Even a cursory, glancing look at our sedra is enough to see that something very unusual - not found anywhere else in the Torah - occurs here. There are two upside-down letters surrounding two very famous p'sukim:


"Vay'hi bin'so'a ha'aron...." - "When the Ark traveled, Moshe said: 'Arise, G-d, and scatter Your enemies... And when the Ark rested, he would say: 'Return, G-d, the tens of thousands of Israel.'"

This section is framed because it constitutes a completely separate book of the Torah.



Why would these sentences be framed by two extraneous letters? And why are those letters davka the letter nun?


The Gemara in Shabbat says the floating letters indicate that this small section is out of order, not in its proper place. OK, but then why is it out of place?


In another opinion, Rebi - Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi - postulates that this section is framed because it constitutes a completely separate book of the Torah. Huh? What does that mean?


Let's try to make some sense of it all. The S'forno (as elucidated by Rabbi Soloveichik) explains that, at this juncture in our history, we were primed to enter Eretz Yisrael. We had achieved physical freedom, received the Torah and built the Mishkan; the tribes had been assembled and given their "marching orders." Moshe was about to lead us triumphantly into the Promised Land.


But then it all broke down. We degenerated into complaints and squabbles; Moshe lost his temper and castigated us severely. The episode of the spies would seal our fate; we would wander 40 years before crossing into Israel, and then it would be without Moshe to lead us.


The "additional" book Rebi refers to is one that we could have, and should have, written, but never did. The book describing our Aliyah was left undone. It is therefore encased in a kind of parentheses formed by the two nuns. But I suggest that the nun has another connotation. In the Ashrei prayer, it is the only letter missing.


Chazal say it's omitted because it stands for nafal or "fallen", a negative word. But every letter can be negative. Maybe the link is to these nuns in our sedra. Here, too, we failed, or fell, from our task (nafal means "fell," or "fail").


Yet, the glorious promise of this Special Sefer has only been delayed, not deleted. The day will come - is coming - when HaShem will indeed scatter all of our enemies, and return all the tens of thousands of the House of Israel back to our rightful home in Israel. And the nuns? They will right themselves and proclaim a new and positive identity: nun for nitzachon - total, eternal victory.