Deserts & Oases

Matot Masei 5778 / 14 July 2018

Shabbat Shalom.

Right in the middle of parshat Matot Masei, the action is interrupted for a long, long list of all the places the Israelites went during their 40 years of wandering in the desert.

“And they journeyed from Ritmah and camped at Rimmon-Perez. And they journeyed from Rimmon-Perez and camped at Libnah. And they journeyed from Libnah and camped at Rissah…”

The list drones on and on. Why is this boring list here? In reading over the parsha, I was ready to just skim quickly over this list and return to the narrative again. But as I continued reading, I found myself sucked into the rhythm of this list. The meter, the pattern, it lulled me in. It felt somehow familiar.

“And they journeyed from Rissah and camped at Kehelat. And they journeyed from Kehelat and camped at Mount Shefer. And they journeyed from Mount Shefer and campued at Tahat.”

The repetition, the singsong fashion, it put me into a kind of reverie. It sounded to me like a bedtime story, a lullaby.

“And they journeyed from Zalmonah and camped at Punon. And they journeyed from Punon and camped at Oboth…”

The gentle rhythm of this recitation of the Israelites travels called to mind something very specific and personal. It reminded me of a nightly ritual I have with my children that began when they were babies, in which I would recite a similar sort of a lullaby, in which I would recap the events of each day.

It’s a ritual that began when my daughter was just three days old. I suppose it was as much a nighttime ritual for me as it was for her, given that she was only three days old. But regardless, as I rocked her to sleep that night, I rhythmically recapped her day. I told her, “We say goodnight to Mommy’s arms, we say goodnight to Daddy’s arms, we say goodnight to milk.”

That was pretty much it at 3 days old. Those were the contours of her little world back then. How rapidly that world expanded, and so too did our nightly review. “And then we went to the Please Touch Museum, and then we had a picnic, and then we saw our friends…”

It became a way to both document our day and put a reassuring face on it so that we could transition to the nighttime.

The ritual became especially meaningful when in no time at all, my kids were a little older, and their days more complicated. Our bedtime recap now included addressing the minor hardships they began to face: The kid who pushed them at the playground. The ambulance siren that made a loud sound. The tiny doll shoe that somehow became stuck up my daughter’s nose. I’m an optimistic sort of person. In my retelling of the day’s events, every boo-boo was recalled with the band-aid and the kiss that followed.

•  That time we locked ourselves out of the house, we had a fun walk to daddy’s office!
• the time my son broke both his arms, after we had his casts put on at the hospital, we spoon fed him ice cream!
• and as for the time my daughter fell from the monkey bars and then had a fractured wrist for three weeks before we even realized it was broken? well thank god, it practically healed itself!

I don’t mean to sound Polyanna-ish. To me this framing of our narratives felt natural to my worldview, and particularly like a natural expression of what I wanted to convey as a parent: I wanted to remind my kids always, especially after hardship, that they were cared for, and loved. That they should expect that good would prevail. And that at the end of each day, no matter what befell us, we should feel gratitude for our experiences.

I always thought this was the natural way to see the world.

I thought so until three years ago, I lost it.

That was when a scrim was lowered over my mind that made the world look very different to me. I was diagnosed with depression.

That was when I learned that hope and optimism aren’t necessarily a natural state of mind. That hope is really a constraint we impose upon ourselves to keep ourselves looking forward. And that holding onto hope is something you have to be disciplined about, or else you lose sight of it.

In Matot-Masei, we pause in the narrative for a moment, for this list, and consider the Israelites and what kind of shape they’re in after 40 years adrift in the desert.

This is a generation that has been lost for their entire lifetimes. Going from place to place without any real sense of direction, and without knowing whether they would survive the experience to see its uncertain outcome. They have known hardship, hunger and loss. All of their parents have died. Everyone who raised them has died. They are grieving, battle-scarred survivors, wrenched by trauma.

With no memory of their Egyptian past, and no real vision of their future, they are a people unmoored.

How, in that condition, do you move forward?

All you have in a situation like that is hope.

And so this is where God, the parent, steps in to reframe the Israelites’ narrative by lovingly recapping their journey.

“And they journeyed from Tahat and camped at Terah and they journeyed from Terah and camped at Mitkah. And they journeyed from Mitkah and camped at Hashmonah…”

God recounts their incremental progress across the desert, and encourages them to see it from a distance AS progress — evidence of how far they have come. He reminds them of the places where they camped and found no water, and also of the oases they found along the way. As the Israelites reflect on their journey, each place name means something to them, each provokes a wellspring of memories. They recall every promise God made to them, and delivered upon — that every boo boo, indeed, was followed by a band aid and a kiss.

There were blessings embedded in the journey, some of which can only be appreciated from a distance. And ultimately, through this recitation of their travels, the Israelites can come to realize that everything they endured in those 40 years, good and bad, has brought them to this point where they now stand – the brink of the promised land.

God is soothing his children, encouraging them that despite their very real sorrows and hardships, that they should also feel gladness and gratitude. He imbues them with a sense of hope so that they might have the strength to move forward.

For me, as a person who continues to struggle with depression, I have adopted a practice that feels a little like this, a discipline that helps me to reframe my days. It was suggested to me by a friend who also once struggled with hard times, and advised me to start keeping a “gratitude journal.” It sounds flaky. But each evening, in my own daily recap, I list three things from that day for which I’m grateful. Sometimes it’s a challenge, particularly on those days when it’s hard to summon up gladness about anything. But it forces me to think about my daily narrative so that I remember not just the sandstorms and the dry wells, but the oases as well. And when I look back over those pages of my journal, recapping my own desert journey, I am amazed and grateful to see how far I’ve come.

Each of us has our own wilderness. Each wanders our own desert. I pray that each of us emerges from our wanderings feeling fortunate and grateful for having endured; for the growth we achieved during that journey; and hopeful about all that lays ahead of us.

Shabbat shalom.