B’midbar (pronounced bemidbar) is the Hebrew name for the book we know as Numbers, the fourth book of the Pentateuch or Torah. This book begins after Israel has received the commandments and ordinances that would serve as the legal foundation for their life as a free people. B’midbar begins with a census of the men fit for war, and throughout its chapters the most significant events of Israel’s forty years of wandering through the desert are narrated.