{"id":48861,"date":"2019-02-06T15:10:35","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T13:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=48861"},"modified":"2022-08-31T17:57:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T14:57:48","slug":"superfluous-stops-or-overlooked-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/superfluous-stops-or-overlooked-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Superfluous Stops, Or Overlooked Opportunities?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[384,442],"acf":{"old_id":"48861","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37918,"related_cahpter":"150","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Be present, and every seemingly meaningless meandering can reveal a deeper purpose","content":"

Reading Numbers 33 can be a tedious undertaking. The chapter recounts the various stations on Israel\u2019s journey through the wilderness\u2014all forty-two of them: \u201cThe Israelites set out from Rameses and encamped at Succoth. They set out from Succoth and encamped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness…\u201d (Numbers 33:5-7).<\/span><\/p>\n

And so it goes, for almost fifty verses. The question, of course, is why\u2014why the painstaking, laborious enumeration of all of Israel\u2019s stopping places, even places where nothing of any significance seems to have taken place?<\/span><\/p>\n

As R. Abraham Saba (1440\u20131508) writes, \u201cThe reporting of these marches seems extraneous… There is nothing in the Torah that seems to be as superfluous as [the recording of] these marches\u201d (Tzror Ha-Mor to Numbers 33:1). Yet traditional interpreters have been guided by the assumption, most forcefully articulated by Maimonides, that each and every story in the Torah serves a purpose. What, then, can we make of this less-than-scintillating account of Israel\u2019s journeys and resting-places?<\/span><\/p>\n

The commentators offer a variety opinions, either relating the journeys to God\u2019s kindness, providence, generosity, and so forth. Let me offer a somewhat different (admittedly homiletical) interpretation: The text serves to remind us that even seemingly inconsequential stops on our journey can be powerful opportunities for serving God.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are often tempted to think that one of the many things we do is \u201c<\/span>real <\/span><\/i>life,\u201d while everything else represents a distraction or\u2014at best\u2014a means of facilitating the activities we really value: One of a thousand other things is what is significant; none of our other endeavors really matters\u2014and certainly not in any ultimate way.<\/span><\/p>\n

In discussing the commandment to \u201cknow God\u201d in all our ways, R. Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) puts forward a radical interpretation: \u201cone must seek the Blessed Holy One in the midst of the ways one acts.\u201d R. Kook insists that \u201cthe truth is that there is nothing in the world that is not for the honor of the Blessed Holy One, hence everything one does will be according to strives with all one\u2019s intelligence and with all one\u2019s abilities to carry out every action with the summit of perfect wholeness in all its dimensions\u2014then one will know the Blessed Holy One in every way [i.e. action].\u201d We serve God, in other words, by <\/span>being fully present wherever we are<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Numbers 33 lists forty-two places, some of them seemingly eminently forgettable, to teach a subtle but critical lesson: We can know God, and serve God, at every stop along our way.<\/span><\/p>\n

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