Bamidbar: The Difficulty of Destination

By Zach Israeli

A few weeks back, my Iranian classmate Hossein and I were schmoozing about the current state of affairs in Iran. He described that his parents’ generation lived through the Iranian revolution and, even though they are unhappy with the current government, they simply do not have the energy to rise up against it after living through tumultuous post revolution era. The younger generation, however, has begun fighting against the government and the protests have consistently occurred over the last few years. Hossein said that it has to do with some theory that Karl Marx was into. The theory is that when a revolutionary attitude takes hold in a society, the ball keeps rolling and rolling until some final positive status quo is settled on. In other words, in a place like Iran where a revolution took root in 1979, revolutions will just keep occurring one after the next, deposing the previous ruling government, until they finally settle on something that makes sense. I am by no means a Karl Marx fan, but I did find that idea compelling. The question begs, though. What underlies this theory? Why is it true that it’s so much easier to begin the revolutionary attitude than it is to stop it?

The answer may have something to do with a piece that Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote about in Judaism’s Life Changing Ideas. He notes that, if you think about it, ספר שמות and ספר במדבר have some uncanny similarities. For example, they are both about journeys and traveling. They both have stories where the Jews complain about water and food. They both have one central sin. They both have stories where God threatens to destroy בני ישראל and start over with Moshe, only to have Moshe save them through Moshe’s תפילות. However, Rav Sacks describes one central difference between them. He explains that if you think about the nature of these two ספרים, שמות is “all about a journey from. Exodus is the story of an escape from slavery.” Conversely, במדבר is all about the Jews looking to the future, they are thinking about their ultimate destination. In theory, you might have expected that the general tone in במדבר would be much more positive and upbeat than the tone in שמות, given the fact that the Jews finally shook off the Egyptians and their traumatic past. However, the complete opposite is true. As you progress through the story “the mood is palpably darker. The rebellions are more serious. Moses’ leadership is more hesitant… The Torah, with great realism, is telling us something counterintuitive and of great significance.” The main message is that “the journey from is always easier than the journey to.” This is clear in nature. The most basic insects and the most powerful mammals will instinctively run away from danger. It is much rarer, though, to see them proactively running to a destination.

Both historically speaking and on a personal level, it is not particularly difficult to see examples of this. It is easy for a person to think of his own flaws, bad habits, or things that he wants to improve. It is much more difficult to arrive at a place in life where those goals are met— or even worked toward in many cases. The Jews in the מדבר made the mistake of focusing so much on the present. In tough times, as Rav Sacks puts it, “they had too much fear and too little faith. They kept looking back to how things were instead of looking forward to how they might be. The result was that almost an entire generation suffered [the near worst possible outcome]. They knew how to leave but not how to arrive. They experienced exodus but not entry.”

What emerges from all of this is a lesson in how to frame our perspectives. It is so much easier to think about the current state of things or the negative things in life that we are moving away from. It is much more difficult to focus our energies on where we are going and how to get there.

Iy”H, we should be זוכה not to fall into the trap that the Jews in the מדבר and so many since then have fallen into, and we should focus our energies on our destinations and how to arrive at them. As Rav Taragin likes to point out in the season of פרשת נשא, the charge of" הרואה סוטה בקלקולה יזיר עצמו מן היין” is applicable to each one of us. It is a message that we should take concrete steps to move our lives in the right direction.

Good Shabbos!