Do Not Be Afraid of the Journey
Do Not Be Afraid of the Journey
By Jacqueline Menaker
Many years ago I attended a retreat for clergy led by the Renewal Rabbi and Hebrew chant specialist Shefa Gold. I was uncertain about the program which was outside my comfort level as a Reform cantor. I had also never been to Albuquerque, NM and didn’t know soul attending the program. For the entire program, I kept to myself. The emotional and spiritual sharing was hard for me at the time and I felt like fish out of water. The journey to this place was uncomfortable. Hot, awkward, unfamiliar and challenging, I pushed against the experience until the end of the week. What I didn’t see – and what everyone else present noticed, was the constriction and tension that I carried with me the entire time.
Although I was a trained cantor, I was not as familiar with the Jewish mediation and chant practice that can lead to healing of old wounds, healing body and healing of spirit. On the final day of the retreat, I was “required” to be the focus of the group’s chant. The text
was the first verse of the prayer that begins with the words….
Ana b’koach g’dulat y’mincha tatir tz’rurah
If You would, with the power of Your mighty hand, undo the knot that ties us up.
For the next ninety minutes, I was held in love and support through the deep chanting of this phrase and every loss, pain, hurt, struggle of my previous forty-two years come flooding out.
That moment at Kol Zimrah in New Mexico is etched forever in my heart and my mind -the time the place- the sound – the images of people. I was opened up to journeys in my existence that had been hidden, ignored, suppressed for more than four decades. It was as if the flood gates were unlocked and my river of tears flowed for an hour while my fellow Israelites held the sacred space through chant and presence. For the first time in many years, I felt no fear and my heart lightened.
When I was a child, I never wanted to forget anything. My friends, my experiences the moments and the people in my life who gave me joy. Somewhere along the way I stopped recording. I stopped journaling. I stopped taking note. If I did not record I would not lose.
And if I did not suffer loss, I would feel no pain.
Yet images of those I have loved and lost are accompanied by places and dates along the timeline of my life. As each experience accumulated – each challenge, or obstacle, each loss or heartbreak became tucked neatly unseen and unfelt as the years continued.
Compound unexpressed(disenfranchised) grief/fear – stopped me in my tracks. Although I was living, I was not acknowledging the journey.
At first glance, the enumeration of the 42 Journeys in the Parashat Mas’ei does not appear significant. Each journey place from Ramses to Succot is detailed some verses with elaboration, most without. Yet, it is written in Numbers 33:2, “Moses wrote their goings forth, stage by stage, by the commandment of God.” We understand that not just the journey itself, but the decree to note came directly from the Transcendent.
The Bal Shem Tov taught that “the forty-two journeys of the Israelites are to be found in every person from the day of his birth until he returns to his world [at death] . . . Each individual’s birth should be understood within the context of the Exodus from Egypt and the subsequent stages of life are journeys that lead from place to place until one comes to the land of the ‘supernal world of life’ [that is, the Shekhinah, the in-dwelling presence of God].” (Degel Machaneh Ephraim, p. 199, col. a) Trief – These are the Journeys
How do you mark the obstacles and challenges of your life? Have you made progress in overcoming or understanding? Do you tend to focus on the trials and not the achievements? Are you stuck…immovable constricted by fear? Or overwhelmed? Do you see the
setting forth and resting places of your life as a forward moving journey or does each challenge manifest in panic or despair?
Rashi expanded on his initial understanding with following midrash from R. Tanchuma
(Numbers 33:1) “These are the stages of the Children of Israel”: [The matter] is comparable to a king whose son was ill. He brought him to a certain place to heal him. When they returned, his father began recounting the stages, “Here we slept. Here we cooled off. Here you had a headache.” By illuminating these moments, we mark the journey looking back from a place growth.
We learn:
Do Not Fear for God is present. God will not depart. Do not stop until you reach the Promised Land. How did the ancient Israelites know that God’s presence led the way through peaks and valleys, winds and turns? We learn from Midrash Bemidbar Rabbah, “Thus did Israel proceed -with the clouds over them. now and then a beam of light would issue from one of the clouds, by which they knew in which direction they were to journey…when they did arrive each one would encamp in the place assigned to it, withe clouds of glory hovering above them….the cloud of Presence did not come down upon the tabernacle until Moses said, “come to rest, O Lord, upon the ten thousands of the families of Israel.” Num 10:36(Treif, S. Matot-Masei These are the Journeys)
When we become overwhelmed, the amount of changes and challenges in our lives, we are reminded that there were actually periods of respite in the wilderness. and there was more rest than roaming.
