Miryam's Space

As we draw near the end of the book of Numbers, and as we count down to the ninth of Av, a reminder that numbers can be important! If you are  Yankees fan, you know that #42 belongs to the great Jackie Robinson. If you have read the wonderful, strange, funny book, Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy –, the answer to everything in life was calculated to be 42. Of course, it’s silly, you cannot calculate the answer to the meaning of life, but still, numbers and counting your days is important! In parashat Masei there are 42 stops and journeys the Israelites take on their way from Miztrayim, the place of slavery to the promised land.  That’s quite a lot: We are also counting down the days to Tisha B’av, a day of mourning for all the destruction in our history, a descent to honor sadness, In order to Be able to ascend. Most of the wandering (38) years is a result of the Israelites lack of faith, that G!d would be with them. The wilderness becomes a crucible to forge a free, rather than slave mentality.  Source page for these writings

Think about the various places you have been in your life’s journey. Maybe you are like me: when I tell my story, most of the time I don’t include the journeys have been too painful or embarrassing, those that I’ve either repressed or just edited out. Why tell those stories at all?

I have found out, and I bet you know: it’s to heal, as Rabbi David Ingber has shown so inspiringly with Shabbat of the Child.  But like the Israelites, how do we know if/ that G!d is with us each stop along the way – what about during hard the hard times?

Midrash Tanchuma explains that the Holy One was with us the entire time, in the Parable of a King who journeys with his child to a series of health spas, and the recalls the journey to search for healing fondly . AND

Evidence that G!d was with us all along is in the number 42,

For there is a 42 letter name of G!d reflected in the prayer Ana B’Koach, “untangle our knots”, a 42 word prayer, each word corresponding to one of the stops in the journey!

The commentary Or HaChayim goes on to ask: why focus on the moving, rather than the destinations?  I studied with R’ Mimi Feigelson thhttps://jwa.org/rabbis/narrators/feigelson-mimiis past week, who spoke of how much she has changed, and the importance of being open to change. To look in the mirror at the end of the day, and not know “who you are” that Ayin, openness. The change itself is a yearning, to follow holiness, “Dancing in G!d’s earthquake” as R Arthur Waskow says.

So keep change in your pockets at all times, for the bus, for the beggar…

Keep on marching ahead to that place where you learn what simplicity
is; What commitment is for
Why the eyes were created
Why the soul is transparent
Why there’s no greater gift
In this wondrous world
Than to suffer a heart filled with love for no reason ….

Keep change in your pockets at all times! ~ Danny Maseng