This week I got a call for help. Someone whom I vaguely know is hospitalized. He is a new immigrant from the US, hardly speaks any Hebrew, and doesn't have any relatives here. His acquaintance sent out a call for anyone who can, to go and visit him. He is an elderly man, I assume around 70 or more years of age, and he's been battling a disease for many years now. I went to the French Hospital where he is hospitalized, suggested to him that we should walk a bit together, just to get him out of bed and get some exercise, and then, as we were slowly walking through the hospital's corridors, he asked me if I wanted to learn Torah with him. I was surprised. It was a wonderful suggestion. In such a secular place without Torah, to learn Torah together - magnifique! In his room there was another religious man, and their room is the only room in the whole hospital with a Mezuzah (they glued it to the doorpost with sellotape). I read aloud the Torah text with my Hebrew accent, and he stopped me from time to time to comment about the different words and verses I was reading. The thoughts that I'm going to share with you today about the Torah Portion are mostly ideas that I heard from him.
This week's Torah Portion, which will be read in synagogues around the world is that of Matot-Mas'ei (Numbers 30:2-36:13). I will focus here mostly on Numbers 33: "These are the journeys of the Children of Israel, by which they went forth out of the land of Egypt by their hosts, under the hand of Moses and Aaron". The Torah starts here a very long list of all the places to which the Children of Israel went, and from where they then embarked on other journeys. In some of these places they stayed a day, and in others they stayed for many, many years. When you read this chapter superficially, it can be very boring - "And they journeyed from place X, and pitched by place Y; and they journeyed from place Y, and pitched by place Z", etc, for 42 journeys! Why would the Torah, in which every letter is important, and no word is there by coincidence, dedicate so much text just to repeat the journeys of Israel in the desert? After all, we've already heard about these journeys before!
One of the messages that can be derived from this is that life is a journey. If you look at the map of these 42 journeys, you see that they were not a straight line, and were definitely not the shortest or most efficient way to get to the Promised Land. In a person's life there are many stops, and at each stop we experience things, some are good and some are bad, some are sweet and some are bitter. Sometimes the bitter experiences are actually good, because they serve us in meaningful ways, where as the sweet ones, if not understood as something from G-d, may end up harming us. The Hassidish rabbis/masters, such as the Baal Shem-Tov, said that there are 42 spiritual journeys in a person's life, that each of us makes in life: "The 42 journeys of the Children of Israel, described in this Portion, exist in fact in the life of every person, from his birth until his entrance to the upper Land of the Living. This is how the Torah tries to show to every person the desired, proper path - that is, each person must always be journeying, must always be in a constant motion of rising up and moving forward". And just as the Torah does, it is good to sometimes stop and take a look at the journeys we've done, to be reminded of things we've gone through, and to see how we grew thanks to them.
We learn from this chapter in the Torah that it is not only the destination, the 'promised land', that is important. Many times it is the journey, the road to get to our final destination, which is important too. In every station in life, bitter or sweet, we get something, we learn something, and if we are spiritually minded, we can get the best of even the worst situations in life. I'm thinking of that man in the hospital. He's been battling this terrible disease for a long time, but his spirit is not broken. He uses his time to learn Torah, and when you visit him, you see that he is not bitter. He loves G-d and accepts peacefully that which G-d gives him, even if it's life of solitude, with no family, in a country in which few people know him, and especially his battle with the disease. He doesn't complain. He just accepts it graciously.
Also, at any stage we are in life, even if it's very bitter, we can look around and think what we can do to make this world a better place, what we can do for other people. Even someone who is lacking some of the most essential things in life, like family or health, G-d forbid, must remember that this life is a journey, not the final destination, it's just a corridor leading us to the Next World, and what we'll do here in this world will determine our life in the next world. We will not be able to take with us money, or material possessions to the next world, of course. We will be able to take with us just the good deeds we did here, just our efforts to make this world a better place for us and for people all around us, and indeed all over the world. We will be judged on that, and if we are wealthy in good deeds, we will be OK up there, but if not, then maybe it will not be that easy for us up there... This is how I see things, and this is how our rabbis see things.
In every moment of my life I live with the awareness that G-d is with me, supporting me, guiding me, teaching me, but also testing me. This world is like a school - we learn, and we are tested, then learn something new, and then tested again. And the tests are all moral, social and spiritual in nature. Sometimes we fail and fall, but the important thing is to get up, repent, and make sure not to repeat our mistakes again. Just move on, and make the best of every second of every day we are granted in this world. Best not in the sense of having fun, but in the sense of giving to others, volunteering, doing good in this world. This is a true source of real happiness. This, and trust in G-d and the awareness that He is always with us, around us, all of us, each and every one of us. This is the recipe for good, true happiness.
In the hospital room, as I was reading the names of the places that Israel journeyed, the hospitalized man stopped me from time to time, and here are some of his insights:
In verse 8-9 there is a mention of a place called Marah. For those who don't speak Hebrew, it is just another name, but for those of us who speak Hebrew (or learn the Torah in Hebrew, like him, these names have meaning). Marah in Hebrew means bitterness, and he said that the place was called so not because it was bitter, but because THEY (the People of Israel) were bitter. We can learn from this an important lesson: No matter where we are in life and what the external circumstances are, it is our frame of mind, our mindset, that determines the outcome of this "station" in our lives. If we are in a very beautiful place, but our mind is bitter and full of anxiety and pain, we will experience this beautiful place as bitter and painful. We all know people who have everything in life, but are depressed. On the other hand, if we are in bitter, painful situations in life, lacking important things, like family, etc., but we look at it in an optimistic way, seeing G-d everywhere, then this place will be sweeter and more positive for us. We all know people who have nothing in life, but are happy.
This is just a small example of the meaning we can derive from every word in the Torah - our Sages (our great rabbis, commentators of the Torah) found meaning behind the names of the other places.
The chapter ends with this statement from G-d: "unto you have I given the land to possess it". Now tell me, can anyone argue with Him? No one can. We've finally reached the Promised Land, after thousands of years in the bitter desert of exile. And we possess it. And our Prophets promised us that this time we will not be driven out of it. And we believe them, so we keep building and developing this land, which has been waiting for us for such a long time. So we're here, at the end of so many bitter journeys - but our journeys, bitter as they were, were not in vain. They were part of G-d's greater plan, which we do not fully understand. The important thing is that we're finally at our sweet, beautiful destination - not completely (the Temple needs to be built too) but almost there in full! Rabbi Harlap encourages us not to stay put, but rather to keep moving upward and forward in our spiritual growth. Especially now that we are in the Land of Israel, we have the moral obligation to keep growing, keep moving forward. The amount of Torah classes everywhere is dazzling, there is so much thirst here by people to know G-d, and even people who grew up in secular families, like me, find their way back to the Torah, to G-d, and to Torah driven life of keeping the commandments and doing acts of loving kindness.
Thank you for joining me on this journey as I write here from time to time.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov (a blessed new month - tonight starts the Hebrew Month of Av)!
From Jerusalem with Love,
R.
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