In Udaipur, our first stop in Rajasthan, India, we didn't get a great feeling from most of the guesthouses set along the river. As a result, we kept on walking and we ended up finding a great little gem of a guesthouse that was clean, comfortable, spacious, and bright - and had a perfect view of the famous Udaipur Lake Palace! Because we decided to "go with the flow" and let G-d guide us instead of fighting Him, we got the best accommodations around. This has happened many times in our travels.
Our style of travel is pretty spontaneous. People are constantly asking us where we’re going next, and when, and for how long, and where after that… Occasionally we have an answer, but most of the time there’s simply no answer. We just don’t know! Sometimes we don’t figure out where we’re going until we’re at the train or bus station looking at what’s available that day. We just kind of let G-d send us where He wants us to be and it always works out. As much as I like to joke that I’m homeless, I have (thank G-d!) never had to sleep on the street.
This week’s parsha is highly apropos to this kind of travel. The Jews, while they wandered in the desert, would often get little warning of an impending move. They had to watch the cloud that marked G-d’s presence (the shechina) move from the mishkan (tabernacle) to hover over the camp of Judah and only after this would Moshe sound the trumpets that meant it was time to move. Sometimes the Jews could get pretty confused by all the moving around of the cloud because it didn’t always move at convenient times. It might move in the middle of the night. Or it would pause only for a few hours, giving the weary travelers but a short respite, or it would pause for such a long time that they would start to make camp, only for it to begin moving again without warning!
Our travel tends to be a lot like this. Even when we do have tickets taking us somewhere, it’s often impossible to get a truly “comfortable” travel schedule that allows us to sleep and eat when we need it. Sometimes we have a very long layover and sometimes we have to travel for days with hardly any sleep. I guess you could say that this is the less glorious side of travel!
I got stuck for about 12 hours in the tiny town of Deshnoke in Rajasthan, India. At first I wasn't happy about my train being delayed by so much, but because it was, I made a sweet new Indian friend and ended up having a great time!
The thing is, while they were journeying around the desert, the Jews never dawdled or complained about G-d’s crazy schedule. They had His very presence resting on them and protecting them. They didn’t try to fight Him. It’s a lesson we all need to learn. G-d is with each of us, helping us, holding us, directing our lives. Yet, so often, we try to fight Him. How many people told the story that traffic, or a sick child, or a fight with the spouse kept them from arriving to work on time on the day the World Trade Center was attacked? Yesterday, I was reading a story about a little boy with cancer. When he went in for radiation, he refused to remove his tzitzits… because he caused such a delay in the treatment, someone noticed that the settings had accidentally been set fatally high for a boy this size! We really never know just when and how G-d is watching out for us.
Travel is like this constantly and that’s why we rarely have a need to worry. There will be a hotel to sleep in, there will be a bus to the place G-d wants us to go (even if we don’t think it’s the best place!). G-d’s presence is always with us, protecting us, guiding us, if we’ll only let Him.
Happy travels and Shabbat Shalom!
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