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Torah Portion
.
Transitions And Change
Aid In Self Discovery
they expressed fears about their transi-
tion in terms of doubts about food and
water. As we enter into the silence and
solitude of transition, we, too, find it
easier to focus on day-to-day concerns
rather than confronting the more diffi-
cult questions.
Like the desert of our ancestors, the
Hebrew name for the fourth
"desert" of our transitions can make us
of the Five Books of Moses is
aware of our closeness to God who
Bamidbar, "in the wilder-
gives us strength. In the words of
ess." The book begins with
Isaiah, God "gives power to the faint,
a census of the Jewish people and with
and to him who has no might, God
a series of preparations for the journey
increases strengths."
from the desert to Israel.
There are three crucial
Bamidbar is read on the
aspects of effecting good
Shabbat preceding Shavuot as
transitions.
a requirement. On Shavuot,
First, spend time in ways
the Torah reading begins with
related to your values.
a reference to the wilderness
When the Jewish people
of Sinai. The Jewish people
pledged to serve God, that
were in transit from the slav-
pledge was consistent with
ery of a city in Egypt to free-
Jewish identity. Although
dom in a vast, seemingly end-
they wandered in the desert,
less desert in the Sinai.
they still set aside times for
The Bible speaks not only
daily prayer, and kept the
RABBI
of a historical experience. It
Shabbat
as a holy day.
HERBERT A.
addresses our own nature.
Transitions are easier when
YOSKOWITZ
When we are in transition,
we maintain time to express
Special to the
we need to deal with uncer-
Jewish values.
Jewish News
tainty as well as with
Second, we must learn
promise. As Terry Foland,
who we are through intro-
senior consultant of the
spection and not from someone else's
Alban Institute, said recently at a
definition of us. Transitions are easier
meeting of the Michigan Board of
when we know that we have intrinsic
Rabbis, transition is different from
worth. We can understand ourselves in
change. . Change is external; transition
terms of our relationship to God who
is internal.
encourages us to be free to remember
Transition, he said, is "the psycho-
who we are and to what we aspire as
logical process people go through to
we plan to live our identity as Jews.
come to terms with change."
Third, a good transition requires
For young people, this is tradition-
that our lives have meaning. When the
ally a month of graduations and of
Jewish people left Egypt, they were led
transitions. High school students leave
out of physical suffering and out of
home to go to college; college and
meaninglessness into an opportunity
university graduates are moving to the
that could give meaning to their own
work force. At times, all are likely to
particular story.
be psychologically living in "desert
We are meant to be whole even in
time."
transition. Bamidbar teaches us that we
The biblical desert is unsettled.
can transform a desert into a paradise.
There is borderlessness and potential
In the words of the Prophet Isaiah:
emptiness as contexts disappear and as
_"For he has transformed its desert into
roles change. r
paradise and its wilderness into the
One of the great preachers and reli-
garden of the Lord."
gious teachers of the 20th century,
Harry Emerson Fosdick, describes the
wilderness of his teenage years. "It was
the most terrifying wilderness I ever
traveled through ... I made some of the
How did the desert experience
most vital discoveries of my li::.. Why
work
for the Jews? How can the
is it that some of life's most revealing
metaphoric
desert work for us
insights come to us not from life's love-
today? The desert includes vul-
liness, but from life's difficulties?"
nerability and fear; how can it be
When the Jews were in the desert,
the source of revelation and cre-
ativity?
Herbert Yoskowitz is a rabbi at Adat
Shalom Synagogue.
Shabbat Bamidbar:
Numbers 1:1-4:20;
Hosea 2:1-22.
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