Are We There Yet? (portion Shemot)

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

Our Torah agrees.  In this week’s portion, Vaera, God tells Moses to speak to the Jewish people in the Divine Name and tell them: “I am the Eternal One.  I will take you out (v’hotzayti) from under the burdens of Egypt.  I will rescue you (v’hitzalti) from their bondage.  I will redeem you (v’ga’alti) with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements.  I will take you (v’lakachti) to be My people and I will be your God.”

Note that there are four promises of liberation here, in quick succession.  These verses are critical to the Pesach seder, where they are translated into the four cups of wine, one for each passage of God’s deliverance. 

But there’s one problem—the biblical passage does not end here.  There is, in fact, one more verse, which adds: “I, the Eternal One, am your God, who took you out from under the burdens of Egypt and who will bring you (v’hayvayti) into the land.

There are, in fact, not four but five relevant passages about God’s liberation.  So why only four cups (and the four children—wise, wicked, simple and unable to ask) rather than five?  What happened to God’s promise to deliver us into the land of Israel?

Rabbi Shai Held notes: “Maybe the Haggadah seeks to teach us that the journey is often more important than the destination.  The Haggadah is not alone in omitting the promised ending.  The Torah itself ends before that final promise has been fulfilled.  On some level, the story the Torah tells is incomplete.  The promised destination is still out of reach.  In leaving out the arrival, then, the Haggadah is in a sense merely imitating the Torah.  The journey does not merely serve to lead us to the land.  No, the journey itself is intrinsically holy.”

This is a vital teaching, now as then.  We are so often focused, with tunnel vision, on future results that we fail to take pleasure in the moment, in the process—in the journey.  If the goal was the destination, we wouldn’t have wandered in the wilderness for forty years.  In our people’s life, and in our own, it’s all about the wandering, the joys and challenges that we encounter along the way. 

This week, take time to savor the moment—the journey—because while the destination always remains uncertain, the path we take toward it is ours to choose and appreciate.