The Long and winding road

For all that we cherish the land of Israel, the seminal event in Jewish History happened outside of Israel.  We would have expected the greatest event in Jewish history to take place where many other events took place- the Temple mount. That is where Abraham sought to sacrifice Yitzak, where Yakov dreamt of his ladder (according to some), and it is where G-d’s presence would rest for over four hundred years during the first temple period.  But, the Torah was not given there. Why? 

                It says that when Jews left Egypt, G-d circled the Jews around towards ‘the way of the desert of the Sea of Reeds’. He didn’t want the Jews to go straight to the land of holiness.  What was the value of taking an extended journey?

                On a simple level, to make Aliya should not be as easy as perusing an El Al website for a ½ and hour and buying a ticket.  To go to a place of holiness requires preparation.  So first, we had to gain mastery over our bodies by virtue of toiling along a circuitous route.  Then, we had to fortify our emotions in a desert to gain will power- there is little that is more deflating than being in the middle of nowhere.  And finally, we had to sharpen our intellectual resolve to see beyond the finite world- we needed to understand the miraculous and experience a split sea. 

                But a different way of looking at it is that we couldn’t go straight to Israel because we needed to make a crucial pit stop on our way to get the instruction manual for success in life.  When it says that G-d took us around towards ‘the way’, it is a direct reference to the Torah.  And that couldn’t be given in the holy of holies of Jerusalem for that is the ultimate destination- to reach transcendence.  Torah is the map on how to get there and you only purchase a map while you are on the journey, not when you have already arrived.

History unfolding

There is a common approach to dealing with the rampant anxiety of today- live in the present.  Mindfulness and other new age ‘technology’ is a band aid to a growing problem.  There is an aspect missing in all these approaches that needs explanation.  

                The Torah begins the second book with a litany of superfluous verses.  We already know that Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt- what do we need to know this for?  The secret lies in knowing what a name is and what it represents.  A name in Hebrew is a simple word- shem, שם.  But it in we see two distinct concepts. The letter shin, much likes it graphical representation, stands for a root or shoresh.  A name is often after someone in the past or it describes the circumstances around the birth- the timing or the events that led to it.  The second letter ‘mem’ is always the idea of expression- as its numerical value of 40 attests.  We have 40 days before Moses expressed Torah into the world, it is on the 40^th day that a soul comes into the fetus, and it took 40 days of rain to fully express the destruction of the world.  A name is the idea of history flowing through the generations and creating a future. 

                The antithesis of seeing the big picture of time is the Egyptian society.  The two aspects of Egyptian society that we know were corrupt from the Torah itself (the episode with Yosef and Pharaoh’s self-aggrandizement) were sexual immorality and idolatry.  Those are both ideologies of only living in the present. I have a desire now, so I need to fulfill it. Or, there is a force that stands in the way so I need to find the god (power) that controls it for me now. I don’t care if it is right or wrong, but it is in front of me.  Holiness is just the opposite.  It is seeing the big picture- G-d doesn’t just exist now, but will exist in the future and existed in the past and my action must reflect that. 

                That is why names are emphasized to start this book. As the national history of the Jewish people begins, we can intuit the future by looking at the names of the past.  And as a Jew it is important to live in the present but only as it fits with the past and future. The present on its own lacks context.   

With a greater vision we can see history unfolding. It appears that the idea of a French Jew may soon be a thing of the past, and Netanya may soon get much more over crowded.   It must be that is what is supposed to happen- there is a plan because there is a G-d, not just now, but in the future.