YAVNEH STUDIES IN MASSEI Samuel Zaitchik

It is not difficult to find quotable quotes debunking history. Matthew Arnold called history “that huge Mississippi of falsehood”; Napoleon said it was “a fable agreed upon”; and Sir Robert Walpole undoubtedly spoke for thousands of schoolboys forced to fill up their heads with dates and names of people and places when he cried, “Anything but history, for history must be false.” And, many a schoolboy would add, a waste of time.

To the Jew, of course, the study of history has not been a waste of time, certainly not the history of our people. We have had our share of debunkers and historical pessimists, but those of us who have made a commitment to a continuing tradition have of necessity rejected the notion that history, as Henry Ford put it, “is bunk.” We have believed that just as the halakha of the Torah is contemporaneously relevant, so the historical narratives are always significant t and instructive. A case in point is the first section of Massei.

In the first forty-nine verses we are given the itinerary from Egypt to the Jordan, an enumeration of the forty-two places in the desert through which the Israelites passed on their way to the Promised Land. They had left Egypt with joyous optimism, “with a high hand . . . in the sight of all the Egyptians . . . strong and armed” to fulfill their historic destiny. Now forty years have passed, and the people are pitched on the Plains of Moab. God commands Moses to record the stations and stages of this circuitous, forty-year journey. “And they journeyed from Ramses, and they pitched in Succoth. And they journeyed from Succoth, and they pitched at Etham. And they journeyed . . . and they pitched. Pi-hahiroth...Migdol...Pene-hahiroth...Marah...Elim...Sin…Dophkah...Alush... Rephidim...” Names and names of oases and dunes and other stopping-places -- for forty-nine verses. This is history with a vengeance -- enough to make one ask why we have to be subjected to such insignificant detail.

Rashi asks, as does Rabbi Moshe, the Midrash Rabbi Tanchuma, Maimonides and Sforno. To them, clearly, history is not bunk— even the most apparently insignificant details-when that history is being told in the Torah.

“Why were those stages written?” asks Rashi. He cites the explanation of Rabbi Moshe: “To make known the kind acts of the Omnipresent, that although He decreed against (the Israelites) to make them move about and to cause them to wander in the wilderness, you should not say that they were wandering and moving about from stage to stage for forty years and had no rest.” Actually, Rashi shows, “they journeyed only twenty stages in thirty-eight years,” evidence of “the kind acts of the Omnipresent.” God is merciful to a sinful people; in their wonderings He found for them places of rest. What is significant here is not Rashi’s attribution of mercy to God -- we don’t need the account in Massei to teach us this -- but Rashi’s interpretation of history. History, he suggests, is not a collection of place-names; it is an account of God’s presence in human events, of His eternal immanence, of His unending concern for His children. The Jew cannot accept the view of Edward Gibbon that “history is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Certainly we have committed our follies and crimes and have been subjected to misfortune, but the Omnipresent has a hand in the making of history, and that hand is ready to bring comfort to His children. This is an historical perspective that leaves no room for despair and dark pessimism. We decline and we fall, but the Omnipresent gives us strength to rise. Such a view of history is more than a matter of simple optimism; to the Jew it is a fundamental of his faith.

Rashi offers another explanation, citing the Midrash Rabbi Tanchuma. The account of the stages of the journey of the Israelites “may be likened unto a king who had taking his ailing son to a distant place to be cured. On the return journey the king would lovingly recount to the lad all the experiences they went through at each of their halting places. ‘At this spot we slept, and at that we had a cool resting place from the heat, at the other you were overcome with pain in the head.” Here again we find expression of deep faith in a compassionate God, but the historical perspective is different. What is suggested here is that history becomes significant if we learn from it. Like the king of the Midrashic parable, God tells the Israelites to look back, to remember what befell them, to consider the events of the past forty years, and to be instructed by them. Humanity’s “cool resting-places” and “pains in the head” are not chance historical events of no relevance to contemporary life. They do not support the Spenglerian theory of cycles. Man can do something about his historical rise and fall if only he will let history be his teacher. Such a view of history is more than a matter of faith in a merciful God; to the Jew it is fundamental to his historical mission to fulfill the prophetic vision of a just and peaceful world.

Maimonides offers a third explanation - and another view of history. “The greatest of miracles,” he writes in Guide of the Perplexed, “was the stay of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years.” Maimonides goes on to describe the wilderness in vivid detail -- “a place of fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water; a land that no man passed through and where no man dwelt.” The listing of these place-names is necessary, says Maimonides, “so that coming generations may see them and learn the greatness of the miracles which enabled human beings to live in these places for forty years.” Again the hand of God in history and the significance of history for later generations, but another element is added here. Maimonides is pointing out the need for emotional identification with history, the kind of identification we affirm at our Passover Seder when we say that “every man must see himself as if he himself had gone out of Egypt.” To truly profit from our past, we must experience an historical empathy, experience the scorpions and the drought, know what it is like to wander in the wilderness. Such a view of history adds a third dimension: in addition to the recognition of God’s role in history and the willingness to be instructed by history there must be an emotional identification with those who lived it.

Finally, there is a fourth commentary, that of the Sforno. The itinerary in Massei, according to this view, is meant to be a compliment to the Israelites. God commanded Moses to record these wanderings to make known the steadfastness and virtue of Israel, qualities which made them worthy of entering the Holy Land. Here the perspective is essentially humanistic. What matters is that human beings were strong enough to overcome the natural and man-made evils that attempted to destroy them. In spite of his weaknesses and follies, in spite of the malevolent forces over which he has no control, man has the power to make his own history. He may wander for years in terror and confusion, but if he is steadfast in his purpose and strengthens himself through a commitment to human dignity he will eventually find his way and build his future.

In summary, then, our commentators point to four historical perspectives that together make up what we may call the Jewish view of history. First, we believe that God works in and through history; second, we believe that history must serve as teacher; third, we believe that we must identify with our past; and fourth, we believe that we have the power to make our own history. Each of these perspectives has been emphasized in different periods of Jewish history. Certainly there have been times when our very existence was threatened, times when our only response was “Ani ma-amin”; there have been times when we have found it possible to be more objective and have developed intellectually and morally through our historical perspective; there have been times when we were overwhelmed emotionally and sought to re-experience our past; and there have been times when we were called upon to be steadfast and strong and when we responded by making our own history. But although the emphasis has varied from period to period, we have always known the value of history and its significance in our lives as members of the human race and as Jews.

Rabbi Samuel Zaitchik is rabbi of Cong. Ahavat Sholom in Lynn, Massachusetts.