Parashat Masei - Insights and Questions

Parashat Masei opens with a long list of the stations of the children of Israel in the wilderness. At first glance it looks like a dry list of places: Ramses, Sukot, Etam, Marah, Eilim, Refidim and more. But behind many of the stations stand events of fear, miracle, falling, thirst, faith and repair.

The opening verse says: “Eleh mas’ei vnei Yisrael asher yatz’u me’eretz Mitzrayim letziv’otam beyad Moshe ve’Aharon” (These are the journeys of the children of Israel who went out of the land of Egypt by their hosts, by the hand of Moshe and Aharon, Numbers 33:1).

The Torah does not describe only one departure from Egypt, but many journeys. From here rises a deep idea: one can leave Egypt in a single moment, but taking Egypt out of the soul is a long process.

The children of Israel move from place to place. The Torah does not explain in this parashah why they left each station and what they experienced in each one. Only at the end of the road, when the entire route is spread out before them, can even the stations that seemed unnecessary be seen as part of the process of preparation for entering the land.

A stop is also part of the journey

Throughout the parashah the structure repeats again and again: they journeyed, they camped.

Not only the traveling matters. The camping matters too.

There are periods when a person advances quickly, and there are periods when he seems stuck. The idea that rises from the parashah is that sometimes precisely during the encampment a person builds strength, digests what he has been through and prepares for the next step.

Not every stop is a retreat. Sometimes it is the charging of power before the breakthrough.

Marah and Eilim are close to each other

First the children of Israel arrived at Marah, about which the book of Exodus tells that its waters were bitter, and afterwards they arrived at Eilim.

“uv’Eilim shteim esreh einot mayim veshiv’im temarim vayachanu sham” (and in Eilim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there, Numbers 33:9).

The idea here is jolting: a person may be in Marah right now, without knowing that Eilim is already around the corner.

Precisely in a moment of bitterness, a person may think his life will always look this way. The parashah reminds us that it is wrong to judge a whole journey by a single station.

The Torah records the places, not only the achievements

The Torah also counts stations that are identified elsewhere in the Torah with crises and failures, among them Refidim and Kivrot haTa’avah.

This is an interpretive idea: a person is not built only from his victories. Even the places where he failed, erred or broke can become part of the story that leads him forward.

The important question is not only where you fell, but whether you stayed there.

Only at the end do we understand the map

When a person is inside a crisis, he sees only one station. When he looks back after years, he may discover connections he was unable to see in real time.

A job that was not received, a relationship that ended, a period of confusion or a change of direction may have looked then like a detour from the path. In hindsight it sometimes becomes clear that precisely these led to the next exact station.

This is an idea and not a quote from a source: the Holy One, blessed be He, sees the whole map, while the person sees each time only the stretch of road in front of him.

One enters the land only after learning to move

The parashah is said at the end of the wilderness years, as the children of Israel camp in the plains of Moav preparing to enter the land. Before the people receive a permanent home, the Torah reminds them of all the years of wandering.

This can be interpreted so: whoever wants to build a stable life must first learn not to panic at changes. True stability is not a life without motion, but the ability to keep identity and faith even when the landscape changes.

A sentence to take from the parashah

Do not be alarmed by the station you are in right now. It is not necessarily the destination, and it is also not the whole story. Sometimes only a few stations from now will you understand why you had to pass exactly there.

The same journey is read in two directions

The Torah says: “Vayichtov Moshe et motza’eihem lemas’eihem al pi Adonai ve’eleh mas’eihem lemotza’eihem” (And Moshe wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the word of Adonai, and these are their journeys according to their goings out, Numbers 33:2).

Within a single verse:

At first it says - their goings out according to their journeys. And at the end it says - their journeys according to their goings out.

The order flips.

From here one can offer a homiletic reading, and not a quote from a source:

When a person sets out on the road, he is sure that the essence is the starting point - where did I leave from, what did I go through, what past am I carrying with me.

