Parashas Masei records the 42 travels (the masaos) of the Jewish people throughout their sojourn in the desert, from the exodus of Egypt and all the way through Arvos Moav, until the people arrived in Eretz Yisrael.
Rashi in this week’s parshah says that most of these travels were spent in encampments, where they rested, with only a few of them being active journeys. However, Rashi at the end of Parashas Shemos says that not only were their journeys part of the masaos\travels, but even their encampments were included in these masaos\travels.
Several Reasons Why the Encampments Are Regarded as Part of the Travels
1) Simply speaking, this meant that they did not rest in these encampments for the sake of simply resting there, but for the sake of being able to continue on to Eretz Yisrael, and thus even these encampments are regarded as part of the travels.
2) Even more so, however, their encampments are considered as part of their travels because even when they camped, they were following Hashem’s command of “By the mouth of Hashem you will journey, and by the mouth of Hashem you will camp.” Even when they camped, they were prepared for Hashem to tell them to move on and keep travelling, so the encampments were not a situation of complete rest, but part of their journeys.
3) There is also a deeper reason why their encampments are seen as part of their travels. It is because there is no such thing as complete rest, as long as we live on this world. Hashem created the world with six days for work, and a seventh day of Shabbos, for rest. However, the Shabbos we have now is not a situation of complete rest. It is only a rest in relation to the six days of the week. Only in the future will our Shabbos be on the level of complete rest. In whatever place a person is in, he can never completely rest there.
As long as a person lives, he is a creature of movement. Hashem has designed the world in a way that we are always in movement. Only a dead person is in complete rest. Those who are alive are always in movement; even when a person is immobile, the four cubits of his space can acquire things for him. Thus, even when man does rest, the rest is not complete. That is why when the people camped, it was not regarded as their place of rest, but as part of their travels.
To understand this matter in clearer terms, and in language that applies to our soul - it is because in whatever place a person is in, he has an avodah to ascend higher past the current level, and to aspire for a higher level. Therefore, man is always in movement. He can never be at rest, because if he is, he isn’t trying to grow spiritually.
4) There is yet a deeper understanding of why the encampments were called their “travels”: because none of these encampments could be regarded as their actual “place” to be in. Therefore, it is considered as if they were always on the go. The Sages state that Hashem created our world to last for 6000 years, and then it will be desolate for another thousand years after that.
Therefore, every situation on this world, without exception, is but a step of a larger process. Hashem has designed this Creation like one big ladder to ascend, with rung after rung, and a person’s avodah is to keep ascending the ladder, rung after rung. Therefore, there is no situation where you can stay in forever, because you always have to see it as a step that leads to another step.
That is the way things will be until the future, when Hashem will renew the world and then the design will be changed. Until then, every situation we are in is but a step in the process, leading to another step after that.
