Matot-Masei
- Jillian Marini
- Aug 4, 2016
- 3 min read
In our final week within The Book of Numbers we are given a double torah portion, Matot-Masei. In Matot, Moses describes the laws of oaths, the Israelites battle the Midianites (without a single casualty), and the tribes of Reuven and Gad request to dwell outside of the Land of Israel.
In the Masei Torah portion, the tribes of Reuven and Gad promise to help out the other tribes while not living in the land of Israel, and Moses proceeds to record the journeys of the sons of Israel from when they were led out of Egypt by both Moses and Aaron. The portion then continues to describe how G-d tells Moses exactly where each tribe will live and clarifies the laws of murder. The daughters of Zelophehad are able to receive their inheritance granted they marry within the tribe so that the inheritance doesn’t move to another tribe.
But I want to go back to Moses recoding the journeys of the Israelites. There were 42 stations where the Israelites camped on the way from slavery to the promised land. Whether they were encamped there for a brief time or a long time, whether something momentous happened there or nothing remarkable, the places are preserved in Moses’ litany.
While I was researching this double torah portion, figuring out what I wanted to make sure everyone took away, I kept returning to this idea of Moses recording all of these mundane, and not so wonderful days. Why would he care to write down all of the boring, mundane, and uneventful days? Was he really going to sit around with the Israelites and joke about that one day in the cave where we all stared at a rock? Probably not.
But the specific section kept jumping out at me and I realized it was all about the path. Now I am a fond believer in the thought that everyone has a different path. And I’ve had to be. Originally setting out for an operatic career, there has never been a clear path for any singer. Sometimes while looking over my short life and the exceedingly curvey path I’ve already whacked out for myself, through various careers, states, and stages of life, I’ve thought that maybe it would have been just a bit easier to take a more travelled and worn down path. But then again maybe not.
Moses and the Israelites clearly didn’t take a straight path. They curved, they circled, they weed whacked (sand whacked?), but they certainly didn’t have the most efficient path from A to B. And maybe for good reason. What sorts of things did they learn on their path? If you look up a map of the path they took, it’s almost funny. What were they doing? But then think about your path.
How did you meet your significant other? How did you end up at Congregation Bet Chaim? How did you find the career you are in? How many things in your life have you learned, how many places have you been, and how many people have you met because of an indirect path.
Like I said earlier, my path so far has been a bit crazy. I went to Chicago for opera, moved to Pittsburgh because I felt lost. Stayed in Pittsburgh because every time I tried to leave a new production would cast me, or I’d meet a special person. Came back to Florida because again I felt lost. Went to animation school. Worked in Cali. Came back to Florida. And now I work in a normal 9-5 sales position. In the great scheme of A-B, B being where I currently am, should I have gone to Pittsburgh? Should I have gone to animation school? Sometimes I look back on my own path and get frustrated, but most of the time I look back and know that if I didn’t go to all of these various places, mundane/ exciting, fulfilling/ or useless, I would have missed out on amazing performance experiences, learning how to live on my own, new languages, and of course meeting new people- including that piano player that followed me here from Pittsburgh ;).
Maybe Moses wrote down every location because he knew that no matter how insignificant, every stop, and every day had an impact. And that sometimes the path is just as important as the destination.
Or maybe Moses knew that Facebook’s “today 8 years ago” feature wasn’t up quite yet, and he obviously needed to know what selfie he took on that day 8 years ago.
Comments