An Imperfect Journey - Masei 5785

-

The Jewish people traveled through the desert from Egypt to Israel over a period of 40 years.  They stopped in 42 places, and the Torah enumerates them in the second of this week’s double Parsha, Masei.  The reading of that section is basically a long list of names.  They journeyed from this place and camped in that place.  And they journeyed from that place and camped in another place.  Since it is customary not to make a break in the reading in the model of the list, the same words, Vayisu (and they journeyed) and Vayachanu (and they camped) are repeated again and again many times in one Parsha.  Many readers have a tendency to speed up for this section, because of fears of monotony.


Someone wrote to me that she has a hard time just reading names and more names and finding meaning in it.  I reminded her that every word of the Torah has deep mystical meanings, and that every word is the wisdom of Hashem.  With that attitude the reading takes on a whole new life, despite the fact that it may seem to us to be boring. There are actually many discussions in Torah, especially in Chassidus, about the meaning and relevance of these journeys in our lives, some of which I have written about in the past.


There are a few exceptions to the “monotony.”  Here and there the Torah briefly recounts or hints at an event that happened in a certain place.  These include the spies’ slander of the land, the people complaining about water, and Aaron’s death due to the sin of hitting the rock instead of speaking to it.  It would seem strange that the events mentioned are negative events, while the giving of the Torah and building the Mishkan (sanctuary) are not mentioned at all.


I heard a great answer today from Rabbi Levi Gerlitzky, director of chabad on the Big Island of Hawaii.  (He happens to be my son in law and is visiting here with his family.)  When writing the history of our people in a book that will be eternal, you would think that the Torah would leave out parts that were negative.  We messed up with the spies, we complained, Moshe and Aharon did not make it into Israel.  Let’s leave all that out and start the history from the good parts.  Isn't that what great nations do?  Rewrite their history to show themselves in the best light?


The Torah is teaching us that we are who we are, together with our missteps and our challenges.  They are all part of our history and what brought us to this point.  Hashem didn’t create us as perfect people and didn’t present that kind of picture.  Not only that.  When the Jews left Egypt, the goal was to settle into Israel.  That goal had not yet been reached.  Nevertheless Hashem closes the book without having achieved the ultimate goal.  


The lesson is that Hashem loves us with our weaknesses.  If we make a mistake, we work to rectify it and move forward, and Hashem loves us as we are.  And if we haven’t yet made it to the top, our service is still meaningful and the Torah is real.  Even an unfinished, imperfect journey can be a destination. 


No matter what we made it into the Promised Land, and no matter what we will get to the final redemption, the rebuilding of the Temple, and the full return of the entire nation to the Holy Land.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes Silence is the Answer - Chukat 5785

-
  (Dedicated to the memory of Rachel bat Yosef Shmuel. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and friend. She passed away on Erev Shabbat and was laid to rest surrounded by her family and many, many friends in the Holy Land.) Chukat, the Parsha we read and study this week, talks a lot about death. Miriam and Aharon, two of the three greatest siblings of our people, pass away. And Moshe is informed that he will not live to take the Jewish People into Israel.  The Parsha begins with the laws of the “Red Heifer.” This was the cow that was slaughtered and then burned, and its ashes mixed with “living” spring water. The mixture was sprinkled on a person who had come in contact with a corpse, twice over a period of seven days, and he or she would then immerse in a Mikvah and thus be purified from the Tumah (ritual “impurity”) that came from contact with the corpse.  There is a fascinating Midrash that recounts a discussion between Hashem and Moshe. Hashem taught Moshe t...
Read more

Yes, There is a Hierarch! - Nasso 5785

-
Is sameness a good thing?  How about hierarchy?  Equality is the word nowadays, but what does true equality mean?  The Jewish nation was created with a hierarchy.  The 12 sons of Jacob, also called Israel, were the original “B’nai Yisrael.”  Jacob gifted Yosef a double portion, as the first-born of his beloved wife Rachel, making his two sons Menashe and Efraim heads of separate tribes.  Of the 13 tribes, one stood out, the tribe of Levi.   The Levites were chosen to carry the portable Sanctuary through the desert, and serve in the Temple as guards, singers, doorkeepers and more.  They lived in special cities and guided the people.  The leader of the Jewish people, Moshe, was from the tribe of Levi.  They stood out in their faithfulness to Hashem in Egypt and throughout the journey in the desert, by circumcising their children and following the traditional lifestyle passed down by Jacob.  They did not participate in the Golden ...
Read more

Simchat Torah Forever - ST 5785

-
I grew up listening to stories about Simchat Torah in the most difficult circumstances.  My grandmother, who had been left alone to raise her children after the Soviets had arrested her husband for being Jewish, heard a rumor that there would be a secret Simchat Torah celebration several miles away from where she was living.  She took her children and walked for miles so they could see it.  It took some convincing to get the Chassidim to let her in and not worry that their secret would get out. Through thick and thin, under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances, Jews have gotten together to celebrate Simchat Torah.  In exile in Babylon, under the Romans, during the Inquisition, through the persecution of the pogroms, in Nazi death camps, Jews have observed this day with joy.  In hidden cellars in the Soviet Union, they danced in their socks and whispered the songs in order not to be caught.  I have also heard from Russian Jews that even though it w...
Read more