Rabbeinu Yonah, in his Shaarei Teshuva (3:17) lists ten examples of “great and virtuous ways of living, for which man was created.” And each one is a big subject by itself. But as one of them he quotes a possuk from this week’s parsha:
You should remember the entire journey in the midbar, that Hashem led you, forty years He led you in the midbar (Devarim 8:2).
Now when we read that possuk it doesn’t make much of an impression on us; surely we don’t see any especially virtuous way of living in those words. After all, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is speaking not to us but to the generation of the Wilderness. It’s the end of the forty years in the Midbar and He commands them to spend time reminiscing, remembering their travels: “In the Midbar you traveled from one station to another; look back and study what happened in all the places you stopped. Think back to all the journeys you made in between those stations. Study what happened to you and how I provided for you.
“Sometimes you couldn’t get any water and then water was found. You were worried about food but then I sent you food from the heavens. You were in danger from enemies – the four-legged ones and the two-legged – and I saved you constantly.
“Look at what could have happened,” Hashem tells the generation of the Midbar. “And you’re still around to tell the tale. So you’re mechuyav to tell it to yourselves; to look back and ‘remember the entire road’, all of the kindnesses that I did for you.”
Remember the Road of Life
Now, we read that and it’s interesting maybe but we move on; there’s a big parsha to read after all. Our forefathers had to remember; very good. We have to read about it every year, also good. But it doesn’t have much to do with us.
But that’s a mistake, a tragic mistake even, because Rabbeinu Yonah is telling us here that this possuk is talking to us. “It’s not just a story,” he says. “It’s a mitzvas asei. It’s a model for us and a chiyuv upon us to remember our own journey through life. ‘Remember your whole road that you traveled’.”
And then Rabeinu Yonah quotes Dovid Hamelech; he backs it up with a possuk from Tehillim (107:42): Let them meditate on all the kindnesses of Hashem. It means that a person is obligated to be misbonein, to think about it with details; to look back on the whole journey of your life; when you were a boy what Hashem did for you; when you were a young man what He did for you; when you were married; when you needed to get a job and make a living.
Who knows what could have happened? You were saved from accidents. There were illnesses. Sometimes you had a chashash about your health; you went to a specialist and he told you it’s nothing to worry about and so on. Or maybe sometimes it was a problem and you were rescued.
Before My Eyes
And so every person has to look back on his life; he can’t just be an am haaretz, an ignoramus who doesn’t bother remembering his past. You have to look back on your whole lifetime – of your experiences; thousands of experiences – and remember the kindness of Hashem. And not just once; Rabbeinu Yonah quotes Dovid Hamelech, “Your kindness,” he says to Hashem, “are before my mind’s eye always” (ibid. 26:3). It means that you’re always considering not merely what Hashem does for you now but what He did every step of your biography; every chapter and every sentence in each chapter.
Once you were a little boy about to be born, a little girl about to be born. You know it’s very dangerous to get born. The first minutes of getting born are the most dangerous minutes in your whole life; the smallest thing might challilah spoil you. There are ten thousand things that could challilah go wrong and each one would be a tragedy. But you came out all in one good piece. Baruch Hashem!
The Wise Dermatologist
I once went to a goy, a skin doctor, for a pimple. I told him, “You know I have a new daughter; I had a daughter born just recently”.
“Is everything alright?” he said.
I said “Yes”.
“It’s a miracle!”
That’s what the goy said. He called it a miracle. Now, if a goy said that, we should surely say it. Everything is alright? It is a miracle! Nisei nissim! And you should remember that; it’s part of your journey in this world.
Back In Time
I’ll tell you a chiddush now; don’t laugh, but even the time before you were born you have to think about. Now if I said that on my own it could be you’d reject it; you think it’s too much, too extreme. But I’m saying this from a source that you can’t argue with: Dovid Hamelech! Dovid! He’s already a baal deiah – him surely you can listen to.
Dovid Hamelech said I give blessings to Hashem and all my insides bless His holy name. And the Gemara (Brachos 10a) explains, He dwelt inside of his mother, and he sang to Hashem about that part of his life.
Now when he was still inside his mother he wasn’t capable of saying shirah yet. But when Dovid was born – of course even when he was born it took time, but later in time he looked back on that period and he thanked Hashem for what He did for him
A Dangerous Journey
You have to know that those days, all the stages of the development, one after the other, were of the greatest concern for you – not only at that time but for the rest of your life. The slightest mishap chas v’shalom before a man is born would leave him a ba’al mum. He would be blemished forever; sometimes so seriously that he’d be incapable of living normally. Chas v’shalom sometimes a person’s entire life is ruined by just one wrong development before he was born.
It’s a remarkable miracle what you experienced then. Here you were a little blob of protoplasm which had to go through a tremendous metamorphosis; it had to mold a human body with billions of parts to it. It’s one cell and it has to become trillions of cells and they’re all specialized; they’re not all the same kind.
Imagine that this cell has to have the foresight to look ahead and think that some of us will become eyes. Some of the cells in the eye have to become transparent; it’s like a crystal clear lens. There also have to be nerves from the eyes to the brain in order that the pictures that the eyes take should register on the brain.
Now that’s a tremendously complicated apparatus! No camera is as complicated as the eye, but this little blob of protoplasm that was to become Dovid was looking ahead and planning these details. And if there was the slightest snag in this procession of development, then Dovid would have remained blind.
When Everything Grew
And that’s only one of millions of details which means millions of miracles. And there are opportunities for millions of snags because before one cell can become a trillion-cell human being, it has to pass through millions of stages. And any one of these stages is so complicated that the slightest mishap could have spoiled the final product.
And therefore, when Dovid later looked back on that, he said shirah. As part of his greatness he reminded himself of all of those details, those months when he dwelt inside of his mother’s womb and he sang about it all his life. And not only once; Dovid HaMelech, when he was sitting in his palace, when he was walking in Yerushalayim, he was thinking about his journey even before he came into the world; and of course about the the great peril of the few minutes before he was born, the most dangerous minutes in a man’s life. That’s how Dovid spent a lot of his time, thinking about his journey.
Urge Yourself Forward
Does that even enter your mind? Did it ever enter your mind to look back and thank Hashem for the very first stage of your existence before you were born? Let’s say you’re a tzaddik and you thank Hashem for your daily food. You thank Him sincerely. You thank Him for your clothing. You thank Him for the success you have in your career. But to remember yesterday’s kindness, or last week’s? Last year’s? Usually it departed from your memory entirely. And to look back before the time that you were aware of anything and to praise Hashem for what happened before birth?!
And therefore Dovid said, “My soul, bless Hashem.” He spoke to himself and urged himself. “Dovid, wake up and don’t be forgetful of that. Don’t forget all that He bestowed upon you.” ‘All’ means everything; the whole road of your life, from the beginning.
So now tzaddikim, you can test yourselves. Are you grateful to Hashem for that period of existence? It never entered your mind? It’s good you came here. That’s the most essential of all the periods in your life because whatever happens then affects you more. It affects you much more than anything that happened subsequently. And therefore don’t be negligent; don’t say, “I never remembered. I wasn’t aware at the time.” That’s no excuse. It’s a Torah obligation: Remember the entire road.
