Masey (5741)

The Alef Kabbala Group (29 July 08) discussed a discourse taught by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1981 on the Shabbat of Sedra Masey. This Sedra, concluding the Book of Numbers, gives a list of 42 'journeys' or stages of the travels of the Israelites from Egypt to the Holy Land. The discourse interprets these 42 journeys in the life of each man and woman, whether from birth to leaving the world, or in the course of each day. This relates to the Divine Name with 42 letters, and the fact that the first paragraph of the Shema has 42 words. For the saying of the Shema expresses each person's constant personal daily Exodus from Egypt, and each stage of the journey is itself a form of leaving 'Egypt', limitation, reaching for a new unparalleled freedom.