Or HaChaim on Numbers 10:35/אור החיים על במדבר י׳:ל״ה

1 ויהי בנסע הארון, And it came to pass when the Holy Ark would journey, etc. This entire paragraph requires analysis. It may best be explained in connection with a kabbalistic concept (Eitz Chayim 332, chapter 1) I have mentioned repeatedly, i.e. that the reason the Israelites had to trek through the desert was to locate and rescue "sparks" of sanctity which were held captive by the spiritually negative forces whose domain is the desert and other inhospitable parts of the earth. We must appreciate that all these spiritually negative forces may be divided into two categories. One category is essentially a seducer who endeavours to bring his adversary to heel by luring him into immoral and unethical behaviour against man and G'd. The other category consists of various types of destructive forces which simply attack the body of a person trying to kill or to maim him. It is not the nature of this second category of spiritually negative force to engage in seduction of its victim. The words ויהי בנסע הארון refer to the Ark journeying while all kinds of these captive sparks of sanctity cleave to it. As a result of these "sparks" of sanctity establishing contact with the Holy Ark, their captors exploded. This is what is meant by the Torah writing קומה ה׳ ויפוצו אויביך, "Rise up O Lord and let Your enemies be scattered." The "enemies" the Torah refers to are the קליפות, the spiritually negative forces which up until then had held the sparks of sanctity in their grip. Now they would lose that grip. The word ויהי which usually introduces a paragraph containing a painful element refers to the pain experienced by these קליפות. As to the other category of spiritually negative forces, the seductive ones, the Torah writes וינוסו משנאיך מפניך, "let them that hate You flee before You." Here the Torah referrred to those forces who display their hatred of G'd indirectly by seducing G'd's servants into becoming disloyal to Him. The Torah describes these "enemies" of G'd in the plural as there are many such forces as we have learned in Yuma 69 that there are separate evil urges, one luring us to serve idols, another luring us to engage in illicit sexual relations, etc. All of this occurred בנסוע, while the Holy Ark was in motion. Whenever the Holy Ark was stationary the Torah used a different wording to describe how the Holy Ark reacted to such spiritually negative forces. When the Presence of G'd is limited to a specific site, i.e. when the Holy Ark is stationary inside the Holy of Holies, this is equivalent to a declaration by G'd that there are no such "sparks" of sanctity nearby which the Ark would have to search out by moving in their direction and passing such a location.

2When the Ark stopped moving and came to "rest," this was equivalent to a declaration that such sparks of sanctity had been located and that the Ark now had to come to "rest" on account of those "sparks." This is what Moses had in mind when he said: ובנחה יאמר שובה השם רבבות אלפי ישראל, "may G'd (the Ark) bring back all these scattered sparks of sanctity in their tens of thousands." The reason is that they are all called "Israel" just as the name Israel is equivalent to the term sanctity. Perhaps Moses alluded to this by using the word אלפי, a word which symbolises something exalted, superior [Aluf, a general, for instance. Ed.] You will find that Samael gave up a great many such sparks of sanctity. Just consider the background Ruth, the great-grandmother of David, came from. Moses intended to strengthen the power of the sanctity of the Jewish people to overcome the power of the spiritually negative forces in that environment and to "rescue" all the "sparks" of sanctity which still abounded in these desert regions with his prayer.