Have you ever taken a trip that was rather long and drawn out? Did you stop at various intervals? When you think back on that journey, were the interim stops part of your memory of the trip?
As you know the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years after leaving Egypt. Did you notice how many stops were reported in this week's parasha...there were 42 recorded stops. What do you think was the purpose of having a listing of all 42 stops?
Maimonides suggests that the enumeration was not useless. It made it possible for future generations to understand that the journey was long and arduous and that the people survived only because of G-d's provision of manna on a daily basis. The route actually shows that there was no cultivated land nearby from which the Israelites could profit. By showing the barren nature of the wilderness, the story of survival becomes one of a miracle.
The first sentence of the parasha states, "These are the journeys of the children of Israel by which they went forth out of the land of Egypt." Is that an accurate statement from your point of view? Why or why not? Do all the stops in the journey take the children of Israel out of Egypt? Actually only the journey from Ramses to Succot resulted in taking the children of Israel out of Egypt. All of the rest of the journeys took place within the context of traveling through the wilderness outside of Egypt. So now let's look at an interpretation of why this statement is made in the first place if it is not geographically true.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, commented that when the Israelites left Mitzrayim, they left their confinement. The word Mitzrayim (Egypt) means from the narrow straits. Yet according to Rabbi Schneerson, it was not until they entered the land of Canaan that they reached "spaciousness". He interprets this to mean that leaving Egypt took them out of their spiritual confinement but they had a long journey to reach their spiritual goal which was symbolized by the metaphor of the wide open land. He wrote, "That is why all 42 journeys, not merely the first were a going out of the Land of Egypt. Every journey that brought them nearer to the land of Israel and their destinay made the previous stopping point seem like a confinement, another Egypt. Each stage was a new Exodus. They had already left the physical Egypt, but they still had to pass beyond beyond the Egypt that was the narrowness of their souls.
Did you notice any stop that either seemed to be missing or not elaborated upon in an adequate manner?
Perhaps you might have noticed that the stop at Mt. Sinai and the revelation of the law was left out. One explanation for this seemingly odd omission is that when Torah was given, "it became timeless and cut loose from any one place. (M. HaCohen)....In other words, Torah belongs to all times and to all places. It is not confined to one spot in space nor one hour in time.
Do you remember the statement that we read on Pesach about how we are to relate to the story of the Exodus? We are reminded to view ourselves as if we had personally traveled out of Egypt. Since the receiving of Torah is eternal in nature, then we also need to begin thinking about ourselves as journeying from our confinements and passing to the expansiveness where our souls can soar. What is one confinement that you think people face in the secular world that keeps them from relating to G-d? How can we bridge that gap? Rav Kook suggests that the Torah tells us about our national birth, which involved a meeting and communication with G-d. He writes that we can continue our conversation with G-d because G-d chose to communicate with us through justice and righteousness. We can leave the confines of our own personal space by journeying toward the establishment of a world that understands that each individual must be responsible for his own actions because it not only protects society but also opens the door to spiritual connection with G-d. In other words, by trying to adhere to halacha, the path that leads us to the establishment of a just and righteous world, we have been given a method by which we can encounter G-d once again.
One of the beauties of looking at Torah from this perspective is that it reminds us that our physical actions can meet our spiritual goal of serving G-d so that our journeys actually take us out of the confines and bring us to the "spaciousness" that allows our souls to soar!
Shabbat Shalom.
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