Stations Along The Journey: Mass'ei

Stations Along The Journey

D’var Torah for Parashat Mass’ei

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

A person’s life can be measured in numbers: So many years, events, homes and people we’ve known during our lifetime, numbers that at first seem no more than dots along a map, but that together outline and summarize one complete journey.

In retrospect, each journey has a beginning, a middle point and an end.  In reality, however, life is rarely so clear.  Some journeys end before their time; others seem to continue beyond any specific point, even beyond death.

The last portion of the book of Numbers, Mass’ei (“Journeys,” Numbers 33:1-36:13), lists 42 stations and stops along Israel’s journeys.  These begin in Egypt, where the Exodus gained momentum and began.  Following a zigzag line in the wilderness, the Israelites finally reach a point just across the Jordan River, at a point where the Promised Land lies no more than a stone’s throw away.

Each point along the journey brings up recollections:  Here a redemption, there a miracle; at this place or another, a quarrel, or a plague outbreak.  Here, at this oasis, seventy palm trees surround a pool of sweet water, a place of blessing.  But at this other spring, the pool contains only bitter water, arousing the people’s complaint.

42 stations, encampments along the way, encompassing a journey of forty years.  In this span, a generation that began its life as slaves gave way to one that was born in freedom.  More than physical travels, more than postcards from the wilderness, this list describes a spiritual passage in which a ragtag rabble, a mixed multitude of peoples, becomes one nation under one God, following one vision, living by one code of justice for all.

But this is only the beginning.

How many more stations can be counted along our people’s history from that one auspicious beginning?  How many more encampments along a journey that began so long ago and still continues, undaunted, in our own day?

Volumes upon volumes have been written to describe this journey; many more are still waiting to be written. The stations along our travels dot the entire world, and each one tells a story.  Our people’s existence can be measured in miles and eons, crossing oceans and continents; the number of our encampments far outstrips that of our humble beginning.

And the numbers keep growing.  Start anywhere, at any point along our travels and history.  

In our day, we are seeing a parallel to the Biblical exodus.  The zigzag has led our people back to Israel, back to our homeland.  So much has changed in the three millennia, yet we can still tell the story in numbers.

Last Thursday, in Jerusalem, the tenth President of the State of Israel was sworn in.  It was a somewhat muted ceremony, a celebration dimmed by the din of conflict and war.  In the K’nesset building, the home of Israel’s parliament, trumpets and shofar blasts marked the smooth transition of power that is the hallmark of modern Israel’s democratic government.  But in the south of the country, sirens wailed, indicating yet another incoming barrage of missiles fired by Hamas, a tyrannical, fascistic and murderous group bent on our destruction.  In the past 3 weeks, almost 2500 such rockets streaked across Israel’s skies toward civilian population centers, aimed indiscriminately at men, women and children.  Depending on the distance between launcher and approximate target, Israelis have anywhere between no-time at all and 90 seconds to reach a secure space or bomb shelter.

In this latest war imposed on Israel by its enemies, 35 of our soldiers have fallen so far.  Many more were injured, some critically.  Many of them were officers.  Paratroops, tankists or foot soldiers, all had volunteered to serve in the elite divisions of Golani and Nahal, all were battle tried, dedicated and devoted to one another as well as to the higher goal of defending Israel’s right to live in peace and security.

In my own lifetime journey, I recall about a dozen such wars, from the Sinai Campaign of 1956 (I was born after the 1948 War of Independence), through the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the two Lebanon Wars, the two Intifadas and 3 Gaza conflicts, each harsher and bloodier than its predecessor.

Each of these points is a point in my own journey.  Together they map not only my own life, but also the line of Israel’s continuous existence.  They are etched on the scroll of Israel’s history no less than in the scars on the wounded soldiers’ bodies and souls.

Each station tells a multitude of stories, each with its own a beginning, middle and end. 

Yet the numbers add up to much more than dots on a map.  Separately, they are each a lifetime.  Together, however, they tell the story of one continuous journey.  Begun so long ago, this journey has no ending.  It still continues, still zigzags through a wilderness, from one stop to another, from one encampment and station along the way to the very next.

As the Book Of Numbers concludes, we call out together:  Chazak chazak v’nit’chazek—let us all be strong and of good courage, and we shall all be strengthened.

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman