We know of three separate camps that made up the Israelite community in their trek through the desert – Mahaneh Shekhina (the divine encampment), Mahaneh Leviya (the Levite encampment) and Makhaneh Yisrael (the encampment of the ordinary Israelites). These separate areas were not simply practical, territorial locations, rather they defined a hierarchy of spiritual levels, depending on their proximity to (or distance from) the inner sanctum. The further one departs from the sanctity at the core of the community, the weaker the connection to that holiness, until one reaches a point that is “beyond the encampment.” This is the place to which lepers are exiled. According to the rules of the sanctity of the encampment, the leper is banished outside of all three camps, the zav – who suffers from a venereal disease – is removed from the two inner camps, and the individual who is ritually impure as a consequence of contact with death, must leave the divine encampment (see Numbers 5:1-4).
This idea of having areas serving different purposes whose center is a core that impacts on the activities surrounding it, is not unusual; it is found in many living settings. Every home has an inner room – usually the parents’ bedroom. Then there may be other private rooms, and finally a living room where guests are welcome. We find a similar pattern in the relationship between the home and the outside world. There is the privacy of the home, then an outer courtyard, and finally the public sphere. Areas where there is less privacy cannot serve private, intimate functions; exiting into a public area allows for a broader audience to be included. Entering the private area requires a greater level of sensitivity and thoughtfulness. This idea is well-portrayed in Megillat Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) that is read in the course of the Passover holiday, where we find parallels drawn between intimacy and sanctity.
These three encampments – the divine camp, the Levite camp and the Israelite camp – also represent the circles in which an individual finds himself, ranging from one’s own family to the nation that he is part of, and his daily requirements are divided between these diverse areas. Creating a center that serves as the source of community serves to define all that are outside as foreign and distant. This model creates a sense of consciousness around a common ethos, generating solidarity and internal cohesion, while marking those outside the circle as 'others'.
There was, however, an alterative social structure that preceded the concept of a holy center surrounded by community circles. We know that during the Exodus, a Heavenly angel walked before (or after) the Israelite encampment (see Exodus 14:19). Subsequent to the Sin of the Golden Calf, Moses plants his tent outside the encampment, so that “everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp” (Exodus 33:7). These societal structures are not based on community circles, rather on borders. A person is either inside or outside. Being outside the border means being cut off from community events and happenings. This type of structure emphasizes a drive to move forward, to be different, not to focus on the internal workings of the community. A change in consciousness in the opposite direction took place with Copernicus’ discovery that it is not our earth that is the center of the universe, rather it is the sun.
Some commentaries suggest that the leper, the zav and the ritually impure are not only real people who are removed from community encampments, but they also serve as symbols for different communal maladies. The ritually impure represents death, the zav represents promiscuity and the leper represents being the bearer of evil tidings (lashon ha-ra). The commentary of the Keli Yakar is a good example of this approach:
For the sin of lashon ha-ra a man must be separated from his community, just as the divisive statements that he made separated people from one-another. So we must exile him from all three encampments so that he will be forced to sit alone.
Regarding the zav, the venereal disease indicates his promiscuity, and so he must be removed from the divine camp as well as from the camp of the Levites, which also contains sanctity. For holy places cannot tolerate illicit sexual behavior.
And the individual who is ritually impure shows that he does not avoid death and may be associated with murder, which impacts on the Godly image contained in every human being. Such a person must leave the divine encampment, for he offends the honor of the divine (Keli Yakar, Numbers 8).
These archetypes, discussed by the commentators, hint at typical maladies that arise in communities according to normative human activities and behaviors. Death represents dealing with injury to the image of God and human dignity. “Ritual impurity that stems from contact with the dead relates to honor, as is written ‘There is no authority over the day of death’ (Ecclesiastes 8:8), for death is the very antithesis of honor…” (see Rabbi Zadok Ha-Cohen mi-Lublin, Dover Zedek, p. 29). This injury is typical of a place where a man takes off his clothes. As he enters deeper and deeper into the house, all external honorary titles fall out. This is where the greatest danger lies to the very essence of a person. When he is in the innermost sanctum of his home he is truly exposed, for he has removed all of the external “clothing” that he wears in public. For this reason, the ritually impure must be exiled from the divine encampment.
The challenge of sexuality is manifest in its full intensity in a place where there is a real encounter between strangers. These temptations exist in places where a person comes into close contact with others – such as the workplace, academic studies and other business contexts. Contact with others offers opportunities for such interactions. It is for this reason that a zav is removed from camp of the Levites.
The leper is expelled from the three camps, as an expression of the fact that wider circles present other difficulties. In a setting where there is no true interaction or meeting, only the principle of community solidarity remains intact. Under those circumstances, the concern is harming another by means of disseminating information and fragments of truth, sarcasm and mockery that will be spread in society. The leper – the speaker of lashon ha-ra who spreads these bad tidings – rends the basic social fabric and is thus excluded from the three camps.
Exile from the encampments forces the individual to the situation that existed before the development of these societal circles, to an alternative possibility where sanctity is found further from him, in another place, not in the center of the community. Relocation outside the encampments is not merely a punishment, it is the logical outcome of an individual’s misuse of the centrifugal communal structure.