Parasha: Masei · Aliyah: First (Chesed)

אלה מסעי בני ישראל, These are the journeys of the children of Israel, etc. We have been told in Bereshit Rabbah 12,3 that the expression אלה is used to separate what follows from something negative which had preceded it, [such as the Tohu Vavohu prior to the story of creation, and Genesis 2,4. Ed.] whereas the expression ואלה establishes a link with what preceded it. It is difficult to see in which way the journeys the Torah tells us about here are supposed to separate from a negative experience which has been described previously. Perhaps the Torah meant to draw a line of distinction between all journeys which occurred in human history, even those which have not been recorded on the one hand, and those of the Jewish people in their Exodus from Egypt on their way to the Holy Land on the other hand. This would be an acceptable reason for writing אלה if these journeys had all been a record of positive achievements. Alas, they were not, far from it! After all, most of these journeys were caused by the sins of the spies! Even a number of the journeys which occurred before the sin of the spies were due to negative rather than positive considerations such as G'd leading the Israelites on detours skirting the land of the Philistines in order to prevent a premature confrontation with the Philistines and possible tragic results (compare Exodus 13,17). G'd had been afraid that the Israelites might appoint an alternate leader and head back to Egypt rather than face the hostile Philistines. Clearly then "journeys" had been related to potentially negative experiences long before the incident with the spies. We also have the following comment in Yalkut Shimoni Yitro item 273: "Proverbs 3,17 describing Torah as כל נתיבותיה שלום, 'all her paths are peace,' is a reference to the time of the Exodus when G'd wanted to give the Torah to the Jewish people immediately." This proved impossible as the people were constantly divided, a section wanting to return to Egypt. The Midrash lists the various places where the Israelites rested on their way to the desert of Sinai as constant sources of strife and discontent. All of this is proof that the journeys of the Jewish people were nothing to be proud of and why would the Torah review them here by introducing them with the word אלה?

Perhaps we have to divide these various journeys into two groups. 1) The journeys during the first year plus, prior to the decree that the people over twenty would die in the desert as a result of their supporting the majority report of the spies, and 2) the journeys undertaken as a result of that decree. G'd had never meant for the people to undertake these latter journeys at all had they not proven so quarrelsome during the journeys of the first year plus. These earlier journeys were far worse than the ones who served a positive purpose after the decree due to the debacle with the spies. The word אלה in our verse is meant to draw a dividing line between the negative aspects of the unnecessary journeys and the positive aspects of the necessary journeys. The journeys the Torah is about to list are all those that were of a necessary kind, i.e. that had positive elements to them as distinct from others which were mere tedium devoid of redeeming qualities.

We also need to explore why the Torah chose to emphasise the "journeys," i.e. the Israelites breaking camp, rather than to emphasise that they made camp. i.e. that they arrived at a destination. This question is especially relevant in view of Tanchuma on our verse which describes the situation in terms of a parable. "A king had a son who was sick, so he took him to one health spa after another. When the son had finally been cured and the father took him back home, the father would reminisce with him about all the various places they had been together prior to the last one where the son had been cured." If the Midrash correctly summarizes the reason why the Torah lists all these journeys, it surely would have been more appropriate to list the places where stey stopped over, i.e. the "arrivals." We also have yet another Tanchuma which claims that the reason the Torah lists all these journeys is so that the desert which hosted the Jewish people during this period would receive its appropriate reward in the future as alluded to by Isaiah 35,1 : "the arid desert shall be glad, the wilderness shall rejoice etc." This Midrash too would make much better sense if the Torah had concentrated on describing the times spent by the Jewish people camping in the desert rather than the occasions when they broke camp.

Our verse may be understood when we consider what the Zohar volume 2 page 157 has to say about the purpose of the Israelites' trek through the desert. It was meant to enable the Israelites to seek out isolated sparks of sanctity and to release them from captivity. These "sparks" had been taken captive by the spiritually negative forces who have their home in the desert. G'd made the Israelites travel through such places in order that their sanctity would act as a magnet and attract such "lost" sparks of sanctity. The only way this could be accomplished was by means of total sanctity, i.e. a combination of the sanctity of Israel, the Presence of G'd, שכינה and the holy Torah. It required the presence of 600,000 souls which originated in holy domains. Moses matched these 600,000 individually holy souls, as he is perceived of as the tree from which all these souls are branches (compare Isaiah 63,11). In a combined effort these forces of sanctity were able to overcome the forces of impurity which kept many of these lost sparks of sanctity captive. According to the Zohar then these "sparks" could be captured while the Israelites were actively journeying not while they were passsively encamped, and it is this the Torah has in mind when writing "these are the journeys." The word אלה is indeed in sharp contrast to any other journeys ever described anywhere as never before had there been a journey which was accompanied by so many elements of sanctity.

While it is true that the patriarchs have also been described as journeying, and they too had rescued lost sparks of sanctity during their journeys, there is no comparison between what these individuals accomplished and what the Jewish nation as a whole accomplished in this regard. The Torah itself describes the superior nature of these journeys by stressing that they occurred as an aftermath of the Exodus from Egypt, i.e. after the Israelites had been refined in the iron crucible called Egypt. This enabled them to isolate sparks of sanctity wherever they would encounter them. Not only that, but the Torah describes these journeys as having taken place לצבאותם, when they were a complete unit, the Presence of G'd resting on these 600,000 holy souls. We have described repeatedly that the definition of שלמות, wholeness, completeness, is not applicable to fewer than 600,000 such souls.

You find that the reason G'd did not give the Torah to the patriarchs was due to their being too few in number. They lacked this "completeness" which is predicated on the presence of 600,000 souls which originated in a holy domain (compare Mechilta Yitro) so that they could be described as צבאות, "G'd's armies." Only once the Israelites were in the desert did they comprise all the necessary pre-conditions for fulfilling the task set for them by their journeys. The Torah also added: ביד משה ואהרון, "under the guidance of Moses and Aaron," who were the שושבינים, "go-betweens" between the Presence of G'd and all the other elements of sanctity needed to fuse the nation into a single whole of sanctity.

אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים לצבאותם, who had departed from Egypt according to their hosts; according to what we explained thus far that the word אלה separates these special journeys as being spiritually superior to any previous journeys, the reason that the Torah wrote the words "who came forth out of Egypt according to their hosts," is that the Torah wished to describe the journeys prior to the affair of the spies as being spiritually superior to those which occurred only as a result of the decree after the affair of the spies. Prior to the affair of the spies, the Israelites deserved to be described as journeying לצבאותם as due to their being the hosts of G'd. Journeys which took place after the decree occasioned by the fiasco of the spies lacked the element described here as לצבאותם. The major reason that it lacked this element was that part of the men who had participated both in the Exodus and in the refining process of the iron crucible called Egypt had begun to die off, so that there were no longer the requisite number of holy souls to make up the magic number of 600,000 who combined all the qualities we described. When the Torah describes the journeys as ביד משה ואהרון, this means that prior to the fiasco with the spies the journeys had been described in Numbers 9,23 as על פי ה׳ ביד משה, "at the command of G'd as conveyed by Moses," that Moses and Aaron (the latter by means of the trumpets) gave the signal to initiate a journey.

ויכתב משה את מוצאיהם, Moses recorded their departures, etc. What precisely did the Torah want to teach us with this verse? We did not need to be told that it was Moses who recorded this as Moses recorded the entire Torah and the journeys are part of the Torah. Besides, the Torah ought to have written that Moses recorded את מסעיהם, "their journeys." What was the point in recording their "departures?" Furthermore, what is the meaning of the words ואלה מסעיהם למוצאיהם "and these are their journeys according to their departures?" Why did the Torah change the order in which it mentioned departures from מוצאיהם למסעיהם, to מסעיהם למוצאיהם?

It appears that the Torah wanted to inform us that Moses did not record all these journeys on a single day, but that he recorded them as and when they occurred. He commenced recording when he had received instructions to make the Israelites depart from Egypt. He wrote in his booklet the date on which the Israelites departed from Raamses up until the word שפטים at the end of verse 4. Once the Israelites made camp at Sukkot, Moses wrote verse 5. When the Israelites made camp at Eytan, Moses wrote what had transpired as verse 6. In this manner Moses recorded each and every journey as it occurred until the people arrived at ערבות מואב. At that point G'd told Moses to include these private notes he had made in the Torah in the order in which he had previously recorded it. This is what was meant by: "Moses recorded their departures, i.e. starting from the day the Israelites departed from Egypt. This referred to the two lines from "they journeyed from Raamses until the word שפטים." When the Torah speaks of למסעיהם it refers to Moses listing all the Israelites' journeys from the day they left Egypt until the end of all their journeys. It adds the words על פי השם, "at G'd's command," to inform us that the very first recording already was at the command of G'd, i.e. that G'd had told Moses to record and to keep recording. When the Torah repeats ואלה מטעיהם, "and these are their journeys," this means that these are the journeys which G'd commanded Moses to record למוצאיהם, as and when they occurred, i.e. every time the Israelites broke camp. What the Torah describes in our chapter is a copy of all the notations made by Moses throughout all these years.

ויסעו מרעמסס, They journeyed from Raamses, etc. The Torah had to mention twice that this journey occurred during the first month although it could have written "on the fifteenth," and I would have understood that the day mentioned was the first month. The Torah could also have written: "they travelled on the fifteenth of the first month after the Passover;" Perhaps the Torah alluded to what we have been told in Shemot Rabbah 15,11 that the month of Nissan is the month in which the zodiac sign of Israel is at its zenith and that the most auspicious day during that month is the fifteenth of that month. The Torah writes ויסעו בחודש הראשון, to describe the month during which Israel's fortunes ride high and it adds that this occurred on the fifteenth of that month, i.e. when the moon is full. The Torah added once more that it was in the first month, as the significance of the full moon is meaningless for Israel unless it occurs during the first month. The combination of these two factors was meaningful, was a good omen.

ויסעו…מרעמסס ויחנו בסוכות. They journeyed from Raamses and they made camp at Sukkot. Why did the Torah repeat the information that the Israelites journeyed from Raamses? We have been told this in verse three! All the Torah had to write here was that the Israelites made camp at Sukkot! It appears that the Torah wanted to inform us that there was no other journey between Raamses and Sukkot. Had the Torah only written about the encampment at Sukkot, the impression might have prevailed that there had been some way stations between Raamses and Sukkot. [Mechilta on Exodus 12,37 describes the distance between these two locations as 120 מיל, i.e. 150 kilometers. Ed.] The same reasoning applies to all the journeys, i.e. the words: "they encamped" mean that there had been no other unmentioned way-stations.