Today's Scripture Reading (December 5, 2021): Numbers 11
German philosopher Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) argued that "The
only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."
But part of what is really surprising is how quickly we sometimes forget. It is
one thing to argue that we don't learn the
lessons of another generation or contemporary people who live in
different parts of our world. We say that we will never repeat the mistakes of
Nazi Germany, and yet we can see the seeds of that mistake in the Western
Cultures. We can argue that the culture has changed, and what happened then
will not necessarily repeat itself now. But that doesn't explain why we sometimes forget
the lessons that history taught us just yesterday. It
is like a child who badly burns themselves on a hot burner, only to walk away, ignore the lesson, and return to burn themselves
once again.
Yet, Hegel is right. We come back and make the same mistakes
over and over again. The temptation to repeat history's mistakes seems to be overwhelming
and one that we cannot resist. For some reason, we keep on returning to that
burner to burn ourselves one more time.
The people of Israel organized a protest against Moses's leadership. At a specific time,
every person in the nation appeared at the entrance of their tents and began to
cry out, voicing their displeasure. They were tired of the manna that they were
eating. They looked back nostalgically at the time back in Egypt when they were
slaves. They may not have been free, and they might have been mistreated, but
at least their bellies were full, and the tastes were varied. At this
moment, the entire nation seemed to be willing to trade their freedom for a
good meal.
God is angered by the organized demonstration, but Numbers
says that Moses was troubled. A
better word might be that Moses was bewildered. He doesn't understand the reaction. The year
is somewhere around 1445 B.C.E. The Tabernacle has been dedicated in a great
celebration by the people. And then the nation left the foot of Mount Sinai where they had been living, to begin what
was supposed to be a relatively short journey to the Promised Land. But when the hardships of
the journey confronted Israel, the people started to complain. As a result, the anger of God quite literally
burned against them. The fire started at the outskirts of the camp, and it threatened to overwhelm the Children of Israel. The people had cried out to Moses,
and Moses had prayed to God, and God had stopped the fire. The people had
called the place "Taberah," which means "burning" (Numbers 11:1-4).
But it seems that as the people emerge from this scary situation, ring leaders, or what the Bible
calls "rabble," organized the people into another
protest of the conditions in the camp. The reality seems
to be that they were influenced by these leaders with an agenda, ones that were
not disturbed or frightened by the fire. It didn't touch them, so they didn't
care. And the presence of these leaders spurred the people to forget the lesson
that they should have learned with the fire at Taberah. But Moses doesn't
understand how they could ignore the lesson they should have learned at Taberah
so quickly.
The voices of the rabble have persisted
through history. Today, they are the voices who preach that the Holocaust never
happened during World War II. They preach that the school shootings that seem
to be an epidemic in our society are all false flag events or even that the
people who invaded the Capital on January 6, 2021, were just a group of well-behaved
tourists. In the face of these events, they argue that nothing happened and
that there is no reason to learn from these events. But we need to learn how to
ignore these voices. Just like the rabble after the events of Taberah, we are
being led once more into error, and another disaster is waiting for us just
around the corner if we forget the lessons that we should have learned.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 12
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