There was a time you called every Sunday.
Nothing dramatic—just a check-in. A few minutes to catch up, to stay connected. Then one week you missed it. The next week, you told yourself you’d call later. After that, it felt a little awkward to restart. And before long, the rhythm was gone.
Not because the relationship stopped mattering.
Because it stopped being sustained.
This week, the Torah brings us to a turning point. Moses is told that he will soon die and will not lead the Jewish people into the Land of Israel. Faced with this reality, Moses does not argue for himself. Instead, he turns his attention outward and says to G-d: “Appoint a man over the congregation… so that the congregation of the L-rd will not be like sheep without a shepherd” (Numbers 27:16–17).
Moses understands the danger. Without guidance, even a strong people can lose direction.
G-d responds by appointing Joshua as the next leader. That is what we would expect. But then, almost immediately, the Torah turns to something else—the command of the korban tamid, the daily offering brought each morning and evening.
The juxtaposition is striking.
If leadership were enough, Joshua would have been the complete answer. But the Torah introduces something quieter and more enduring: a daily practice that would continue regardless of who stood at the front.
The Talmud teaches that G-d lacks nothing and has no need for offerings. The purpose of the korban tamid was not to provide for G-d, but to shape the people—to create a steady rhythm that reminded them, day after day, that their lives were part of something larger than themselves.
The Sefer HaChinuch explains that this constant offering helped cultivate an ongoing awareness of G-d’s presence, not through dramatic moments, but through repetition. What is done consistently becomes part of who a person is.
That insight reaches far beyond the wilderness.
What we value most—relationships, purpose, growth—rarely disappears because we reject it. It slips away when we stop tending to it. When connection is no longer nurtured. When reflection is no longer practiced.
Moses’ concern was not only that the people have a leader. It was that they not drift.
And G-d’s response was not only to appoint a successor, but to establish something enduring—a daily practice that would anchor the people even when leadership changed.
In a world that moves quickly and demands constantly, it is easy to rely on moments of inspiration and assume they will carry us forward.
But what we do occasionally inspires us.
What we do every day shapes us.
I wish you a good week and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yonatan Hambourger
y@tasteoftorah.org
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