Torah study on the parsha & Jewish Teachings -Matot – Masei: Every Jew’s Forty-Two Journeys

0:00 SPEAKER_00: A father living new Shalim calls his son in London.

0:04 SPEAKER_00: Schmuul says, I've got some bad news.

0:07 SPEAKER_00: Schmuel says, What is it, Dad?

0:09 SPEAKER_00: The father says, Your mother and I getting a divorce.

0:12 SPEAKER_00: Schmul can't believe it.

0:13 SPEAKER_00: After 45 years, the father says, Yeah, Schmuel, I'm done.

0:17 SPEAKER_00: I've had it, that's it.

0:19 SPEAKER_00: Please tell your sister.

0:20 SPEAKER_00: Schmul puts the phone down.

0:22 SPEAKER_00: He calls his sister in New York.

0:23 SPEAKER_00: She goes ballistic.

0:25 SPEAKER_00: She says, after 45 years, they can't get a divorce.

0:28 SPEAKER_00: She organizes things with her brother.

0:30 SPEAKER_00: And then she goes and she calls her dad.

0:32 SPEAKER_00: She says, Dad, you can't get divorced after 45 years.

0:36 SPEAKER_00: Schmuel and I have booked flights.

0:37 SPEAKER_00: We're coming out tomorrow.

0:39 SPEAKER_00: Just wait and don't do anything.

0:41 SPEAKER_00: The father puts the phone down and he turns around to his wife and he says, Darling, I've got some great news.

0:46 SPEAKER_00: The kids are coming for Shabbas, and we didn't even have to pay for the flights.

0:51 SPEAKER_00: So this week's double pasha of my top Massey, of course, the second pasha Masay is all about journeys.

0:58 SPEAKER_00: It starts with the 42 stops that Bene Israel took in the midbar, the 42 journeys.

1:05 SPEAKER_00: And the Zohar brings down and wants to say that the creation of the world happened with the building blocks of the 42-letter name of Hashem, which is alluded to in the beginning of the Torah in Barashit.

1:18 SPEAKER_00: And the pre-Sadik, amongst many others, wants to link that and say, just as you have the 42-letter name of Hashem in creation, the 42 journeys that B'Nay Ishrael took in the Midbar is also an allusion to this 42-letter name of Hashem.

1:36 SPEAKER_00: Comes along Rav Avraham Sabah, who was a Kabbalist in 15th century Spain, he then went to Portugal.

1:44 SPEAKER_00: And he wants to say, just as the Torah starts with the 42-letter name of Hashem, the building blocks of creation, which is alluded to in Saifa Barashit, so the Torah ends with the 42-letter name of Hashem, which is alluded to in the 42 journeys that Amishrael take in the Midbah.

2:04 SPEAKER_00: And of course, we say, well, hold on a minute, that's not the end of the Torah.

2:07 SPEAKER_00: Devorim is the end of the Torah.

2:10 SPEAKER_00: But of course, the first four books of the Torah are the books that were dictated directly by Hashem to Moshe.

2:18 SPEAKER_00: Seifer Devorim is slightly different because it's the word of Moshe, albeit that Hashem then says to Moshe, that should be part of the Torah.

2:26 SPEAKER_00: So Devorim is equal to the other books in terms of its importance.

2:31 SPEAKER_00: But we finish with Seifa Bamidbah, we finish the direct dictation of Hashem.

2:37 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, Rav Avraham Sabah wants to say that the Torah has this lovely way that it starts and finishes.

2:44 SPEAKER_00: It starts with the 42-letter name of Hashem, and certainly the part that Hashem dictates to Moshe finishes with this 42-letter name of Hashem.

2:54 SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is we read Pashama say, these 42 journeys, and we don't know many of the places, we don't understand it all.

3:04 SPEAKER_00: And then you say, look, it's lovely that all 42 journeys are recounted in the Torah.

3:08 SPEAKER_00: It's a nice thing to have.

3:10 SPEAKER_00: But what's it saying to us?

3:12 SPEAKER_00: Everything in the Torah is relevant for us today.

3:15 SPEAKER_00: What do we learn from this?

3:17 SPEAKER_00: What do we understand by it?