But after the journey ends, he discovers something astonishing: sometimes the journeys themselves are what recreated his starting point. The road did not only take him from one place to another - it made him a new person.

In other words:

At the beginning of life you think your past explains your journey. At the end you discover that your journey gave new meaning to your past.

A person can look back at an old pain and see in it only a wound. But after years of coping, growth and doing, that same pain may become a source of sensitivity, mission and strength.

The event did not change. But the person who looked at it changed.

And this is perhaps the powerful idea of Parashat Masei: not only do we pass through the stations - the stations pass through us and change who we are.

And here is the question the parashah leaves in the heart:

Do you still interpret your life according to the place you left from, or have you already begun to understand how the road you traveled gave that place a new meaning?

Questions on Parashat Masei

1. Why does the Torah devote dozens of verses to a list of stations, instead of summarizing the journey in a few words?
2. Why does the beginning of the parashah say ״motza’eihem lemas’eihem״, while later in the same verse the order flips to ״mas’eihem lemotza’eihem״? What hides in this reversal? (Numbers 33:2)
3. Why does the Torah call all forty years in the wilderness ״Masei״ (journeys), even though for much of the time the children of Israel did not travel but camped?
4. Is the list of journeys merely a historical record, or is it a kind of secret map of the journey of the human soul?
5. Why does the Torah mention the Exodus from Egypt again at the beginning of Parashat Masei, after already describing it at length in the book of Exodus?
6. Why does the Torah note that the Egyptians were busy burying their firstborn precisely at the time the children of Israel departed?
7. What can we learn from the fact that the children of Israel left Egypt ״beyad ramah״ (with a high hand), yet later in the journey they again feared, complained and failed? (Numbers 33:3)
8. Why does the journey to freedom begin in Ramses, the place that symbolizes slave labor and bondage?
9. What is the deep meaning of the passage from Marah, the place of bitter water, to Eilim, a place of twelve springs and seventy palm trees?
10. Why are difficult and embarrassing stations, like Kivrot haTa’avah and Refidim, preserved forever in the Torah and not erased from the national story?
11. Do the names of the stations describe only geographic places, or do they also reflect spiritual and emotional states?
12. Why does the Torah explicitly mention that in Refidim there was no water for the people to drink, while for most stations it does not tell what happened?
13. What can we learn from the fact that the revelation at Mount Sinai, the greatest event in Israel’s history, appears in the list of journeys almost like just another station?
14. Why does the station Kivrot haTa’avah come immediately after the wilderness of Sinai? Is there a message here about the short distance between spiritual elevation and falling?
15. Is it possible for a person to pass by the most important station of his life and not understand its meaning until years later?
16. Why is Aharon’s passing almost the only event in the list of journeys for which the Torah stops to describe in detail?
17. Why does the Torah note the exact date of Aharon’s passing, something very rare with regard to other biblical figures?
18. Why does Aharon’s passing occur precisely at Hor haHar, close to the end of the journey and the entry into the land?
19. What hides in the fact that after Aharon’s passing the people immediately continue the journey? How does a nation keep moving after losing a beloved leader?
20. Why does the Torah detail the borders of the land so precisely? Does holiness need borders?
21. What is the connection between the end of the years of wandering and the command to destroy idolatry in the land?
22. Why is the land divided by lot? Does a lot cancel human choice, or does it reveal a deeper layer of providence?
23. Why does the Torah warn that whatever is not removed from the land will become ״sikim be’eineichem velitzninim betzideichem״ (thorns in your eyes and pricks in your sides)? What can we learn from this about small problems a person leaves in his life? (Numbers 33:55)
24. Why do the cities of refuge appear precisely in the parashah that deals with journeys? Does a person who failed also need a new path and a protected station?
25. If Moshe wrote down all the journeys by the word of God, what is the thing God wanted the children of Israel never to forget: the destination they reached, or precisely the road they traveled?