Can we Control our Destiny ...
This Shabbat is a very special one. Firstly, tomorrow in synagogues across the globe we conclude the reading of the 4th book of the Torah known as Numbers (or in Hebrew, Bamid’bar). Additionally, this Shabbat is also the first day of the Jewish month of “Av”, a month during which we yearn and pray for an end to all suffering and pain.
As we enter this Shabbat let us glance at this week’s Torah Portion and unearth a message we can take with us.
In the first section of the portion Moses lists, by name, the 42 stops our ancestors made during their journey from Egypt to the land of Israel (it took them 40 years, but they finally made it!). The Torah makes special mention of the fact that Moses wrote down the Israelites’ journeys “at the bidding of G‑d” (Numbers 33:2).
Now Moses wrote all of the Torah at the “bidding of G‑d”. Yet the Torah seldom makes mention of this fact. Why then, specifically at this section, does the Torah find it necessary to teach us that Moses wrote down every place the Jewish People traveled “at the bidding of G‑d”?
The answer: because we might have thought otherwise. What do I mean? The nature of the human being is such that he feels total control over each ‘journey’ he takes: When we are somewhere; if we’ve achieved a certain status, we feel that WE got there ourselves and WE earned it. And so we might have thought that the journeys the Israelites took in the desert were within their control.
It is to challenge this very notion that the Torah teaches us that the journeys taken by our ancestors were “at the bidding of G‑d”. Directed and controlled by his Divine Will. For in truth it is G‑d who guides the steps of man. Does that mean that Judaism has a deterministic view of life and creation? NO. Does that mean we believe that the Jewish People had no choices? No.
So what are the ‘limits’ to G‑d’s control over our lives? As Jews, do we believe that we can control our own destiny? Like every good question the answer is: “It Depends.” No, we cannot control where G‑d’s ‘master plan’ of creation will take us. But, yes, we CAN control what we do with the experience or situation placed before us. (After all none of us chose which century, family or country, we would be born into.)
So the next time we find ourselves in a city or street, that we didn’t intend to visit (maybe our plane was rerouted or there was a detour on the highway) or the next time we experience an ‘unplanned’ occurrence we must know and feel that this is occurring to us “at the bidding of G‑d”. There is a divine purpose for this experience. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “what can I do to elevate this experience?”
So as we enter this special month on this special Shabbat let us focus on each of life’s journeys with the knowledge that G‑d must have a mission for us here and now.
Let us do one more mitzvah today!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Raleigh Resnick