3:18 SPEAKER_00: The recounting of these 42 journeys.

3:21 SPEAKER_00: So we want to have an exploration of that idea and see what we can get out of it.

3:26 SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting is imagine you're at the airport and you bump into some friends and they ask about your journey and you say, Well, we've just left London, or we've just left our house in New York, or we've just left our house in Tel Aviv.

3:41 SPEAKER_00: They'd look at you like you were crazy.

3:43 SPEAKER_00: Because if you ask somebody about their journey at the airport, what you want to know is where they're going.

3:48 SPEAKER_00: We're flying to Paris, we're flying to London, we're flying to Johannesburg.

3:52 SPEAKER_00: You want to know where they're going to.

3:54 SPEAKER_00: In other words, a destination is what defines a journey, not the place of departure.

4:02 SPEAKER_00: That's not what defines the journey.

4:05 SPEAKER_00: The Malbum says this exactly.

4:08 SPEAKER_00: He makes this point that it's the destination that defines a journey, not the point of departure.

4:15 SPEAKER_00: And therefore you would expect the opening Pasuk to say, these are the journeys of B''srael on their way to Eritz Kana, because that's what matters, the destination.

4:28 SPEAKER_00: But of course, that's not what the Pasuk says.

4:31 SPEAKER_00: The Pasuk says these are the journeys of B'shrael who went forth from the land of Egypt.

4:36 SPEAKER_00: Why are we defining the journey by the place of departure?

4:41 SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?

4:44 SPEAKER_00: So the Malbin answers his question and says the following.

4:58 SPEAKER_00: The journey wasn't to Eritz Canaan.

5:01 SPEAKER_00: Because if the journey was to Eritzkanaan, it would only take a few days.

5:05 SPEAKER_00: It's only a few days from Egypt to Canaan.

5:09 SPEAKER_00: The journey took forty years because the journey was from Egypt.

5:14 SPEAKER_00: After 210 years of slavery, the Jewish people had to rid themselves of this idea of servitude.

5:22 SPEAKER_00: They had to rid themselves of this idolatry.

5:24 SPEAKER_00: They'd had to rid themselves of this immorality that they'd seen in Egypt, which, even if you can't help it, sort of seeps into you.

5:32 SPEAKER_00: That journey was a 40-year journey.

5:35 SPEAKER_00: The physical journey from Egypt to Eretzkanaan, yes, only a few days.

5:40 SPEAKER_00: The spiritual journey to get away from Egypt, to leave Egypt, that took 40 years.

5:47 SPEAKER_00: And that is why the Torah says these are the journeys of Bene Israel, who went forth from the land of Egypt, because as the Malbin points out, it was a journey from the land of Egypt because the Torah is talking about a spiritual journey and not a physical journey.

6:06 SPEAKER_00: Comes along the last Lubavitcherebi, Rabbi Manachemendil Schneerson, and he makes a similar point but then goes off in a different tact to answer the question.

6:18 SPEAKER_00: And he says the following: why does the Torah use a plural for journeys?

6:23 SPEAKER_00: These are the journeys of B'n'Yishrael who went forth from the land of Egypt.

6:28 SPEAKER_00: Because of course there was only one journey from Egypt.

6:32 SPEAKER_00: All the other journeys were from the Midbar.

6:34 SPEAKER_00: So why use the plural?

6:36 SPEAKER_00: Because of course the first journey went from Ramses in Egypt to Sukkot in the Midbar, but every other journey after that was in the Midbar.

6:45 SPEAKER_00: So it's one journey from Egypt and all the other journeys in the Midbar.

6:48 SPEAKER_00: Why use the plural?

6:51 SPEAKER_00: So the Rebbe says that the word mitzraim comes from Mitzah, which means a narrow place, restrict, constraint.

7:01 SPEAKER_00: So the journey is from a narrow place, a place of restriction, mitzraim.

7:05 SPEAKER_00: But then where are we going to?

7:07 SPEAKER_00: So the Rebbe brings down an early Pasuk in Seifers Shemot, where Hashem first tells Moshe that he's going to take Bene Israel out of Egypt.

7:17 SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm going to bring them to a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey.

