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The Road Ahead

Parshat Matot-Masei: Numbers
30:2-36:13; Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4

U

ndoubtedly, the Exodus
The 13th-century scholar
stands as the central event
Nachmanides concludes, “The
of our nation’s collective
recording of the journeys was a
consciousness, an event that we
Divine commandment … or for a
invoke daily in the Shema, on the
purpose the secret of which has not
Sabbath, on festivals and after every
been revealed to us.” Nachmanides
meal.
seems to be prompting us to probe
Still, when we consider the detail
further.
that our portion of Masei devotes to Rabbi Shlomo
I would submit that the secret
recording all 42 stops of the 40-year Riskin
he refers to may indeed be the
desert sojourn, we’re a little taken
secret of Jewish survival. After all,
aback. One chapter devotes 45
the concept of ma’aseh avot siman
verses to listing all 42 locations, and because
l’banim — that the actions of the fathers are
each location was not only a place where
a sign of what will happen to the children —
the Israelites camped but also a place from
was well known to the sages and one of the
which they journeyed, each place name is
guiding principles of Nachmanides’ biblical
mentioned twice. Why such detail?
commentary. Perhaps, the hidden message

of this text is an outline of the future course
of Jewish history.
From the time of the destruction of the
Temple, until our present return to the Land
of Israel — the “goings forth” of the Jewish
people certainly comprise at least 42 stages:
Judea, Babylon, Persia, Rome, Europe, North
Africa and the New World. As Tevye the
Milkman explains in Fiddler on the Roof
when he is banished from Anatevka, “Maybe
that’s why we always wear our hats.”
Moreover, each diaspora was important in
its own right and made its own unique con-
tribution to the text (Oral Law) and texture
(customs) of the sacred kaleidoscope that is
the Jewish historical experience. Perhaps the
Jews didn’t invent history, but they under-
stood that the places of Jewish wanderings,
the content of the Jewish lifestyle and the
miracle of Jewish survival are more impor-
tant than those hieroglyphics that exalt and
praise rulers and their battles.
The “secret” Nachmanides refers to may
not only be a prophetic vision of our history,
but also a crucial lesson as to what gave us
the strength, the courage and the faith to
keep on going, to keep on moving, to with-
stand the long haul of exile.
If we look at the verse where Moses writes
down the journey according to the com-
mand of God, we read that Moses recorded

“their starting points toward their destina-
tions at God’s command and those were their
destinations toward their starting points.”
What does this mean? Why does the same
verse conclude “destinations toward starting
points?”
Fundamental to our history as a nation
is that we are constantly traveling — on the
road to the Promised Land, on the journey
toward redemption. Even as we move down
the road of time, we must always recall the
place of our origin.
When S.Y. Agnon received the Nobel
Prize for literature, he was asked about his
birthplace. To the interviewer’s surprise, he
answered that he was born in Jerusalem.
The interviewer pointed out that everyone
knew he had been born in Buczacz, a town
in Galicia. Agnon corrected him: “I was born
in Jerusalem more than 3,000 years ago. That
was my beginning, my origin. Buczacz in
Galicia is only one of the stopping-off points.”
As long as we wander with our place of
origin firmly in mind, we will assuredly
reach our goal. We may leave our place of
origin for our destination, but our places
of origin in Israel will remain our ultimate
destiny.

*

Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief
rabbi of Efrat, Israel.

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