“And the Children of Israel traveled from Ramses and they camped in Sukkos. And they traveled from Sukkos and they camped in Asam which is at the edge of the desert… (Bamidbar 33:5-6)
“And Yaakov went out from Be’er Sheva and went to Charan…” (Breishis 28:10) Rashi wonders, “It was only necessary to write that “Yaakov went to Charan”. Why mention his going out? This teaches that when a Tzadik leaves a place he leaves an impression.”
Why does the Torah tell us about each of the 42 journeys in the desert that they left A to go to B and then from B to go to C? These locations were in the desert. They were and remained uncharted regions. Who would there be to make an impression on? Yet, maybe we can still apply the essence of this same answer here. How so?
Imagine a medical student entering his internship as a doctor. He will be beginning his career as a caretaker and a healer. He will be practicing medicine, albeit with supervision until he gains near mastery of this delicate craft. He didn’t just enter residency, the next stage from nowhere. He first needed to learn and carry the cumulative lessons of the previous stages into his new challenge.
It was my first real “resume” job out of college. I was working in a federally sponsored school in the Bronx for 80 or so Puerto Rican high school dropouts. We were charged with helping them their GED and pick up some job experience. I was frequently inviting different personalities from the community to the school to tell their story and give hope and inspiration to the students. One fine neatly dressed black man that hosted some of our students for volunteer work, refused to come to the school to meet the students, but rather he insisted we meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. So, we arranged two buses on a Tuesday morning and my life was about to change and I was completely unaware of what was in store for me.
When we arrived, he took us on his defined tour and showed us in particular Spanish and Indian and Black art. Then we all sat down on the marble floor of the hallowed halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and he stood behind a conductor’s lectern and began in his Baptist ministerial tones delivering his crafted sermon. “The reason why I brought you here and showed you these three types of art from Spanish, Indian, and Black culture is because the Puerto Rican personality is a rich blend of all three and I know that sometimes a person looks into the mirror and the Indian doesn’t like the Black Man within him and the Indian doesn’t like the Spaniard and the there are parts of us that are fractured and warring with other parts. How can we make peace with the world if we have not yet made peace with ourselves? In order to know where you are going to in life, you have to know where you are coming from!”
Then he pivoted to me, and declared, “Bobby over here, he knows where he is coming from. He’s a son of Abraham! RIGHT!?” I felt like Bambi on the highway with the headlights bearing down. In that pressure-filled moment, I dusted off a Hebrew School 4th grade memory of something about Avraham and Sara and so I publicly agreed, “YES!”
I ran home and found the English Bible from my Bar Mitzvah. I scanned and found a story about a man named Abram age 75 and a woman named Sarai who was barren and incapable of having children. They would easily have been voted in their high school, least likely to make it into the 20th or 21st century and yet, here I am their great great-great grandchild 3,700 years later reflecting on them. I flipped pages ahead and found them doing extreme acts of kindliness. It made me want to know more. I knew if I could find out more about them then I would know more about me and my mission in this world. It started me searching with a renewed zeal. That line ended up changing the arc of my entire life, “In order to know where you are going to in life, you have to know where you are coming from”