The Secret of Traveling: The Power of the Parashah of Vayehi Binsoa HaAron

Class No. 252 | Cassette 252, Thursday night, Parashas Devarim, the eve of the 3rd of Av 5760 - A class for the avreichim (Torah scholars) of the Old City Kollel, at the home of the Rav - Part 1

Why is the parashah of "Vayehi Binsoa HaAron (And it came to pass when the Ark traveled)," which consists of only two verses, considered an entire book in the Torah? Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a explains the spiritual secret hidden in traveling on the roads, how the Ark prepares the way for a person, and the simple faith that is revealed specifically during journeys.

When I was a child, I read a true story that took place in Germany before the Holocaust. An elderly Jew was walking down the street with a wagon loaded with pillows and blankets filled with feathers. Suddenly, a strong wind blew, sending everything flying, and the pillows tore open. All the feathers scattered right at the entrance of a school. The German teacher immediately instructed all one hundred students to stay during their recess, go outside, gather all the feathers, and return them to the pillows. On the surface, this demonstrates the enlightened and refined German education.

But the truth is that this entire culture is worth less than a trillionth of a millimeter. In a single second, everything explodes. The moment they were told that "a Jew is a germ," all their manners vanished, and they turned into murderers. This is the lie of secular education and foreign cultures.

A Book Unto Itself

In contrast to all the cultures of falsehood, we possess the true power. The Torah reveals a tremendous secret to us in the parashah of "Vayehi Binsoa HaAron." The Gemara in Tractate Shabbos (116a) states that this parashah, consisting of merely two verses, is considered an entire book unto itself, and therefore the Book of Bamidbar (Numbers) is actually divided into three separate books.

Reb Nosson of Breslov asks: This is an immense wonder! How can such a tiny parashah, which does not contain even a single mitzvah out of the 613 mitzvos, be considered a book unto itself? Why is it more important than all the other parashiyos, and even the Ten Commandments, which are not considered a book unto themselves?

The answer lies in the secret of traveling. When a person travels in holiness, the Ark travels with him. The Ark travels three days ahead of him and prepares the way for him. All the places where he will stay and all the people he is destined to meet are prepared for him in advance.

"And it came to pass when the Ark traveled, that Moshe said: 'Arise, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee from before You.'"

The Simple Faith on the Roads

We experienced this ourselves. One Motzaei Shabbos (Saturday night), we finished receiving the public in Kinar at four in the morning. We were exhausted and didn't know where to go. We started driving, but everything was booked due to the "Bein HaZemanim" (yeshiva intersession) vacation. We prayed Shacharis (the morning prayer), and eventually, we found a tiny room in the settlement of Or HaGanuz. From there, we continued to traverse the Galilee, traveling from settlement to settlement.

In one of the places, we met a woman who cried out in despair over the security situation: "How will all this nonsense help us? They have tanks, they have atomic bombs!" I answered her: "Who cares about their weapons? We have Hashem, blessed be He! We have 'Vayehi Binsoa HaAron'!"

Rebbe Nachman says that a person needs to travel on the roads, because all the paths a person takes are the will of Hashem. One who travels with humility and lowliness understands why he was sent specifically to this settlement or that moshav. When you travel through villages and moshavim, you meet simple Jews who give you a million times more emunah (faith) than you already have. The simple Jews possess the purest emunah—there is Hashem and that's it, there is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. A person must learn this simple faith from them.

Elevating Sparks of Holiness

We once traveled as far as Nahalal and met a famous sculptor there, a seventy-year-old who had become a baal teshuvah (returnee to Judaism). He showed me a picture of a massive, six-meter-tall monument he had built. The sculpture was the figure of a man wrapped in a tallis and adorned with tefillin. I asked him, "Why specifically a tallis and tefillin?" He answered simply, "So they will know it's a Jew! Otherwise, how would they know it isn't some gentile general?" This teaches us that there is no settlement in the Land of Israel where you won't meet a Jew with simple faith, who knows that a Jew is recognized by his tallis and tefillin.

In the future to come, it will become clear to us that everything was orchestrated from Above. No journey is random; Hashem orchestrates a person's travels so that he can elevate holy sparks. Every spark a person elevates on the roads becomes part of his daas (spiritual awareness). By traveling the roads in holiness, guarding one's eyes, and acting with humility, a person gains understanding and merits to reach tremendous spiritual attainments, all the way to the Fiftieth Gate of Holiness. Therefore, "Vayehi Binsoa HaAron" is a book unto itself—because the secret of traveling holds within it the tikkun (rectification) of all creation.

Part 1 of 2 — Class No. 252

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