose.

The Jewish experience exemplifies both these forms. Historically, Jews became a camp during their slavery in Egypt, united by shared suffering and adversity, distinguishing themselves from the Egyptians as Hebrews, or "outsiders." This collective identity, forged in hardship, reflects what Rabbi Soloveitchik describes as the "covenant of fate". Throughout history, Jews have understood their unity as a product of circumstance, bound together by a common narrative marked by resilience and struggle.

Returning to the verse, the Jewish people reflect both aspects. In some regards they have a common fate when faced with anti-semitism or other external threats - as with the horrors of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany - yet there is a greater destiny they share in which they influence the world by spreading positive morals and ethics. In our school and community we can also make the same distinctions. Are we just a machaneh here to learn and to do our own thing, or can we be a collective edah that can spread positive values to one another?

Let us all work together and also strive individually to be an edah and spread the light in our families, in our communities, in our friend groups - and beyond.

Shabbat shalom,

Aaron, Grade 9