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Parsha Ponderings – Parshas Masei

אֵלֶּה מַסְעֵי בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יָצְאוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לְצִבְאֹתָם בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן

‘וַיִּכְתּב מֹשֶׁה אֶת־מוֹצָאֵיהֶם לְמַסְעֵיהֶם עַל־פִּי ד

These are the travels of the Israelites who left the land of Egypt led by Moshe and Aharon. And Moshe wrote the goings of their travels as dictated to him by God.

These two opening verses of Parshas Ma’asei contain two passages we should find very puzzling. Firstly, why does the Torah tell us that the travels are those of the Israelites who left Egypt? Don’t we know that the Israelites left Egypt? What relevance does this seemingly obvious information have to our Parsha? Secondly, what is meant by stating that Moshe recorded the travels as dictated by God? Doesn’t that hold true for the entire Torah? What was so unique about Moshe writing the travels over his authoring of the entire Torah?

Malbim offers a novel interpretation of the aforementioned verses. The first verse must be read as follows: These are the travels of the Israelites through which they left Egypt. He explains that even after physically leaving the land of Egypt, the Israelites needed extensive therapy to cleanse them of the Egyptian culture they had become accustomed to. As one sage put it, ‘It is far easier to take the Jew out of Egypt than to take Egypt out of the Jew’. Malbim likens this process to one who is forced to relocate from a fiercely cold climate to a hot desert. Were he to make the move suddenly he would become violently ill. He must rather gradually accustom himself to warmer climates by slowly making his way from one extreme of the climate spectrum to the other. He may very likely ask his doctor to draw up a travel itinerary to help his body healthily make the transition. Such says Malbim, was the nature of the Israelites transition from Egypt to the land of Israel. Egypt and its decadent culture were the polar opposite of the Promised Land and its intrinsic holiness. For the Jewish nation to have made the transition without proper preparation would have been disastrous. It was crucial for the Israelites to slowly emerge from the Egyptian culture and ease themselves into the spiritual environment of Israel for their eventual entry and settlement in the Promised Land to be sustainable. This was the nature of their travels in the desert, which followed an itinerary crafted by God specifically so as to accomplish this objective. Hence, the second verse which states that Moshe wrote down their travels as per God’s instructions refers not to the recording of their travels in the Torah, but rather to the original writing of their itinerary as dictated by God; a prescription of sorts by the Master Doctor, God.

When faced with the gravity of our sins and foibles, we are often tempted to make drastic, sudden changes to our lives. We work ourselves into a frenzy, and act like saints… for a few days. Yet inevitably, we fall back on our old habits, reverting to the lowly state we were so determined to bid farewell to forever. We get dejected. We wonder what went wrong. The answer is simple: Change does not come overnight. Change that does come overnight, is gone by dusk. Sudden, drastic change is unsustainable, and is therefore not asked of us. We are no better than the greatest generation in our history, the generation of the Exodus. We, just like they, must slowly make our way, tedious as it may be, up the ladder of spiritual growth, step by little step. Yes, there may be little instant gratification. Yes, it may feel excruciatingly slow. Yet if we are to emerge healthy, stable individuals, made of lasting spiritual greatness, it is a journey we cannot afford to circumvent.

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