Netvort Parshios Matos-Masei 5770: Journeys
By Rabbi Joshua (movingly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In the beginning of parshas Masei, the Torah records the forty-two journeys that the Jewish people made from the time they left Egypt until they were about to enter the Holy land. There is a practice among some Torah readers, based on kabbalah, to call up only one person to the Torah for the reading of this entire section, so as not to interrupt the journeys. This is because the forty-two journeys represent the forty-two letter name of God. The Sefas Emes writes that at each journey, the Jews cleansed themselves of a certain impurity that they absorbed while in Egypt, so that by the end of their stay in the wilderness they were in position to encounter God in a pure way. Thus, the forty-two journeys enabled them to build a new relationship with God, as represented by His forty-two letter name.

There is a tradition, recorded by the grandson of the Ba'al Shem Tov in his commentary Degel Machaneh Ephraim, that each person undergoes forty-two journeys in his life, just as the Jewish people did in the wilderness. Taking, again, the forty-two journeys as corresponding to the forty-two letter name of God, the idea is that a person's goal in life is to be able to encounter God. This, in fact, is exactly what the Rambam writes in the seventh chapter of his Shemoneh Perakim, or Eight Chapters, which is an introduction to his commentary to Mishnayos Avos. He writes there that a person should focus all of his actions in life around the attainment of a certain goal and in this way everything he does will be infused with purpose and meaning, even his ostensibly mundane activities such as eating and sleeping. The central goal that a person should have in life, he continues is 'yedias Hashem,' knowledge of God.

Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt'l, in his work, “On Repentance,” discusses the opinion of the Rambam, who, in his Sefer HaMitzvos, counts belief in God as one of the six hundred thirteen mitzvos. Interestingly, the Rambam there uses the expression 'yedias Hashem,' or knowledge of God. Rav Soloveitchik says that his understanding of this mitzvah is connected to the verse "bechol derachecha daeihu” (Mishlei, 3:6), which literally means 'know God in all your ways,' but, practically, means to be aware of the presence of God in all that one does. According to the Rambam, this is done by centering one's goal in life around building up a relationship with God. Everything that a person does takes on great significance. A person, for example, eats so that he will have the strength to observe God's mitzvos. This orientation should carry through in all of a person's activities, leading him, in the long run, to achieve his goal of 'knowing God.'

The Rambam concludes his discussion by saying that this teaching of centering all of one's actions around the goal of attaining 'yedias Hashem' is encapsulated by the rabbis in one wondrous sentence, brought in a Mishnah in Avos (2:7), in which Rabbi Yossi says, 'all of one's actions should be for the sake of Heaven.' Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his authoritative code of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim, section 231) brings this Mishnah in Avos. Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, in his notes to the Shulchan Aruch, entitled Yitzchak Yikarei, points out that while Rabbi Karo was an extremely pious person and sometimes brought, in his code, certain practices which constitute extra measures of piety and are not normative, what he writes in this chapter is an absolute obligation. The charge presented is, of course, challenging, but, as the Rambam tells us, gives special meaning to everything we do in life as we move through our forty-two journeys.