Parshas Mattos-Masai: Look Back and See

Torah Parallels Weekly

Parshas Mattos-Masai

💭 A Thought on the Parsha: Look Back and See                         Parshas Masei opens listing the forty-two stops that B'nei Yisroel made while traveling through the midbar. If we stop and think about this for a moment, it is a little unusual for the Torah to do such a thing. After all, we know that as a general rule the Torah is very particular when it comes to what is contained in the written Torah and there is no letter that is extra. If so, how could we understand why the Torah repeats every place that B'nei Yisroel travelled to and camped during their forty-year journey through the midbar? Rashi is bothered by this and offers two explanations.             Rashi's first answer is from Rebbe Moshe HaDarshan, who explains as follows. After reading through all the parshiyos describing the B'nei Yisroel in the midbar, it is easy to walk away with the impression that indeed life was pretty miserable. Even with the fact that Hashem provided us with food, drink, and shelter along with a myriad of miracles we cannot begin to imagine, there is still the fact to consider that we, as a nation, were constantly on the move traveling. At the end of the day it is still quite a pain to have to constantly pack and unpack and repack every other day. The tents had to be carried, and the mishkan dismantled; quite an arduous process had to be undertaken every time. This is the sort of picture one can easily have after reading about the constant traveling of the B'nei Yisroel though the midbar. Therefore, as Rashi explains, in order to counter such thoughts, the Torah stops here to list all forty-two places that that camped to stress the fact that over the forty years of being in the midbar, they only moved forty-two times. Fourteen of the forty-two places they camped in during their first year in the midbar after leaving Mitzrayim, and the last eight places listed were the stops they made during their last year starting from after Aharon died. It comes out that during the middle thirty-eight of the forty years in the desert, they really only had to move twenty times – not too bad after all. After camping almost two years in the same place they were probably itching to check out the next stretch of sand anyway. This is why the Torah here reviews the list of places B'nei Yisroel travelled; in order to teach us the great kindness of Hashem that over the span of the middle thirty-eight years in the midbar, B’nei Yisroel only had to pack their bags and move twenty times.             The obvious difficulty with this first part of Rashi is that although it may be true that that relative to having to travel and switch camps through a desert daily, moving only once about every two years is not too bad, but certainly not having to move at all would be much better. Imagine a person walks over to his friend and starts beating him up, hitting him 100 times. Then, he turns to him and says, “Notice how merciful and kind I am because I could have hit you 200 times but I decided to stop after 100.” Is such behavior really mercy and kindness? Mercy and kindness would be not hitting in the first place. So how could we understand this Rashi that the Torah goes out of its way to list the 42 places that B'nei Yisroel travelled to in order to demonstrate Hashem's kindness that he did not make us travel as often as one may walk away thinking. What difference does it make? How does that in any way lighten the fact that He is the one who made us travel through the desert in the first place?             Rashi continues and offers another approach to his original question based on the Medrash Tanchuma. The Medrash offers a moshol (parable) as to why the Torah recounts the names of all the places B'nei Yisroel journeyed. He writes that it is similar to a king who had a son who was deathly ill and had to travel with him to a distant land for a cure. They arrived and his son was cured. On their way back to their kingdom the father counted all the journeys and pointed out to his son, “Here we slept, here we felt cold and here you had a headache”.             Now, it is true that the moshol does seem to parallel what the Torah is doing. In both scenarios, a “king” is reflecting on a previous journey. However, the medrash does not explain the reason behind the details of the moshol or even the purpose of the king doing so. Why is the moshol with a son who is ill and why is it important that the king point out what occurred at each place? Even if we can understand the moshol, what relevance does it have to B’nei Yisroel and their travels in the midbar?             We have mentioned before the Derech Hashem who writes about the intricate world of hashgaca p'ratis that was designed by Hashem. Every person has a unique role in this world, and it is therefore necessary that everyone is given precisely the correct life settings, environments, talents, and interactions with others. As well as we think we may know ourselves, Hashem not only knows us exponentially better but even knows why we are what we are and how we are challenged to channel our various facets in their proper directions.             The generation that left Mitzrayim and journeyed through the desert were put through nisyonos and challenges of emunah that we cannot even begin to imagine. These challenges were not put into place to make their lives miserable and set them up for failure. Rather, just the opposite. These tests and difficult environments were set in place for the B'nei Yisroel to maximize their potential and succeed. Hashem knows the breaking point and tolerance level of each individual and would never give a challenge too great for a person to overcome. This is the incredible love and magnitude of hasgacha p'ratis that Hashem has for B'nei Yisroel and perhaps this is the message that Rashi is relating in his first answer. B'nei Yisroel had to go through the midbar because that is what was necessary for them to achieve the level of emunah necessary to enter Eretz Yisroel. However, the nisayon was not delivered arbitrarily or without attention to detail. The route, number of places they camped at, and the amount of time they had before having to travel again were all closely controlled by Hashem to be able to perfectly deliver challenges tailored to the B'nei Yisroel at the proper place and time. There was a “method to the madness” so to speak. It is true that we had to travel for 40 years in the midbar. However it is also true that there was an itinerary and intelligent design behind it which not only perfectly matched the necessary baseline nisyonos which B’nei Yisroel were required to go through win order to enter Eretz Yisroel, but was even able to adapt itself to match the consequences that the B’nei Yisroel deserved for the unfortunate events that occurred in the midbar. It is no coincidence that B’nei Yisroel journeyed 42 times – corresponding to the 42 letter name of Hashem. The perfect system of hashgacha p’ratis that the Torah is reminding us of is indeed the ultimate example of the boundless mercy and kindness Hashem shows each of us individually. Hashem is our Creator and therefore obviously understands us perfectly. He know why He brought us each into this world and customizes the world and how we will interact with it special for us to the extent that there is really not one world but rather seven billion perceptions of it. As the mishna in Sanhedrin states, “Every person is obligated to declare, ‘The world was created for me’.                         As important as it is for one to internalize this to appreciate Hashm’s love for him and for one to realize that the hashgacha p’ratis is testimony by Hashem Himself that each person in this world still has the ability to realize his or her potential, that is still not enough. We have to also be able to look back at the times when we were “sick” and learn from our mistakes so that we could improve for the future. If we go through a struggle that we fail because we were not yet on the level of conquering, that is okay and expected. However, it is also expected that we dust ourselves off and take inventory of ourselves to figure out what went wrong so that it can be corrected for the future. If this is not done, then we may not be properly preparing ourselves for the next level of hashgacha which Hashem has in store for us and we could chas v’shalom end up failing in an area which we are meant to pass.             Perhaps this is the lesson from the moshol in the second part of Rashi. The B’nei Yisroel as a nation perhaps made it through the midbar to Eretz Yisroel. However, there is no doubt that there were casualties and lessons to be learned from events along the way. Without stopping to look back and reflect on what went wrong and what went right in the midbar, they would not be prepared for the next stage after reaching Eretz Yisroel.              May Hashem help us learn this dual lesson from these two explanations Rashi brings of “eileh ma’aseh B’nei Yisroel”. First that we appreciate Hashem’s intricate role in every single person’s day to day life in a manner so perfect that it is far beyond human or even super-computer comprehension. And second, that we do not just take for granted the “checkpoints” we reach but rather constantly look back at our experiences in order to feel good from our achievements and learn from our mistakes.

Have a wonderful Shabbos!