Scanning the list of places where the Israelites temporarily settled, we need help in deciphering its meaning. Since God commanded Moses to write the list, we can be sure that there is an important reason for it, but its purpose is not obvious. The greatest of all medieval commentators, Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchaki (known as “Rashi”) thinks that the journeys were recorded so that the Israelites would know how kind and generous God had been to them throughout their decades of wandering. We already know that daily miracles (like the availability of water, nutritious manna, and clothing that never wore out) don’t guarantee that anyone will believe in or be aware of God’s presence. The Israelites always seem poised to ask God, “What have you done for me lately that I should pay attention to you?”

The ancient rabbis comment on the list of travels:

The listing of the marches may be understood by a parable. A king had a son who was sick. He took him to a distant place to have him cured. On their way back, the father began listing the stages of the journey: Here we slept, here we were chilled, here you had a headache. Likewise, the Holy One said to Moses: List for Me all the places where Israel caused Me anxiety. Hence: “These are the marches.” [Tanhuma, Masei #3]

In the rabbinic parable, the journey is imagined as the recollection of shared love and devotion between the king and his son. The King’s feelings for his child are so strong that the difficult moments in their relationship pale in comparison with how far they have been able to come together. The segments of their shared travels thus become a reminder of how God’s covenantal love for the Israelites endures—and in asking Moses to keep a scrapbook of the places they have been together, God reinforces His divine love and commitment to His people.

Isn’t this how we recall what connects us to others? Joy has been mingled with times of tension. Life is made from how we used our time together: recollections of holy days and holidays, family trips, adventures, activities with our children at various ages and stages in their lives. The intensity of the experience is even greater when parents and children join together in recalling that collective past. Part of every human relationship, whether marriage, family, or parent-child interactions—along with every place we have lived or visited—can be found in a shared history which helps us to know who we are.

But there is more to this list. Rashi says that this short listing of the marches of the Israelites’ wanderings was commanded not only for God, but also for the people themselves to recall what had befallen them at each place. Why? Because if they have had difficulty remembering their recent history, then surely once they have settled in their land, their memory will grow even worse.

In the Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides sees an even subtler problem. Once they are settled in the Promised Land, the Israelites may be tempted to think that the Exodus from Egypt was some kind of picnic—that their ancestors traveled through fertile areas where it was possible to grow or forage for food. By listing by name the harsh and barren places in which they encamped, God gives future generations a chance to understand the enormity of the miracle by which the generation of the Exodus survived.

Even with divine guidance, however, we learn that there is no guarantee that memory will be able to decipher the full scope of the text. In verses Numbers 33:18-29, we read about a travel segment from Ritmah and Rimmon-Peretz, places that cannot be identified anymore and are mentioned nowhere else in Scripture.

Here we learn that even forgotten places contribute something to our understanding of the burdens and blessings of both memory and forgetfulness. The stories we tell and the details that lend substance to our memories remind us that human beings communicate what is worthy of recollection by using all of their sensory faculties, including the “feel” of a place, the local cuisine, the scent of flowers, the weather, and so on.

Stories and the sequencing of places, events, and their associated ideas are essential to understanding the world and our place in it. As Jews, our wandering in the wilderness, marked here by the sequence of forty-two places in Parashat Masei, is a metaphor for a history and destiny of learning to encounter God wherever we may find ourselves in life’s journey. And the mystery of Ritmah and Rimmon-Peretz—those two places whose names we recall, but whose story is forgotten—is that we are diminished when memory fails us, for we lose not only places, but people and the lessons we learned with them in those unknown places.

One of the most beautiful and most haunting aspects of rabbinical work is that we are privileged to speak in behalf of many families as they honour the memory of their loved ones who have died. I am awed by families where there are strong traditions of memory—often reinforced by family gatherings for Shabbat and festival meals, by shared holidays, and by careful preservation of mementos from early years of life. It is so beautiful to hear the voices of the elders in the storytelling of their descendants.

All of us are travelers and from somewhere else. The itineraries of immigrant parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents are rich with lessons of hardship, courage, hope, and idealism and colourful stories of the places they have been. Their travels, like those in this week’s Torah portion Masei, tell us who we are, even when we are at risk of forgetting.

Shabbat Shalom.