To Flee or Not to Flee?

The Midrash is perturbed by the fact that in this week's Torah portion, Matot-Massei dedicated a full 49 verses, to enumerate every station of the 42 stations where the Jews camped during their journey in the wilderness over four decades.

It’s not like we know these locations, so we can go visit, and do a Shabbaton retreat there.

They set out from Rissah and encamped at Kehelath; Etc… Why does the Torah repeat 42 times?

The Midrash presents a fascinating perspective:

It once happened that they came to the Jewish leadership in Tzipori with harsh orders from the Roman government. Rebbe! What do you say we should do, should we flee? He hinted to them: "Why are you asking me? Go and ask Yaakov, Moshe, and David."

What does it say about Yaakov? "And Jacob fled." What about Moshe, "Moshe fled." And, about David, "David fled and escaped."

Continues the Midrash: G-d said, such great people were fearful and fled from their foes, yet for those forty years that you were in the desert, I did not let you flee. Instead, I felled all your foes before them.

What is the Midrash teaching us?

The Midrash poses an important question, that is relevant to each of us almost every day. Life is full of challenges. Is better to try to escape these problems or to try to go through them?

And the answer is that both approaches have merit. There are times to run, and there are times to remain fully present.

But the Torah is recounting the 42 journeys in detail to present a counterexample which presents us with a different approach: Sometimes you need to show up fully to the difficult experience because the way out of pain sometimes runs through pain.

In the 40 years of our travels through the wilderness, G-d says, “I did not allow you to run away.” I wanted you to remain present through each journey. The experience of the 40 years of travel through the almost impossible terrain of the desert was one in which we learned to show up to the challenge. We did not detour around this difficult place; we traveled through it.

It is a model for each of us. There are problems in life we try to escape or avoid. But there are other challenges in life when G-d tells us, “Do not run, do not flee.” Because these obstacles in your life are not standing in your way; they are your way! These are the journeys and stations you ought to travel through, in order to learn what you need to learn and become the person you need to become.

This is one of the reasons this portion is read during the time of the year defined in Jewish law as the Three Weeks, defined as the time “between the constraints,” when the Jewish people were constrained and trapped between the surrounding enemies.  

On the surface, it is quite a negative and depressing name, but there is a deeper message here.

During this time of the year, just like in the desert, G-d says, “I’m not allowing you to escape.” If you run away from here to your comfort zone, you will avoid the pain, but you will also avoid self-discovery.

A story: Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist, was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953, he scaled the highest mountain then known to man, 29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts.

In his book High Adventure, he tells of the challenges before him. You see, in 1952 he attempted to climb Mount Everest but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members. Hillary walked on stage to thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform. He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!.

This blessing is telling us that if a person takes his journey through life willing to persevere through its difficulties and challenge his limitations, he will be continually refreshed with a blessing of strength that comes from Divine infinity so that he will transform what was perceived as exhaustion into expansiveness.

Our role in life is to go on a great personal bike ride, a ride that we should expect to often be challenging and tiring, and that from that challenge and fatigue itself will arise our greatest strength.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky