“The Children of Yisrael will encamp, each person by his banner, according to the insignia of their fathers’ household, at a distance surrounding the Tent of Meeting, they will encamp.” (2:1)
Ryan Ramsey was the captain of the nuclear submarine HMS Turbulent between 2008 and 2011 and once spent 286 days at sea without seeing the sky. He shared an 84-meter steel tube with 130 people. In the middle of the total lockdown, the BBC screened an interesting interview with him. Two of his tips resonated with me. The first was to be careful to attend to one’s personal appearance. It’s all too easy in a time of lockdown to let one’s personal grooming slip, which can lead to a general decline. For an observant Jew, this translates as not davening in your slippers. Man is created b’tzelem Elokim, and he preserves that tzelem by preserving tzurat ha’adam.
The other tip he had was to maintain a routine. Shigra, or routine, is a double-edged blade. One of the great rabbis of a previous generation (please let me know who it was), when visiting his son in his yeshiva, would first of all go and check his son’s bedroom rather than go and see how his son was learning in the beit midrash (study hall).
Personal order is both a barometer and a cause of application and organization. It also accelerates time. The monotony of living in a submarine or locked up at home is reduced by routine. Hours become links between set activities, hours become days. Days become months. It’s exactly that same difficulty we find when we try to remember a specific day three years ago that helps us deal with monotony. It’s a G-d-given amnesia that helps the mind deal with boredom. I have no problem whatsoever remembering the day of my wedding or my son’s first haircut, but try me on a specific day two months ago!
A slave’s life is very monotonous, but it’s also very regular. In one sense, it’s very relaxing. You just keep doing the same thing every day without thinking. When the Jewish People left Egypt and experienced the most memorable event of a lifetime, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, they were challenged by an event that could easily destabilize them. And a few million people wandering around an uncharted desert after the comfort and stability of the fleshpots of Egypt could have been a disaster waiting to happen.
This week’s Torah portion goes into great detail about the precise location and job of each one of the priestly tribes. There is a hint here that order and routine are fundamentals of both sanity and the ability to serve our Creator appropriately — and that starts with not wearing slippers for davening.
RABBI YAAKOV ASHER SINCLAIR OHR.EDU