7:24 SPEAKER_00: And the word that it uses is derived from Merchav for spacious, which means broad, spaciousness, openness.

7:32 SPEAKER_00: And therefore the Rebbe wants to say the journey is from Mitzraim, a place of restriction and narrowness and constriction, to Eretch Israel, a place of broadness and spaciousness and openness.

7:46 SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's a spiritual journey, as we've understood from the Malbim.

7:49 SPEAKER_00: And that spiritual journey is one where we go from a narrowness and constriction to an openness and spaciousness.

7:56 SPEAKER_00: We connect with Hashem better.

7:58 SPEAKER_00: We have more of a connection.

8:00 SPEAKER_00: But then the Rebbe says the following: Once we reach that destination, that destination becomes our new Egypt.

8:09 SPEAKER_00: That becomes our place of narrowness and constriction.

8:13 SPEAKER_00: And then Bijraat Hashem, we grow again.

8:15 SPEAKER_00: We grow in ourselves.

8:17 SPEAKER_00: We grow spiritually.

8:18 SPEAKER_00: Our relationship with Hashem gets stronger.

8:20 SPEAKER_00: And we go to a new place of openness, a new place of spaciousness.

8:25 SPEAKER_00: And that too then becomes our Egypt, our place of narrowness as we grow again.

8:31 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that is life.

8:33 SPEAKER_00: We narrow, we grow, we get better, better versions of ourselves, but then that's our new point of departure.

8:40 SPEAKER_00: And then we grow again, Bizrat Hashem, and we get better versions of ourselves again.

8:45 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, the Rebbe wants to say every journey is from Egypt.

8:51 SPEAKER_00: That's why it uses the plural.

8:53 SPEAKER_00: These are the journeys of B'Ney Ishrael who went forth from the land of Egypt because every journey is from Egypt.

8:59 SPEAKER_00: That becomes our place of narrowness as we then grow and go to a new place of openness.

9:06 SPEAKER_00: And of course, this is our lives.

9:09 SPEAKER_00: You have a five-year-old who can't share.

9:12 SPEAKER_00: And they learn, and by the time they're 10, they're very good at sharing, but they've got no patience.

9:17 SPEAKER_00: And they go through life, and maybe they get to 20 years old and they learn to be patient.

9:22 SPEAKER_00: And then one gets married and has to learn how to make that relationship work, to share your life with another person.

9:29 SPEAKER_00: And as you get to master that and become better at that, the children come along.

9:33 SPEAKER_00: And now you've got to learn how to cope with that relationship and bring your children into the world.

9:38 SPEAKER_00: And that becomes a place of narrowness until you understand how to do that.

9:42 SPEAKER_00: And then there's more challenges as the kids get older, and then you learn to marry your children off and combine families.

9:49 SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's a whole new set of challenges.

9:52 SPEAKER_00: And then there's grandchildren and there's older age.

9:54 SPEAKER_00: In other words, every stage of life is learning.

9:58 SPEAKER_00: Every stage of life is another journey where we grow and develop and get better and go from a place of narrowness to a place of openness.

10:06 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's the stages of life that come through age.

10:10 SPEAKER_00: But it's not just that.

10:11 SPEAKER_00: It can be other challenges.

10:13 SPEAKER_00: For example, there's the challenge of the secular world, that that's one of constriction, that even however hard we try, you know, we are affected by the secular world.

10:24 SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when we're trying to understand Torah, I always feel for myself that sometimes when I'm struggled to understand Torah, it's because I'm not seeing it through the prism of Torah.

10:34 SPEAKER_00: I'm through it seeing it through the prism of the secular world, which we're immersed in in all different ways, and biosmosis affects us.

10:41 SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things we have to do is go from the constriction of the secular world and to keep growing and to be able to understand the world and see the world through the prism of Torah.

10:51 SPEAKER_00: And that's another journey journey from narrowness to openness.

10:56 SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, we have other journeys as well that are similar to that idea.

11:02 SPEAKER_00: So we have the journey of going from human logic as well.

11:06 SPEAKER_00: You know, we have in the Torah chukim.

11:09 SPEAKER_00: And what is a hok?

