Step by Step (Shabbat Mattot-Masei)

My husband and I have been talking recently about all the different chapters of this pandemic before we had access to the vaccine. Remember, at the beginning, when we could still get together but weren’t supposed to shake hands or hug? And the time where even being outside unmasked was unsafe before the complete one-eighty when the CDC deemed it safe?

This week, Torah tells the story of our ancestors’ settlement in the Promised land. We usually think about their travels as one grand journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. But Torah breaks their travels into many small parts. Our parasha starts:

These are the marching-stages of the Israelites who left the land of Egypt (Numbers 33:1)

What follows this introduction is a bit anticlimactic, appearing to be just a dry list of place names. But the Sages see it differently. Midrash imagines God telling Moses:

Write down all the places through which Israel journeyed, that they might recall the miracles I wrought for them,” to guide them safely through danger (Num R 23:1).

In the midst of wilderness moments in life — times of danger or uncertainty — we simply can’t make sense of our situation; it’s only as we arrive near the end of the journey that we can speak about how we got there. 

In addition to crossing the Sea of Reeds, the list includes the wilderness place where the manna first appears, the spot where the Israelites later complain about the lack of water, and the location where the people anger God by demanding meat to eat — each a dramatic and important moment in the story of our people’s march toward freedom. (And no surprise — many of them centered around food! Apparently that’s been true for thousands of years).

After months in our own wilderness, our own period of uncertainty and loss, we have begun to find a bit of normalcy again — from this place we, too, can begin to look back, think about what steps we took on our journey — and the miracles, big and small, that occurred at each stage:

When I look back at what it took to get us to this moment, celebrating Shabbat together again as a community, I think about the little miracles that kept us well after the pandemic started — people checking in on us, making sure we had meals, and medical treatment; our local leadership’s ability to listen through all the noise to the best guidance we could follow to keep safe; the dedicated work of scientists to develop effective vaccines faster than we could have imagined. The list goes on.

Psychologists note our brains are like Velcro for negative events and Teflon for positive ones. Attending to threats has kept us safe, but it also means we need to make extra effort to notice what is going right. So take a moment now to think back to the journey you’ve been on over the last year and a half, filled with its measure of grief and joy. Over the course of this time, what’s a place, or time; an interaction or sight you now look back at with gratitude?

Holding that moment in mind, we offer gratitude together end with a Shehechiyanu. Please join me:

Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam, shehechiyanu, v’kiyamanu, v’higianu lazman ha-zeh. / We thank you, Source of Life, for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and allowing us to reach this moment.

Amen.