11 Jul MATOS/MASEI: TWO ROADS DIVERGED IN THE WOOD OF JEWISH HISTORY TWO ERRORS WE HAVE MADE IN TRYING TO BRIDGE THE OLD AND THE NEW

“Moshe wrote their
departures according to
their journeys … and
these were their journeys
according to their
departures.” — Bamidbar
33:2, this week’s parsha,

Maasei.
“While the reasonable man adapts himself
to the world, the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw
The concluding parsha of Sefer Bamidbar
(Maasei), read this week the world over,
begins by offering a summation of Bnei
Yisroel’s forty-year journey through the
wilderness, as they ventured toward the
Promise Land. This odyssey across the Sinai
Peninsula was comprised of forty-two
segments, ultimately leading the young
nation along the eastern coast of the Jordan
River as they prepared to enter the Land of
Canaan through the city of Yericho.
The Torah, before documenting the specific
route of their journey, notes that “Moshe
wrote their departures according to their
journeys… and these were their journeys

according to their departures.”
This diction is as strange as it is perplexing.
Three questions come to mind.
First, what is the actual meaning of
“departures according to their journeys,” and
“journeys according to their departures?”
Second, why is the verse redundant? What
is the difference between “departures
according to their journeys,” and “journeys
according to their departures?”
Third, why does the Torah flip the sequence
of terms, first mentioning “departures”
followed by “journeys,” and then in the
second half of the verse switching the order,
referring first to “journeys” and then to
“departures?”
Here we shall discover how these slight
“errors” capture timeless truths of history and
identity.
Past & Future
Two divergent roads define the voyage of
Jewish history. There are the Jews who
ascribe to the “departure” paradigm, and the
Jews who embrace the “journey” paradigm.
The “journeying” Jews focus on the

constant changes in history: the
fluctuating trends, the cultural
developments, the novel
inventions, and the newly
discovered wisdom. These Jews
are sensitive to the winds of
progression, to the alterations in
the human climate, and to the
opportunities and challenges that
lay ahead. They aspire to define
Judaism – or a philosophy of life
— that would be relevant to the
contemporary conversation of
humanity in its journey toward its
own self-defined “promised land.”
Yet, in their zeal to embrace the future, they
often abandon the past. In their passion to
remain relevant today, they forfeit the power
of yesteryear. In their yearning to capture the
individual “your,” they neglect the depth of
the “yore.” In their ambition to grow tall,
they detach from the roots that have given
them their original sap.
“By the time a man realizes that maybe his
father was right, he usually has a son who
thinks he’s wrong,” Charles Wadsworth once
said. The youth, fresh in spirit, creative in
ideas, often seeks to chart a new path, to take
the road never traveled by. There is
something monotonous about traveling in
the footsteps of your ancestors, and there
is something intoxicating about
developing a path you can call your own.
In many ways, it was this perspective
which gave birth to the contemporary
Jewish world. As the winds of modernity
swept Europe, as enlightenment and
emancipation cast their glowing promise
on a downtrodden nation in the 18th
century, millions of Jews felt that clinging
to the lifestyle and traditions of their
ancestors would impede their bright
journey to a new world order. In the
process, they bid farewell to the old to
embrace the new; they said goodbye to
the yore to embrace the “your.”
As we know today, their good intentions
were met with profound disappointment.
On one hand, enlightenment in Europe
and socialism in Russia turned against the
Jews, and on the other hand, the
descendants of the Jews who embraced
them have been lost to our people. In
their passion to journey ahead, to
revolutionize the past, they failed to
realize the power of eternity imbedded in
their tradition and faith.
Then there are the “departure” Jews –
those who are always looking back to the
past, to their point of departure. Their
primary focus is on the unchangeable
truths of history. Life, in their vision, is
not linear, but cyclical. Tradition, ritual,

custom, law, faith do not change just because
Voltaire gave us Enlightenment, Nietzsche
taught us about the will for power, Tocqueville
explained to us democracy, and Freud
uncovered the subconscious. “What was
good for my great-great grandfather is good
for me,” these Jews rooted in tradition
exclaim.
Yet in their attempt to hold on to the sacred
past, they often stifle the ability to utilize and
actualize the new energy of today, to discern
the voice of G-d not only in the ancient, but
also in the present, not only in the world that
was, but also in the world that is. In their
hope to continue the chain of history by
adding their identically matching link, they
fail to create space for freshness, for
creativity, for authentic self-expression. In
their genuine zeal to protect the “piano” of
Judaism, they scoff at any new composition,
failing to realize that the very same piano
keys allow for infinite compositions. The
word of G-d, articulated in the Torah, can and
must serve as a blueprint for the challenges
of today, not only for the dialogue of the past.
The Tree & the Roots
So “Moshe wrote their departures according
to their journeys … and these were their
journeys according to their departures.” The
majesty and magic of Jewish history is based
on the synthesis between “departures” and
“journeys.” The departures – the points of
reference that have always defined Judaism
– ought to serve as catalysts for the journeys
of the future, invigorating growth and
inspiring expansiveness. Conversely, the
journeys toward new horizons ought to be
“according to their departures,” founded and
inspired on the timeless values of our faith
and our Torah.
Just as Moshe wrote the first chapter of
Jewish history, we all are summoned to write
our own. Let the tree grow taller and taller,
but let it never fail its roots. Rather, let the
roots exclaim, “Look how beautiful and tall
my tree has grown.”
* My thanks to R. Shmuel Kuperman who
shared the nucleus of this idea with me, as he
heard from Rabbi Israel Meir Lau. Thank you
to Yaakov Shlomo for his assistance in
writing this essay.