44 | OCTOBER 26 • 2023 J
N
E
tre ailleurs, “To be
elsewhere — the great
vice of this race, its
great and secret virtue, the
great vocation of this people.”
So wrote the French poet
and essayist
Charles Peguy
(1873-1914),
a philosemite
in an age of
antisemitism.
He continued:
“Any crossing
for them means
the crossing of the desert.
The most comfortable
houses, the best built
from stones as big as the
temple pillars, the most
real of real estate, the most
overwhelming of apartment
houses will never mean more
to them than a tent in the
desert.”
What he meant was that
history and destiny had
combined to make Jews
aware of the temporariness
of any dwelling outside the
Holy Land. To be a Jew is
to be on a journey. That is
how the Jewish story began
when Abraham first heard
the words “Lech Lecha,
” with
their call to leave where he
was and travel “to the land I
will show you.” That is how
it began again in the days of
Moses, when the family had
become a people. And that
is the point almost endlessly
repeated in parshat Masei:
“They set out from X and
camped at Y. They set out
from Y and camped at Z”
— 42 stages in a journey of
40 years. We are the people
who travel. We are the people
who do not stand still. We
are the people for whom time
itself is a journey through the
wilderness in search of the
Promised Land.
In one sense, this is a
theme familiar from the
world of myth. In many
cultures, stories are told
about the journey of the hero.
Otto Rank, one of Freud’s
most brilliant colleagues,
wrote about it. So did Joseph
Campbell, a Jungian, in
his book, The Hero with a
Thousand Faces. Nonetheless,
the Jewish story is different
in significant ways:
The journey — set out
in the books of Shemot and
Bamidbar — is undertaken by
everyone, the entire people:
men, women and children.
It is as if, in Judaism, we
are all heroes, or at least
all summoned to a heroic
challenge.
It takes longer than a
single generation. Perhaps,
had the spies not demoralized
the nation with their report,
it might have taken only a
short while. But there is a
deeper and more universal
truth here. The move from
slavery to the responsibilities
of freedom takes time. People
do not change overnight.
Therefore, evolution
succeeds; revolution fails.
The Jewish journey began
before we were born, and it is
our responsibility to hand it
on to those who will continue
it after us.
In myth, the hero usually
encounters a major trial:
an adversary, a dragon, a
dark force. He (it is usually
a he) may even die and be
resurrected. As Campbell puts
it: “
A hero ventures forth from
the world of common day
into a region of supernatural
wonder: Fabulous forces are
there encountered, and a
decisive victory is won: The
hero comes back from this
mysterious adventure with the
power to bestow boons on his
fellow man.” The Jewish story
is different. The adversary
the Israelites encounter is
themselves: their fears, their
weaknesses, their constant
urge to return and regress.
THE TORAH IS
ANTI-MYTH
It seems to me, here as so
often elsewhere, that the
Torah is not myth but anti-
myth, a deliberate insistence
on removing the magical
elements from the story and
focusing relentlessly on the
human drama of courage
versus fear, hope versus
despair, and the call, not to
some larger-than-life hero
but to all-of-us-together,
given strength by our ties
to our people’s past and the
bonds between us in the
present.
The Torah is not some
fabled escape from reality
but reality itself, seen as
a journey we must all
undertake, each with
our own strengths and
contributions to our people
and to humanity.
We are all on a journey.
And we must all rest
from time to time. That
dialectic between setting
out and encamping, walking
and standing still, is part of
the rhythm of Jewish life.
There is a time for Nitzavim,
standing, and a time
for Vayelekh, moving on.
Rav Kook spoke of the
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Miles to Go
Before I Sleep