11:10 SPEAKER_00: A hok is to try and explain to us that you can't just relate to Hashem through logic.

11:16 SPEAKER_00: We can relate to Hashem through logic to an extent.

11:19 SPEAKER_00: But if we only relate to Hashem through logic, then we're limiting our relationship with Hashem and Hashem himself to our own capacity of a human mind.

11:28 SPEAKER_00: And that, of course, is restrictive.

11:30 SPEAKER_00: And so we have Hukim to teach us to go beyond logic.

11:34 SPEAKER_00: Kashra is that, it affects every day what we can eat, what we can't eat.

11:39 SPEAKER_00: Or did I just have milk?

11:40 SPEAKER_00: So I can't have this.

11:41 SPEAKER_00: All these different things.

11:43 SPEAKER_00: But that hawk that we live with trains us to go beyond logic when we're trying to have a relationship with Hashem.

11:50 SPEAKER_00: That's another journey from a place of narrowness to a place of expansion, of spaciousness, of openness.

11:57 SPEAKER_00: We go on these journeys all the time and we grow.

12:00 SPEAKER_00: Every journey is from a new version of Mitshrayim, from narrowness as we go to the openness.

12:08 SPEAKER_00: What's amazing is if we say that the last seifer of the Torah, dictated directly by Hashem, finishes with these first 42 journeys.

12:19 SPEAKER_00: The question is, how does it start with the first Jew?

12:23 SPEAKER_00: Because the first time Hashem ever speaks to a Jew, Avraham Avinu, what does he tell him to do?

12:30 SPEAKER_00: Go on a journey.

12:33 SPEAKER_00: Go for yourself, go to yourself.

12:37 SPEAKER_00: And what's incredible is this the journey matters more than the destination.

12:42 SPEAKER_00: The growth that we take, how do we know?

12:45 SPEAKER_00: Because Hashem doesn't even tell Avraham Avinu the destination.

12:48 SPEAKER_00: What does he say to him?

12:53 SPEAKER_00: In other words, you don't even know where you're going, but go on the journey.

12:57 SPEAKER_00: And of course, Avrahma Vinu goes on the journey and he learns and he has experiences and he has his ten tests.

13:04 SPEAKER_00: And it's all of that that enables Avraham to fulfill the potential that he has, to go from a place of constriction to a place of openness to be the version of himself that he's supposed to be.

13:16 SPEAKER_00: That is the journey.

13:18 SPEAKER_00: And that is our lives.

13:20 SPEAKER_00: Because we don't know the destination.

13:23 SPEAKER_00: If you just imagine telling a 10-year-old you about your life now, exactly where you are now, and would you the 10-year-old you have realized where you're going to end up?

13:35 SPEAKER_00: I would imagine for most people listening to this, the answer is no.

13:39 SPEAKER_00: We never know the destination.

13:42 SPEAKER_00: But what we know is that along the way we learn, we have experiences, we make mistakes, and we grow.

13:49 SPEAKER_00: And Bizrat Hashem, we become better versions of ourselves.

13:52 SPEAKER_00: We grow to a new place of openness.

13:55 SPEAKER_00: That is how we develop and get better.

13:59 SPEAKER_00: It is the journey.

14:02 SPEAKER_00: Why the number 42?

14:05 SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting about the number 42 is the number 42 encapsulates the entirety of Torah.

14:13 SPEAKER_00: Because 42 is mem is 40 and bet is 2.

14:17 SPEAKER_00: And how does the written Torah start?

14:20 SPEAKER_00: With a bet, with the word bareshet.

14:23 SPEAKER_00: And how does the oral Torah start?

14:27 SPEAKER_00: With a mem, with the word me'ematai.

14:31 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, membet 42 represents the entirety of Torah.

14:37 SPEAKER_00: And why does that matter?

14:39 SPEAKER_00: Because you go right to the beginning of the midrash in Barashit Rabbah.

14:44 SPEAKER_00: And right at the beginning of the midrash, what does it say?

14:47 SPEAKER_00: Hashem looked into the Torah and he created the world.

14:52 SPEAKER_00: In other words, the blueprint for the entire creation of the world is Torah, represented by 42.

