This Torah idea
should serve as a protection for all of our Brothers fighting in Gaza…
G-d’s final message to the Jews is
strange.[1]
The fourth book of the Torah is full of dramatic twists and turns in Jewish destiny.
From a 38 year extension in the desert to the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, it
ends with a mundane recount of their journeys in the desert. What is the crucial message conveyed in the journey
that it needs to be systematically recounted?
There are four paradigmatic ideas in
highlighting the journeys. First, the wanderings in the desert were a consequence
for the sin of the spies; yet, we see that the consequence was not a constant
wandering without respite. The Jews
camped at some places for over a year.
We learn that even when there is a Divine consequence it is done with a
sprinkle of love. Perhaps, this recent
war in Gaza is an example of this where the following story has been related:
Through our incursions into Gaza it was uncovered that
Hamas had planned a terrible calamity. This Rosh Hashana they had planned to
send out 200 terrorists from each of the tunnels and decimate and destroy the
Israeli communities in the south.
The mother of one of the 3 murdered boys said "Now I
know where all our prayers and achudut (Unity of Jewish People coming together)
went."
On our children's behalf, everyone prayed and were united
for 18 days all over Israel. This led to the Gaza War and discovery of the
tunnels in Israel! Many thousand would have been murdered in an unparalleled
tragedy!
With unity we will have turn sadness to joy and suffering
to salvation.
The second idea is the following
metaphor. The parent of a sick child who
goes to different places to find a cure will recount his journey after the child
has recovered. So too, it is the realization that the purpose of wandering in the
desert was to cure the Jews of their spiritual blemishes and each place they
went to had a unique ability to help them.
This is a level deeper than the previous answer- not only was the consequence
not as severe as it could have been, but the consequence itself was not a
mindless punishment, but a consequence with the power to heal.
A third idea has a different bent.
Maimonides says that by highlighting the places where Israel journeyed we can
confirm that indeed none of these places had food or water there. So the fact that the Jews survived for forty
years in the desert could only have been through a prolonged miracle. In a sense, this miracle is much bigger than
the exodus from Egypt as it was constant.
Finally, the Kabbalistic perspective
is that these 42 places that the Jews ventured reference a 42 letter name of
G-d. This name is also hinted at in the
beginning of creation. Again, within the
complications of life, a person needs to find the divine and loving hand, but
only a spiritually refined person can do it.[2]
Israel’s journey is precarious at
the moment, and we are not sure exactly how it will unfold. But, with the proper perspective, we can find
the silver lining that is always there.
