06 Jun BEHAALOSCHA: LOVING YOUR GPS THREE ATTITUDES TOWARD YOUR LIFE JOURNEY

Working on the
Road
A fellow stopped at a
rural gas station and,
after filling his tank,
he paid the bill and
bought a soft drink. He
stood by his car to drink his cola and he
watched a couple of men working along the
roadside. One man would dig a hole two or
three feet deep and then move on. The other
man came along behind and filled in the hole.
While one was digging a new hole, the other
was about 25 feet behind filling in the old.
The men worked right past the fellow with
the soft drink and went on down the road. “I
can’t stand this,” said the man tossing the can
in a trash container and heading down the
road toward the men.
“Hold it, hold it,” he said to the men. “Can
you tell me what’s going on here with this
digging?”
“Well, we work for the county government,”
one of the men said.
“But one of you is digging a hole and the
other is filling it up. You’re not accomplishing
anything. Aren’t you wasting the county’s
money?”

“You don’t understand, mister,” one of the
men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping
his brow. “Normally there’s three of us–me,
Rodney and Mike. I dig the hole, Rodney
sticks in the tree and Mike here puts the dirt
back.”
“Yea,” piped up Mike. “Now just because
Rodney’s sick, that don’t mean we can’t
work, does it?”
The Cloud
The journey of the Jewish people in the
desert, the torah relates in this week’s parsha
(Behaaloscha), was guided by G-d. A cloud
hovered over the portable sanctuary built in
the desert. “Whenever the cloud lifted from
the Tent, the Bnei Yisroel would set out
accordingly; and at the spot where the cloud
settled, there the Bnei Yisroel would
encamp”.
“They thus camped at G-d’s word and moved
on at G-d’s word,” the Torah states.
Now, the Torah repeats this phrase—“They
thus camped at G-d’s word and moved on at
G-d’s word”—three times!
This is strange. Why repeat the same exact
words three times? The message was quite
clear the first time stated: The Jewish journey
through the wilderness—their movement as

well as their sojourn—was determined by
G-d.
Three Attitudes
The thrice repeated declaration of the same
fact—“They thus camped at G-d’s word and
moved on at G-d’s word”—represents three
states of consciousness relating to G-d
guiding the Bnei Yisroel journey through the
desert. The cloud may have determined their
trek, but there were three ways to experience
this truth. Perhaps there were three types of
people, each one related differently to this
reality.
The first time the Torah makes the declaration
it is merely stating the objective fact: The
Jewish people moved at G-d’s word and
camped at G-d’s word. Some of them may
have not paid attention to the cloud or even
thought it changing positions were random.
Yet their lack of awareness did not alter the
truth: It was the GPS—G-d’s Positioning
System—that guided them in the wilderness.
The second declaration informs us of a
deeper consciousness that pervaded some of
the Jewish people at the time. In the words of
medieval Spanish commentator Ramban
(Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, Nachmanadies,
1194-1270): “Even though they may have
been exhausted (and wanted to stay
longer) or even if they were displeased
with the place and wanted to proceed
further, they disregarded their own
wishes and guided their movements by
the cloud.” They were fully cognizant of
the fact that they ought to subordinate
their preferences to the will of G-d
dictating their journey.
The third declaration takes it to a new
level. There were those Jews, the Torah is
telling us, did not have their own
preferences. They did not care to camp
out, nor were they compelled to move on.
Their exclusive desire was to serve as
conduits for the course G-d charted out
for them, to embrace the destinations the
Almighty prepared for them. Their
personal vision was seamlessly aligned
with G-d’s vision for them.
Bubble or Symphony?
This Bnei Yisroel trek through the desert
is a metaphor for our own journeys today,
both as individuals and as part of a
people. We too can operate on three
levels of consciousness.
A cloud hovers above each of us guiding
our individual and collective voyages in
life. The Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760),
founder of the Chassidic movement,
taught that there is a “Divine GPS”
instilled in the soul of every creature,
guiding it through the winding pathways
of life’s wilderness. Now, it is up to us to
choose from among the three perspectives
mentioned above.

In the first state of consciousness, you are
detached from the “bigger picture” of your
life. Your journey is still determined by G-d,
but that truth eludes you. In your imagination
you are an isolated bubble in a vast and
meaningless universe; reality at its core is
indifferent to your struggles and triumphs.
Your life lacks a unified, higher narrative.
You feel alone in your struggles, challenges
and setbacks.
Yet unlike your earthly GPS which you have
the choice to ignore, get angry at, or turn off,
your heavenly GPS still guides you even if its
voice remains inaudible. G-d is with you,
even when you are unaware. Yet you have the
choice of whether to open yourself to this
truth, to allow it to effect you consciously.
In the second and higher state of
consciousness, you become aware of an
unavoidable truth—that life presents us each
with a particular set of challenges and
opportunities. Each of us has a mission for
which our soul was sent down on earth, so
that every encounter and experience is an
indispensable component of a grand cosmic
symphony that spans the entire universe. You
are aware of it and you surrender to it, often
begrudgingly, subduing your own dreams to
G-d’s.
In the third and deepest state of consciousness,
you align your ambitions, dreams and goals
with those of G-d. To use the lingo of
yesteryear, you HotSync your personal
iPhone with the cosmic iphone. You go
beyond your narrow perception of where
your life must take you, and you allow the
core of reality—G-d—to set the course.
Instead of resisting, escaping and ducking
you embrace life, every moment of it, with a
bear hug. Each morning you awake and say:
G-d! I’m ready to rock and roll! Wherever
You wish to go today, I’m in. You do the
steering and I will press the pedal for full
speed. Bon voyage!
Sure, sometimes we’d prefer other routes
and alternate destinations. G-d’s GPS leads
us at times through strange and complex
highways; it often prefers dirt roads over
paved ones. But will you spend the rest of
your life combating reality? Is there even an
existence outside of reality? Or will you have
the courage to hear the “small silent voice”
guiding you through the wilderness to the
Promised Land?