Tribes and Journeys
D’var Torah for
Parashat Matot-Mass’ei
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
It’s a simple matter to go to Israel today. There are flights and cruises that can take
you here year round, 24/7. On the
evening news tonight they interviewed a fitness nut who just kayaked to Israel
all the way from the island of Cyprus, a distance of nearly 350 miles… I personally like it a little bit less
strenuous; not that it’s easy to fly for 10 ½ hours non-stop, but it sure beats
rowing in six hour shifts with short breaks in-between for small snacks.
The path taken here in previous eras was much more
arduous. Coming from the west, some made
it by foot, on horseback or by camel caravans, crossing the perilous deserts of
northern Africa, or perhaps taking the northern route along the northern shores
of the Mediterranean Sea. If from the
east or south, the way was just as dangerous, with your company being spice- or
slave-traders from India, Persia or Arabia.
My father left Europe in April 1939, on a rickety boat overloaded
with other young men and women who had trained for weeks and months for a new
life in Israel. His boat slipped silently
through the darkness, evading the British blockade until it came within a
kilometer or so of the shore just north of Tel Aviv. Then he and his fellow passengers jumped into
the water and swam the rest of the way in.
Luckily, they were not observed or captured by the British.
My mother’s trip was longer and had many more stops,
including a Nazi prison and several concentration camps. She arrived by train, nearly 5 years after
first leaving her childhood home. Despite the difficulties and dangers—or
perhaps because of them—my mother remembers every stop and station along the
way. She remembers to this day who was
with her on any particular leg of the trip, and who was lost along the way,
shot, hanged, or simply disappeared.
Every place has its story.
It takes the Torah narrator a full chapter in this week’s
double portion, Matot-Mass’ei (“Tribes
and Journeys,” Num. 30:2—36:13), to list the 42 stops that the ancient
Israelites made on the way from Egypt from the Promised Land. 42 stops in a journey that took 40 years to
complete.
Each stop has its story and lessons. Here Miriam died; here Moses and Aaron nearly
lost their lives in a short-lived rebellion; here the Israelites devoured meat
in such haste that they barely took time to chew the meat, let alone cook it.
Of course it wasn’t all disaster and calamity. At Mount Sinai, the people received the
Torah; at Eilim they found 12 wells of water and 70 date palms; at Abarim, the
wicked Balaam’s intended curse turned into a beautiful and exalted song of
praise: Mah tovu ohalecha Yisrael—How lovely are your tents, O Israel!
It wasn’t an easy journey; each stop helped define the
character of the people; each station refined and cemented their budding
relationship with God. There were times
when they looked back at Egypt through rose-colored lenses; times when their
faith was tested; and places where the Israelites tested Moses’s—and
God’s—patience and love. But through it
all, they never lost sight of their intended goal. Each stop was temporary, a place to recharge,
or perhaps to learn something new about themselves—some new fact, law or
regulation that would help them along the rest of their way.
During those 40 years, the Israelites met their future
neighbors—Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites, Edomites and Amalekites. They learned how to deal with these
peoples. Some tribes were peaceful;
others were dangerous and treacherous.
Through their interactions with the different cultures they met along
their way, the Israelites learned much about their own religion. They saw things they could never repeat,
practices that they found abominable.
From some—such as Jethro, the high priest of Midian—they learned to organize
themselves into a well-structured society led by magistrates, judges and a
council of elders.
As they witnessed barbaric practices such as blood
vengeance, the Israelites arrived at a different system of justice, one
described in this portion: a system of
refuge cities to which a suspected murderer could flee until due process could
be established, a system where witnesses and judges, not momentary passions,
determined the course of justice.
One of the features of Facebook is Timeline, a listing of
important places and events in one’s life:
born in this or that town, schooled in this school or another, with
connections to this place or the other.
Each stop has a slew of memories associated with it. It brings to mind people whose lives
intersected with ours, teachers who guided us, places where nature impressed us
with beauty or power. Each stop along
our life has helped shape us into the person we are today.
The same is true for us as a people. Our forty years as wanderers in the Sinai
wilderness turned us from a shapeless multitude into a nation. The journey gave us a Law; it gave us
purpose; and it gave us a goal. Forty-two
stops later, we were perched at the entrance to our Promised Land, prepared to
inherit it and to start a new chapter in a new book.
It was true thousands of years ago, and it is still true to
this day. Only in the intervening
centuries, there have been so many more stops along the way. Each of us has a history, a list of places
we’ve been. From each of these we’ve
taken something along with us, perhaps a memory, or maybe a certain turn of
phrase, an accent, a special food, or a favorite song.
As I sat for our Shabbat dinner tonight with my family in
Tel Aviv, I looked around me. Each of us
around the table originated from a different country—perhaps even two. There was a mixture here of cultures and
foods, songs and prayers that represented so many stops along the path our
people has taken. But we were and are
one family, united in joy and love.
And so are we all, all around the globe. We are all one family, one people, descended
from the same ancient family of wanderers, united by history and religion, by
belief and custom—but above all, by a common purpose and goal.
We are Israel, and our story is the accounting of our tribes
and our journeys, of the places we’ve been, the places we’ve stopped, and the
longed-for Promised Land we are in the process of establishing for ourselves
and for the generations to come. It’s a
story whose conclusion we have yet to reach, but whose past and present cannot
be disputed.
It’s written in the scrolls of our lives.
© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman
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