Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

The Parsha opens with a list of all of the 42 stops that Bnei Yisrael made during their forty years of wandering in the desert.  Why doesn’t the Torah just tell us the original starting point and the eventual destination? We don't even know what happened at each place that is enumerated, so why specify each one?

Rashi quotes Rabbi Tanchuma who explains by means of a parable. A king had a son who was sick, and the king took him to a distant place to receive the cure. On their way back, the king recounted to his son all of their journeys together. “This is where we slept. Here it was cold. Over there you had a headache.” The king wanted his son to appreciate that not only was the final result- the son’s recovery- important. But the process had significance as well. So too in Parshat Masei, the Torah recounts each stop in the desert as a reminder that there is significance not only in the destination, but in the process as well.

This is a critical lesson to learn as we find ourselves in the weeks and days leading up to Tisha B’Av. Certainly the main focus of this period is mourning for the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash and praying for its rebuilding with the Messianic Age- the destination (if you will) of human history. But can we find meaning in the process? Is there a way to be positively impacted by the Three Weeks even as we still wait for the final destination of Yemot Hamashiach?

The Three Weeks are an opportunity for us to remind ourselves that even before we arrive at our hoped-for destination, we must find meaning and purpose in all of our experiences along the journey.