Masei: How to Read the Travels of Bnei Yisrael

The Torah content for this week has been sponsored by Ellis and Janice Cohen in memory of Rabbi Moskowitz zt"l.

Click here for a printer-friendly version of this article, and click here for an audio version.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this map, but it's from Bible-History.com which is linked from AlHaTorah's Olam ha'Mikra

Masei: How to Read the Travels of Bnei Yisrael

Parashas Masei opens with a comprehensive list of the destinations where Bnei Yisrael encamped during their 40-year sojourn in the Wilderness. The commentators are bothered by these seemingly superfluous pesukim. Was it really necessary to “waste” 49 pesukim by listing all 42 destinations? Aren’t the earlier narratives in the Chumash sufficient?

The Rambam (Guide 3:50) takes up this question. He prefaces his comments with an observation about knowledge:

You should also understand that the status of things that are set down in writing is not the same as the status of happenings that one sees. For in happenings that one sees, there are particulars that bring about necessary consequences of great importance, which cannot be mentioned except in a prolix manner. Accordingly, when narrations concerning these happenings are considered, the individual who reflects thinks that such narrations are too long or repetitious. If, however, he had seen what is narrated, he would know the necessity of what is recounted. Hence when you see narrations in the Torah that are not in the framework of commandments and think it was not necessary to set down such and such a narration or that it is too long or repetitious, the reason for this is that you have not seen the particulars that necessitated that the story be told in the manner it is.

The Rambam then notes an inherent difficulty in passing down a miraculous historical narrative from generation to generation, and then utilizes these two points to answer our question: 

The need for [writing down these 42 encampments] was very great, for all miracles are certain in the opinion of one who has seen them; however, at a future time their narrative becomes a mere traditional story, and there is a possibility for the hearer to consider it untrue. It is well known that it is impossible and inconceivable that a miracle lasts permanently throughout the succession of generations so that all men can see it. One of the miracles of the Torah, and one of the greatest among them, is the sojourn of Israel for forty years in the desert and the finding of the mahn  there every day. For that desert was, as is stated in Scripture, a place … very remote from cultivated land and unnatural for man … God, may He be exalted, knew that in the future what happens to traditional narratives would happen to those miracles: people would think that [the Children of Israel] sojourned in a desert that was near to cultivated land and in which man can live, like the deserts inhabited at present by the Arabs, or that it consisted of places in which it was possible to till and to reap or to feed on plants that were to be found there, or that it was natural for the mahn always to come down in those places, or that there were wells of water in those places. Therefore, all these fancies are rebutted and the traditional relation of all these miracles is confirmed through the enumeration of those stations, so that people in the future would see them and thus know how great was the miracle constituted by the sojourn of the human species in those places for forty years. 

The reason for the specification of the 42 encampments is now clear. Had the Torah omitted the names of these locations, and only provided a general description or a partial list, the aforementioned false narratives would have had ample room to flourish. By specifying the names of every single destination for the duration of the 40 years, the Torah is, in effect, challenging the purveyor of these alternative narratives by saying: “Oh, you think they camped at a place where they could raise crops, or near an oasis, or where mahn naturally forms? By all means, take a trip out to those locations and see for yourself whether an entire nation could survive there for more than few days!” 

An important ramification emerges from the Rambam’s answer. We might have asked our question expecting a purely intellectual exegetical answer: “The Torah names the encampments because of XYZ.” But according to the Rambam, Hashem named these locations “so that people in the future would see them” and know the greatness of the miracle. In other words, Eleh Masei is a call to action. Ideally, we should go and see these places for ourselves in order to attain firsthand knowledge – if not of the miracle itself, then at least of the conditions which warranted such a miracle. If that is not possible, then we should know that these places can be seen, which will strengthen our conviction in the miracle. And we in the Information Age should use all the tools at our disposal (Google Earth, YouTube, MapFight) to learn about these locations and make them as real as possible to our minds. If we simply breeze through the list, we’ve missed the point.

__________________________________________________________________________

If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail.com. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.

If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel and my podcasts: "The Mishlei Podcast", "The Stoic Jew" Podcast, "Rambam Bekius" Podcast, "Machshavah Lab" Podcast, "The Tefilah Podcast"  Email me if you'd like to be added to my WhatsApp group where I share all of my content and public shiur info.