"The Tribe of Asher Into the Woods"

Into the Woods

"The Israelites head out into the wilderness to clear their heads and start figuring out who they really are. They count themselves and divide up by families. G-d helps by assigning a census taker to each tribe. In this way the undifferentiated mass of former slaves start to sort themselves out. Take him, for example: he's over 20 years old, which means he can bear arms and go to war. He's in the tribe of Asher, whose leader is Pag'iel, and the census counted 41,500 men of fighting age in his tribe. They reside in the northwest corner of the camp between the tribes of Dan and Benjamin. He used to be a slave with no identity of his own. Now, he is someone. Actually, he's a lot of things... he's just not sure how to be them yet. An Israelite? A free man? A soldier? Even when you know what you're supposed to do, it's not that easy to go ahead and do it. Being in the desert, being Bemidbar, is kind of like the time in between: all you can do is use your time in the desert wisely to figure out what it is you really love, and are meant to do." ~ Helen Chernikoff of G-dcast