Through Rashi we learn that within the forty- two journeys recounted in Parashat Mas’ei, only twenty of them were true wanderings.
“you should not say that they were moving about and wandering from station to station for all forty years, and they had no rest, because there are only forty-two stages. Deduct fourteen of them, for they all took place in the first year, before the decree, from when they journeyed from Rameses until they arrived in Rithmah, from where the spies were sent, as it says, “Then the people journeyed from Hazeroth [and camped in the desert of Paran].” (12:16); “Send out for yourself men…” (13:2), and here it says, “They journeyed from Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah,” teaching us that it [Rithmah] was in the desert of Paran. Subtract a further eight stages which took place after Aaron’s death-from Mount Hor to the plains of Moab-during the fortieth year, and you will find that throughout the thirty-eight years they made only twenty journeys. I found this in the commentary of R. Moshe (Hadarshan) [the preacher] (Mid. Aggadah).”
So too, do we, as we recognize and mark our experiences, the many times we have overcome the obstacles and untied our tangles. We realize the “destination” correlates to life moments, people we have loved, losses we have overcome, success we have achieved, and the glorious moments when we delighted in the journey of another.
By marking these moments, we affirm the journey looking back from a place of growth.
We learn:
Do Not Fear for God is present. God will not depart. Do not stop until you reach the Promised Land.
Are you willing to take a journey with me? Close your eyes and imagine the places you have lived in your life, noting where you started and where journeyed. Did you stay for a longtime? Did you experience joy or sorrow? Where did you move next? As you begin to explore the next stage – can you see your own version of the “cloud” guiding the way as the Israelites traveled along the pathway to Moab? Is there a soundtrack to your journey, as your move from year to year or decade to decade? Although I would never presume to have the power of the Holy One, I recommend that you write record each step of your journey.
These are my journeys. Each one can be chanted to the cantillation of the era, as I remember it.
Queens NY to East Northport NY – 12 years (first major loss and trauma)
East Northport NY to Plantation FL – 1 year
Plantation FL to Sunrise FL – 5 years
Sunrise FL to Boston MA, 5 years (second major loss)
Boston MA to New City NY, 4 months
New City NY to London England, 8 years
London England to Plantation FL, 1.5 years (several short challenging journeys)
Plantation FL to Orlando FL (to Debary to Deland) 22 years. (major losses 3,4,5)
Orlando FL to Santa Fe NM (spiritual Reflection) 6 months (major loss 6)
Santa Fe NM to Ventnor NJ 2 yrs 4 months (major losses 7,8,9)
By writing down our journeys we can see and feel that each journey is a bridge to new growth, and new understanding whether or not we realize it in the moment. By recordingthese moments, we affirm the journey looking back from a place growth.
We learn:
Do Not Fear for God is present. God will not depart. Do not stop until you reach the Promised Land.
Attributed to the first century sage Rabbi, Nechunyah Ben HaKana, the short piyut, or liturgical poem “Ana B’koach” has several levels of meaning, each meaning presenting a journey unto itself. The seven verses may represent seven days, seven stages, or even seven kabbalistic sefirot.
I am drawn to the interpretation that this prayer of forty-two words, which some believe correspond to the unknowable forty-two letter name of the Transcendent. My spiritual world cracked open during a journey to New Mexico all those years ago with the Healing words of this powerful piyyut. I realize now that every moment I have experienced in my life can be explored without fear of overwhelm or panic.
Every year we reread the journeys in Parasha Mas’ei and likewise, every year we should revisit our own. By revisiting the moments you journeyed over and over again we reflect as the Rambamtaught in Guide For the Perplexed How else would we come to know the miracles of the Transcendent if they were not written? We would not remember our own miracles in the midst of the chaos of life if we did not mindfully revisit, rewrite and review the journey of our lives each step of the way. However unsettling our lives might appear, personally, professionally, or in context with the current challenges of our world we are reminded of the words of Chassidic Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav:
“Know that a person needs to cross a very very narrow bridge, and what is essential is not to be afraid [or “… is that one should not be overcome by fear].”
Amen…