BS"D || Rabbi Geier

Matot-Masei 5784

This week we read two parashot: Parashat Matot and Parashat Masei, thus concluding the fourth book of the Torah: Sefer Bamidbar.

Parashat Matot reminds us of the eternal values that have distinguished our people throughout the centuries. It begins with the leader’s words about the promises and oaths we make. It instructs us on the value of our word and how we must guard what comes out of our mouths, understanding that with our words we can build or destroy.

In Parashat Masei, we read the enumeration of all the places where the People camped during the 40 years of journeying through the desert. Rashi, the famous 11th-century exegete, asks: why does the Torah need to list the 42 places where they camped? Through a beautiful parable, he bequeaths to us the idea that this enumeration, besides fostering memory and remembrance, is an act of love, a pure expression of affection.

Jews are travelers. Long ago, someone we have chosen as our founding patriarch began his pilgrimage, inspired by the need to listen to a voice that made him transcend and yearn beyond his daily life. The Lech Lecha, which Avraham heard and obeyed without asking for any guarantees, marked our inclination. We are travelers because, since then, we have walked the paths of a history of exile, living wherever we were allowed to stay together.

We walked the path from slavery to freedom, paying the price of a desert that made us gain confidence in the Lord and in ourselves as a people. We walked from horror to rebirth without losing faith, again and again throughout history. We walk the time that reunites us each time we sit at the Shabbat or holiday table and revive with blessings the experiences of thousands of families over hundreds of years, recognizing ourselves as part of a dimension without geographic limits. We walk the texts as we interpret them, and with back and forth, we embrace both the most remote exegetes and the most contemporary thinkers, contributing our versions of what has already been discussed and interpreted time and again.

The entire parashah is a thorough reminder that tells us we are who we are because we have a memory of every journey and every event that occurred during the 40 years in the desert. It is a model for us to remember, value, and live intensely every journey we undertake in our lives, whatever the type of journey: pleasure, work, partnership, family, or adventure.

Moshe wrote down the starting point of each stage by order of the Lord according to the point where they began. The journey and its uncertainties could have been left behind, focusing instead on the fascination of reaching the goal and the new reality. After 40 years, instead of explaining how we were going to enter the longed-for Land, he stops and writes again each of the points from which they set out and where they arrived during the 40 years.

We are the result of our journeys, what made us happy and what frustrated us, what we managed to resolve, and what became embarrassing situations. And it must be remembered and written down as God commanded Moses to record each step of our travels.

If the people of Israel, according to our parashah, went through 42 journeys, many of which seemed very complicated, and yet, in the worst case, they finally reached their destination, should we be able to conclude that even the enormous challenges that Medinat Israel and the entire Jewish world are facing will have a favorable outcome?

A particular verse says: “וַיִּסְע֖וּ מֵחֲרָדָ֑ה וַֽיַּחֲנ֖וּ בְּמַקְהֵלֹֽת” (Bemidbar 33:25). “And they traveled from Haradah and camped in Makhelot.” Haradah and Makhelot are not just places. The richness of the Hebrew language allows us to refer to the root, the shoresh, of each word, of the names. Haradah, from the root חרד, means an anguishing anxiety. Makhelot, from the root קהל, means choirs, groups of people, communities, kehilot. The People of Israel managed to move from anguish and anxiety to form themselves as a people, only by learning and being together, in Kahal.

It is impossible not to camp in Haradah, but little by little we must walk towards Makhelot, to move from individual and collective anxiety and anguish to gathering, community, union, and strengthen ourselves beyachad, in being with others in a group to weather the storm.

Israel is once again expecting an imminent massive attack from nations seeking its destruction. Clearly, it is an anguishing and anxious Shabbat.

This Shabbat is the second of the "three weeks between the straits," the period from the 17th of Tammuz to the fast of Tishah B’Av, and also the Shabbat when we bless the arrival of the month of Av, which will begin on Monday. Anguish and blessing together, as always.

And on this very special Shabbat, we are bidding farewell to friends and teachers from Utica and Temple Beth El. Another journey they begin together, which surely causes anxiety and fears, but will be resolved in family union and community, a new community, if the Lord permits.

At the conclusion of reading a book of the Torah, as we will do tomorrow concluding the book of Bamidbar, we say, "Chazak, Chazak, Venitchazek." Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen each other. May our dear Aliza and Rabbi Stanley Gerstein reunite with their family, join with their loved ones, and be strong together.

May we all, Am Israel, continue to expand our networks of support, instead of worrying and being afraid alone in the midst of this storm, because only in this way will we have a chance to get through it.

Am Israel Chai!