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Parshat Matot-Masei
1997
At the beginning of Parshat Masei, the Torah offers an exhaustive history of the travels of the Bnai Yisrael, from the Exodus from Egypt until they reach the Jordan and the threshold to the Promised Land (Numbers 33:1-49).
An introductory verse to this section states: "Moses recorded the starting points of their various marches as directed by the Lord. Their marches, by starting points, were as follows (32:2)." According to the commentary of the Ohr HaChaim (1696-1743), G-d instructed Moses to record the journeys as they occurred, and now informed him that his journal was to be included in the Torah. Moses, in the view of the Ohr HaChaim, functioned as a chronicler, contemporaneously recording events. The history of the Jewish people is sacred; our story is Torah.
Monday is Rosh Chodesh Av, the beginning of the nine days of mourning that culminate in Tisha B'Av, traditionally the saddest and most tragic day of the Jewish calendar. Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the Holy Temples, along with a host of other calamities that befell the Jewish people.
Amos Elon, the Israeli journalist, recently recorded a conversation he overheard between two Germans. One, a Jewish historian, explained to the other why the Jews would never forget the Holocaust. "Because [the Jews] are the people of memory. Hundreds of cities must have been sacked and razed in the first century. Only the Jews still speak of the destruction of their Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. (The New York Times Magazine, January 26, 1997)."
Earlier this week in Jerusalem, our people suffered a terrible blow. We, as Jews, mark this horrific loss of life, and record it for ourselves and for generations to follow. The history of the Jewish people is sacred; our story is Torah. We pray for the day when violence and tears are no more, when "our mouths shall be filled with laughter, our tongues, with songs of joy."
Prepared by David Moss, University of Houston Hillel
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