Rabbi's Blog

Have you ever played the game geography? If not, it is a wonderful family interactive educational game that can be played anytime, anyplace, anywhere. The game begins with the first player calling out any country, state or city in the world (continents are acceptable to). The next player must name a different country, state or city that begins with the last letter of the previous place. This continues and goes around to each player. If someone cannot come up with a place, they challenge the previous player; if the previous player comes up with another new place then the challenger is out, if not, then the challenged player is out. The last player remaining wins the game.

Perhaps Jewish geography is a ‘game’ that at least more Jews heard of. It’s really not a game but rather a series of questions people who meet for the first time try to discover someone in common they know. I find this primarily true when I am in Israel and meeting different people and of course in Shul greeting all the tourists and visitors. For most I don’t mind playing this kind of Jewish geography trying to find someone in common that we know of or personally know.  This geography isn’t particularly of Jewish origin, rather a number of studies and theories have been made going back to Ferenc Karinthy who in 1929 theorized the “six degrees of separation”. The theory suggests that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. Other sociologic theories have developed since then creating the ‘small world’ effect.

Like any game or sport there are good and bad outcomes and Jewish geography is no exception to the rule. There was a time I was playing ‘Jewish geography’ with a guest in Shul and sure enough after only a few questions we connected on the person who we both knew. Turns out the person in my view from where I knew him, was a pretty good guy, but as soon as we mentioned the name of that person the guest’s face turned all ugly as if he wanted nothing to do with that person. Without going into details from his experience the person who I thought was okay, in his opinion was not such a nice person. On the other hand, I once met a Chasidic Jew in Shul from New York where in most cases I do not find someone in common that we both know. But lo and behold he mentioned Philadelphia and I asked if he knew my brother in law Shmuel Kovacs who is from there? His eyes lit up and as if a light bulb turned on in his head and said “yes” and then said “well not really”. He went on to explain that he works for a Tzedakah organization and noticed that my brother in law’s name repeated every month as a repeat giver. He only knew him by name because he gave Tzedakah on an ongoing basis and was ‘known’ just for that alone. This was one of the best outcomes I have ever experienced playing Jewish geography!

The Jewish people as a nation by now should be experts in the geography of the world. We are a people who have lived in more places in the world than any other group or people. We are spread throughout the world and the exile has been so long we are now revisiting and relocating to countries in the world for the second time. The reference to the wandering Jew is nothing new but rather takes us back to Avraham Avinu who traveled extensively throughout his life. I would like to suggest the official foretelling of the Jews traveling is documented in the second of this week’s two parshios.

In this week’s parshas Maasei the Torah lists the forty-two places over the forty years Bnei Yisrael traveled in the desert from Har Sinai until entering Eretz Canaan. In Bamidbar 33:1-2 the Torah states: “Eileh Maasei Bnei Yisrael Asher Yatz’u Mei’Eretz Mitzrayim L’Tzivosam, B’Yad Moshe V’Aharon. Vayichtov Moshe…..V’Eileh Maaseihem L’Motzaeihem”. “These are the journeys of the children of Israel who departed from Egypt under the leadership of Moshe and Aharon. Moshe recorded in writing their departures…..and these were the journeys according to their departures”. It is interesting to note that in describing the travels, the Torah first uses the word ‘Eileh’/these and then in the second verse it says ‘V’Eileh’/ and these.

The Rabbis teach a rule that anytime the Torah uses the word “V’Eileh with the extra vav it comes to continue and add on to the previous discussion while the word ‘Eileh’ comes to cut off from the previous discussion. From this point the Torah is separating the types of travels that took place, specifically the travels from the time of the spies, and when God changed course not to pass by the Plishtim and even when a group of Jews wanted to return to Mitzrayim. The following course of travel was different in the sense that it was all good without complaints, without a desire to go back to Egypt and didn’t need to circumvent any particular people.

The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh suggests the two levels of travel the Jews undertook, one was before the decree of the spies and the second was due because of the spies doing so without Hashem’s will. In other words, the first travel was the course that Hashem had initiated but once the Jews sinned with the sin of the spies a new course and route was designed in order to make up for the sin. Once again the geographical design has a good and bad outcome in each of the explanations.

Lastly, the Ohr HaChaim points out the description as follows; these were the travels of the Jewish people and did not state these are the encamping of the Jewish people. I would like to suggest the importance of the ‘getting up and go’ to the final destination and not the lounging around and ‘we have time to get there’ attitude. The Torah describes the push to get to Eretz Yisrael and not sitting around and camping. Of course we know that in order to get up and go one had to as some point stop and rest, nevertheless the emphasis is on the traveling and not the camping.  

It is always great and a pleasure to travel with others in going to nice places. Sometimes we travel in large groups and sometimes in small ones. Then there are times I have to make the journey alone or only with my immediate family. One must always keep in mind the routes, directions and the geography that we take. The most important part any trip are the words in the second verse “Al Pi Hashem” that it must be undertaken through the word or mouth of Hashem in order to get to the correct final destination of our personal journey of life.    

Ah Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Avraham Bogopulsky