Matot – Masei
Numbers 30:2 – 36:13
The second of this week’s double Torah portion, Masei, summarizes the Israelites’ journey since they left Egypt, thus bringing the Book of Numbers to a close.
“These are the journeys of the Children of Israel, who went forth from the Land of Egypt, according to their legions, through the hand of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote their goings forth according to their journeys, by order of YHVH. And these were their journeys according to their goings forth….” (Num. 33:1-2)
What follows is a listing of all the forty-two places where the Israelites stopped during their forty-year journey through the wilderness. Notice the counterpoints that the last two sentences make: “Moses wrote their goings forth according to their journeys” and “these were their journeys according to their goings forth.” Moses looked at the road the Israelites had traveled, how far they had gone, to account for the places from which they were able to go forth. But then the following sentence describes the places they left, to account for the journeys they undertook. Why two different points of view?
Perhaps they speak to the way we can determine how far we have gone on our spiritual path. On the one hand you can do it like Moses: look at who you are today and compare that with who you were a few years or a few decades ago, and measure—or at least get a sense of—the distance you have traveled. If you feel more peaceful today, then you know you left behind places of inner turmoil and agitation. If you feel more loving today, then you know you have let go of resentment, self-centeredness, and lack of forgiveness. You know your “goings forth,” your breakthroughs, by looking at how far the “journeys” have taken you. On the other hand, you can follow the pattern of the second sentence and do just the opposite: look at the places of stuckness that you were able to free yourself from, your “goings forth,” in order to appreciate the inner work that you have done, the road that you have traveled. In this case, it is your stories of liberation that light the way of your spiritual maturation. You know your journeys, how much you have evolved, by appreciating how much you had to wrestle—time and again—to break through the places where you were stuck.
The gist of this Torah passage, it seems, is to follow the second approach. The summary of the forty-year journey retraces the forty-two stages of wandering by starting, always, with the places the Israelites left; with their goings-forth. They “went forth from the Land of Egypt…from Succoth…from Etham…,” etc. Perhaps Torah wants us to know that even after we leave an Egypt—a constricted place in our life—we need to continue working at refining our newfound state of awareness more and more. Our journeys of liberation happen in stages, not all at once. We need to continue breaking through the thinner and thinner walls around our hearts, behind which our egos still hide.
But although Torah emphasizes the need to continue wrestling, to grow from one stage to the next, the “looking-back” perspective—reflecting on how far we’ve come—is just as important because it helps inform our forward direction. To get the most out of our life’s progress, we need both perspectives. If we only reflect, we won’t move much and won’t evolve or grow. If we only keep moving, we’ll bluster on but have no grounding, no stability, no time for the appreciation and wisdom that will guide our next step. Reflection and action are intertwined and feed one another. Torah reminds us to celebrate both.