15:00 SPEAKER_00: And the 42-letter name of Hashem is the Ain Soth.

15:04 SPEAKER_00: It's the infinitude of Hashem.

15:07 SPEAKER_00: It's the bit of Hashem we can never understand as human beings, ever.

15:12 SPEAKER_00: It's the infinitude.

15:13 SPEAKER_00: Some people want to bring down and say that is the 42-letter name that the Kohen Gadol would say once a year in the Kodeshakodoshim on Yom Kippur.

15:23 SPEAKER_00: There's a makhloka.

15:24 SPEAKER_00: Some people don't hold by that, but that's one of the ideas.

15:27 SPEAKER_00: But this 42-letter name, that is the name that represents the entirety of Torah, the infinity of Torah, the infinity of Hashem.

15:35 SPEAKER_00: That was the building blocks that Hashem creates the world with, these 42 letters.

15:42 SPEAKER_00: And it's also the building blocks that he creates Klali Ishrael with, a Klaly Shrael that's capable of going into Erith Ishrael.

15:50 SPEAKER_00: There are 42 journeys.

15:54 SPEAKER_00: What's interesting, this Gomorrah in Sanhedrin in 37 Ahmed Alif.

16:00 SPEAKER_00: And the Gomorrah says the following A person that destroys a life destroys a world.

16:08 SPEAKER_00: Because every human being is compared with a world.

16:12 SPEAKER_00: They're a world unto themselves.

16:15 SPEAKER_00: Hashem creates the world with 42 letters, the building blocks.

16:21 SPEAKER_00: Hashem creates Klali Ishrael with 42 journeys.

16:26 SPEAKER_00: And if every human being is a world unto themselves, what are the journeys that create the human being?

16:34 SPEAKER_00: 42.

16:36 SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us go on 42 journeys.

16:38 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that can take a lifetime, but journeys can be short, journeys can be long, can be anything.

16:44 SPEAKER_00: But we go on these 42 journeys.

16:47 SPEAKER_00: The spiritual journeys, the journey from Egypt to Eretz Kanandh for to Eritz Ishrael was not a physical journey.

16:55 SPEAKER_00: That would have taken a few days.

16:57 SPEAKER_00: It was a spiritual journey.

16:59 SPEAKER_00: Our spiritual journey of growth as human beings is a journey of 42 stops.

17:05 SPEAKER_00: And we're not always aware what those stops are.

17:08 SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we'll have big moments in our lives.

17:11 SPEAKER_00: We know this is part of our journey.

17:13 SPEAKER_00: I suppose getting married would be that.

17:15 SPEAKER_00: Having children would be that.

17:17 SPEAKER_00: Those are big moments, but so many of our lives, there are things that are innocuous.

17:22 SPEAKER_00: Things that we don't even realize are pivotal.

17:24 SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we go through something, and with the benefit of hindsight, we look back and we go, that was a pivotal moment, and I didn't even realize.

17:32 SPEAKER_00: And perhaps there are others where we don't even realize at all, even with hindsight, that they were pivotal moments, that that was a key journey that we took.

17:42 SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderful story, true story.

17:46 SPEAKER_00: Rav Mordahai Gifter.

17:48 SPEAKER_00: He was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Tels Yeshiva in Cleveland.

17:51 SPEAKER_00: And he was going to a wedding with some of his Bokrim in Baltimore.

17:56 SPEAKER_00: And they got on the plane in Cleveland and there was really, really bad weather.

18:00 SPEAKER_00: And the plane was diverted and it stopped.

18:03 SPEAKER_00: And they were waiting to be able to get back on and get to Baltimore to get to this wedding.

18:07 SPEAKER_00: And the weather took a turn for the worst, and it was very clear they weren't going to make it to Baltimore.

18:13 SPEAKER_00: So Rabbi Gifter decided they should go back to the yeshiva in Cleveland, seeing as they're not going to get to Baltimore.

18:19 SPEAKER_00: And the time of the day was they'd better dove a mincha before they go on their way.

18:23 SPEAKER_00: So Rabbi Gifter wanted to find a caretaker, a janitor that perhaps could give them a room so they could doven quietly, and he catches a janitor's eye, and the janitor comes over and explains he's looking for a room, and the janitor obliged and took them to a place and opened a room, and they're dovening Mincha in the room and the janitor's waiting for them.

