We're products of our past
Torah study
RABBI ISMAR SCHORSCH
Mattot-Masay/Numbers 30:2 - 36-13
The tantalizingly fragmented book of Numbers closes with a new generation of Israelites, born and bred in the wilderness, poised to cross the Jordan from the west at Jericho. They will not be led in their invasion of Canaan by Moses, but by Joshua.
Among the final acts of Moses, before he is to ascend Mount Nebo for one grand view of the land whose possession has been the goal of the last 40 years of his life, is one that has long stirred the imagination.
Moses recounts the circuitous path taken from Egypt to the plains of Moab. He lists, in order, the 42 places at which the Israelites encamped during their arduous and protracted odyssey: "These were the marches of the Israelites, who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron. Moses recorded the starting points of their various marches as directed by the Lord. Their marches by starting points, were as follows ..." (Numbers 33:1-2).
The manner of reading the next 49 verses in the synagogue - quickly and without pause - only reinforces our inclination to ignore them. Why preserve the names of obscure sites at which Israel once took refuge?
The passage is noteworthy because Moses acts entirely on his own initiative. The Torah records no divine command instructing him to record the history of Israel's journey.
Rashi, paraphrasing the Midrash, offers two contrasting explanations as to what might have impelled Moses. The first suggests that Moses wished to dramatize the presence of God's protecting love, that Israel would not have survived the ordeal of four decades in the wilderness without the repeated touch of God's grace.
The second explanation comes from a more human perspective. Imagine a king whose son is ailing. They go forth in search for a cure, which they find in a distant place. As they retrace their steps home, they reminisce: "Here we slept; here we froze; here you came down with a bad headache."
Both explanations imbue a temporary residence with lasting significance: a signpost of God's nearness, or a memento of human suffering. In either case, personal experience weaves strange places into the tapestry of our consciousness.
This is the point of the list. We are composites of our past experiences. Self-understanding will forever elude us if we remain in the dark about the details of whence we came.
In the aggregate, these 42 sites contributed to shaping the character of a nation in formation. Implicitly, the list compiled by Moses carries an argument for the importance of historical knowledge.
Nearly 200 years ago, the European founder of Conservative Judaism, Zacharias Frankel, arrived at a religious position between radical reform and intransigent orthodoxy that was initially known as "historical Judaism."
The term "historical Judaism" was meant to convey that the sacred texts of Judaism do not exhaust the normative content of Jewish religious consciousness. Complementing the written text is the vast historical experience of the Jewish people, whose pathos obligates future generations.
Frankel's inclusive conception of Judaism marvelously caught the twofold reality of Jewish Prague (Frankel's birthplace), as symbolized by the two large clocks atop its former town hall - the standard clock in the tower with Roman numerals on its face, and the Jewish clock beneath it, abutting the roof in Hebrew letters with hands moving "counter-clockwise."
As Conservative Jews, we are committed to cultivating the full gamut of the Jewish experience mediated through the duality (and often polarity) of Jewish law and history. To live Jewishly is to keep time by different clocks.
Rabbi Ismar Schorsch is chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
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