אלה מסעי בני ישראל אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים לצבאתם ביד משה ואהרן… ויסעו בני ישראל מרעמסס ויחנו בסכת. ויסעו מסכת ויחנו באתם אשר בקצה המדבר.” (במדבר ל”ג, א’ – ו’)
“And these are the journeys of the Children of Yisroel who left the land of Egypt in their multitudes, in the hands of Moshe and Aharon… And they journeyed from Ramses and encamped in Succos. And they journeyed from Succos and encamped at Eisam, at the edge of the desert.”
Seemingly, the pasuk could just as well have been written, “And these are the חניות—encampments—of the Children of Yisroel who left the land of Egypt…” But in truth, Klal Yisroel is never חונה, never stands in place; they are in a constant state of motion, of masaos (journeys). Our entire national history is one great journey made up of countless smaller journeys: to Eretz Yisroel, to Bavel, back to Eretz Yisroel, to Sefarad and to Ashkenaz, to Syria, to Poland, to America, and to Eretz Yisroel once again. This is the very essence, the “D.N.A.” of our nation.
Yet we are in danger of forgetting this basic truth. The tzibbur as a whole seems to believe that the goal and purpose of life is “to arrive” and “to achieve”; to reach a point where we can feel content. Take, for example, a bachur who makes a “good” shidduch. What is he thinking? “What a great girl, from such a respected family, etc.… I made it!” But he hasn’t made it anywhere, he is only starting. Regardless of how old we are, or how much we have accomplished, we are still in the midst of a journey. Just as Moshe Rabbeinu told Yisro, after Klal Yisroel had built the Mishkan, with the Shechinah dwelling amongst them: “נסעים אנחנו אל המקום אשר אמר ה’ אתו אתן לכם”—We are journeying to the place of which Hashem said, ‘I will give it to you’.
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Of course, this means that we are constantly changing and developing, progressing, but there is an additional dimension to our journey, which we must not forget: that our destination is not predefined, nor is it fully grasped. When Klal Yisroel left Mitzrayim, they set off for a destination not only unfamiliar, but unknowable. Could a slave in Egypt, on the 49th level of tumaah, even imagine receiving the Torah, or the dwelling of the Shechinah? But still they went. Thus, Hakadosh Baruch Hu lovingly recalls Klal Yisroel’s trust, “זכרתי לך חסד נעוריך אהבת כלולתיך לכתך אחרי במדבר בארץ לא זרועה”—I have remembered for your sake the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridal days, your following after Me in the wilderness, in an unsown land. (Yirmiyahu 2:2) Their journey was not simply a dangerous one; it was a journey into a new, unfamiliar reality, where they were completely dependent upon the Borei Olam.
Consider our daily prayers: we daven for the geula, techiyas hameisim, the revelation of Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s kedusha in the world. Do any of us have even an inkling of how the world will look at the time of techiyas hameisim? We are praying for the world to change in a way that we cannot conceive. And it is towards that future – unfamiliar, unknowable – that we journey.
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There exists today a great amount of pressure in the Yeshiva world. If we could somehow harness all that pressure to generate electricity, we could access an almost limitless source of green energy. One of the primary sources of this pressure, of which I have spoken about much in the past, are “שאיפות”—aspirations. Without doubt, a person should always desire to develop and grow, but he should take the approach of a journey, as described above. A שאיפה is the opposite of a journey. Firstly, שאיפות are always about the end result, to get somewhere, to be successful. The journey along the way is viewed as an inconvenience. And this focus on results creates pressure. Secondly, these שאיפות are always well-defined and understood. I am still waiting to meet the person who has a שאיפה for techiyas hameisim. Instead, people aspire to things that they comprehend and want now. And when the destination is predetermined and definite, that creates a tremendous amount of pressure. We have to go back to the basic, genuine attribute of Klal Yisroel, of constant journeying and progressing, towards a destination that we do not try to grasp and define.