Following the rather bloody ending of last week’s portion, Matot, wherein God demands the destruction of the Midianite people, their kings and all (even the foreign prophet, Balak is not spared) for having led the Hebrews into idol worship, we come to a seemingly dry recitation of the many stops our people had to make in their 40 year trek through the wilderness toward the Promised Land: Parshat Mas’ei (Journeys). A trip that might have taken only a few days or weeks at most, is dragged out until the generation of slaves slowly dies out and a generation of free and strong people enter Eretz Yisrael. One can imagine that this was no vacation. It was an arduous and long, meandering trip through an unforgiving wilderness. And yet, we chant this long list of way stations in an almost sing song set of “ta’amey hamikrah” or tropes. Why not reflect the travails of that generation in a reflective plaintive tune?
It possibly is because after this long list, God speaks to Moses and commands him to “Speak unto the children of Israel… when you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan…you shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it…”
This ordeal by fire has a glorious result: a land in which the Jewish people can be a free nation, not slaves or hangers on…not the wanderers.
It would seem that after more than 2,000 years, after the trials and tragedies of our history, after the Sho’a and the settling of the land that has become an example onto the nations in so many ways, we have yet to fully realize the comforts of a free nation in a world at peace. The Davidic glory days of Israel were not all that long lived. The Romans sent us into exile in the 1st century and it took us a very long time to come back in force to our land.
Living in a miraculous time, 66 years after the establishment of the modern Eretz Yisrael, we cannot make the same mistakes we did so very long ago. A strong and courageous Israel is the only guarantee (if there is such a thing) that our grandchildren will yet swim in Eilat, Tel Aviv, and the Galil in a hundred and two-hundred years.
“Hope in Adonai, be strong and let your heart take courage, and hope in Adonai!”
Shabbat Shalom,
Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi
