Focus
A Message for Parashat Masei 2018
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Nearly half of the pesukim in Parashat
Masei are a basic “travel log” of the various journeys of Am Yisrael
in the wilderness. Following God’s command, Moshe meticulously recorded each of
the forty-two places where the nation stopped.[1]
Surprisingly, however, there is hardly any mention of what took place at those
stops. Most of the places are instead solely mentioned as part of a long list
of locations along the forty-year journey. What lesson can we learn from the
mere mention of these many masa’ot?
R. Aharon Lichtenstein z”l, the former
rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Har Etzion, once described his personal path
to faith in God. He initially recalled some of the philosophical doubts and
difficulties that he experienced in his youth but then explained that his faith
was ultimately formed through the various chance “encounters” with God in his
life. He wrote:
In
part is has been channeled – primarily through talmud Torah…but also
through tefillah and the performance of mitzvot…In part it has
been random – moments of illumination while getting on a crowded bus or
watching children play in a park at twilight.
Stressing the essential role of those
experiences to his self-growth, Rav Aharon wrote: “In its totality…whatever the
form and content, it has been the ultimate basis of spiritual life.”[2]
R. Lichtenstein explained that although our
intellectual assent is essential, at the personal level it is not the key. He
movingly stated: “The primary human source of faith is faith itself.”[3]
The encounters with God which we desire cannot be anticipated. They are driven
by a source of faith which is unscripted and unpredictable. I am convinced,
however, that although we cannot will those “chance meetings” with God, we can
nonetheless cultivate an approach to life which engenders such encounters.
Charles Lindbergh once described his
experience inside the cockpit of The Spirit of St. Louis, which he famously
flew across the Atlantic alone. He wrote:
My
cockpit is small, and its walls are thin: but inside this cocoon I feel secure,
despite the speculations of mind … I become minutely conscious of details in my
cockpit – of the instruments, the levers, the angles of construction. Each item
takes on a new value. I study weld marks on the tubing…a dot of radiolite on
the altimeter’s face…the battery of fuel valves…all such things which I never
considered much before, are now obvious and important…I may be flying a
complicated airplane, rushing through space, but in this cabin I’m surrounded
by simplicity and thoughts set free of time.[4]
Bestselling author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi pointed
to Lindbergh’s experience as an ideal approach to engagement with the world. He
explained that a focused attention on the environment relieves us of thought
about ourselves. Instead of expending energy and time to satisfy our own
supposed needs, our attention is set alert to processing information from our
surroundings. This stance opens the possibility for an objective vision and an awareness
of alternative possibilities.[5]
In order to create an environment for
encounter with God in our lives we must similarly shift our attention from
internal concerns to thoughts about the external. His presence and approach can
only be felt if we are sensitively attuned to our surroundings. Perhaps that is
the essential lesson of the Torah’s long list of Am Yisrael’s journey
locations in the midbar. A nation that had endured slavery for more than
two centuries had become incapable of adjusting their sights from their own
pain and suffering to the world around them. They were unaware of and
disinterested in their surroundings. The forty-two stops along their journey –
most of which were generally uneventful – forced them to pay attention. Each
and every one of those locations, then, was significant for their growth. They
encountered new surroundings which caused them to search for a world and
existence that lay outside of them.
Am Yisrael’s seemingly meaningless
journeyings in the midbar opened them to the opportunities for “random
moments of illumination” with God. The Torah’s mention of those many masa’ot
reminds us that in order to “randomly” experience God in our lives we must
shift our focus from its fixed-state on ourselves to the world outside of us.
[1] Based on the Commentary
of Ramban to 33:2.
[2] R. Aharon Lichtenstein, Leaves
of Faith: The World of Jewish Learning vol. 2 (Jersey City, NJ, 2004),
pg. 366.
[3] Ibid., pg, 367.
[4] Charles Lindbergh, The
Spirit of St. Louis (New York, NY, 1953), pg. 227-8.
[5] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow:
The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York, NY, 1990), pg. 204-5.