18:42 SPEAKER_00: At the end of Mincha, the janitor goes over to one of the Talmudim and says to the Talmud, can he help him say Kudish?

18:51 SPEAKER_00: And Ravgifta heard what was going on and he's surprised.

18:54 SPEAKER_00: He goes over to the janitor and he says, What's going on?

18:58 SPEAKER_00: The janitor says, My father was a reformed Jew, and I was brought up knowing nothing.

19:04 SPEAKER_00: And my father died last week.

19:07 SPEAKER_00: And last night he came to me in a dream and he asked me to say Kaddish for him.

19:11 SPEAKER_00: And I said to him in the dream, How can I say Kaddish?

19:14 SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to say Kaddish, I don't even know where to go for a minion.

19:18 SPEAKER_00: And my father said, I'm gonna send the minion to you.

19:22 SPEAKER_00: And Rav Gifta explained to his Talmudim, he took the opportunity and he said, You see, we thought we were on a journey to go to a wedding in Baltimore, but actually we were on a journey to help this man say Kaddish for his father.

19:39 SPEAKER_00: We don't always know the journeys we're on.

19:42 SPEAKER_00: We don't always know the destinations.

19:44 SPEAKER_00: But we shouldn't lose sight of the final destination.

19:47 SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful story about the Chafetzheim, who had a visitor come, and the visitor was visibly shocked when they came into the Chafetzheim's apartment at how sparse it was.

19:59 SPEAKER_00: I mean everybody knew the Chafitzheim lived in you know relative poverty, but the visitor hadn't appreciated just how sparse it was.

20:07 SPEAKER_00: And they were visibly shaken.

20:08 SPEAKER_00: And the Chafitzheim realized, and the Chafitzheim turned round to the visitor and said to the visitor, Where's your furniture?

20:15 SPEAKER_00: And the visitor was confused.

20:17 SPEAKER_00: The visitor said, I'm travelling.

20:18 SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't have any furniture, I'm traveling at the moment.

20:21 SPEAKER_00: Why would I have furniture?

20:23 SPEAKER_00: And the Chafitzheim smiled and he said, I'm too travelling.

20:27 SPEAKER_00: This is merely a journey to another destination.

20:30 SPEAKER_00: We should never lose sight of where we're actually trying to get to.

20:38 SPEAKER_00: So Imparsha must say there are the Torah records every stop the Jewish people make in the Midbar.

20:46 SPEAKER_00: The Torah could have simply written they travel for 40 years.

20:50 SPEAKER_00: Instead, Hashem records every single stop, and you say, why?

20:56 SPEAKER_00: Because although the physical journey from Egypt to Erit Ishrael is only takes a few days, the spiritual journey from going from the narrowness, the constriction of being slaves in that immoral place of Egypt, right through to becoming the co-enim of the world, Hashem is chosen people, people capable of going into Eritz Israel, that took a lifetime.

21:24 SPEAKER_00: This is why the Torah records every stop.

21:28 SPEAKER_00: Not because geography matters, but because every stop, every delay, every disappointment, every setback and every detail, that mattered.

21:38 SPEAKER_00: Because every stage of growth is significant, even those that we forget.

21:44 SPEAKER_00: When we look back at our lives, we tend to remember the big moments, but every stage matters.

21:50 SPEAKER_00: Every struggle, every move, every Egypt that we ourselves leave behind.

21:57 SPEAKER_00: The Torah starting with the first Jew, Avraham Avenu, right through to counting all the journeys in the mid-bar in this week's Pasha, is teaching us that life is not about the destination, it's the journey that we go on.

22:12 SPEAKER_00: This is why the Torah records every stop.

22:16 SPEAKER_00: Hashem remembers every stage of our journey, even the ones we've forgotten.

22:21 SPEAKER_00: Every struggle, every setback, every aech we leave behind, every new beginning.

22:27 SPEAKER_00: None of them are wasted.

22:29 SPEAKER_00: Because life is not measured by where we finish.

22:34 SPEAKER_00: It is measured by who we become on the journey.