Twin Destinations

These (eileh) are the journeys of the Children of Israel, who went out of the land of Egypt with their hosts under the hand of Moses and Aaron. [Numbers 33:1]

Rabbi Abahu says: whenever the verse says “eileh,” it invalidates that which preceded. [Shmot Rabba 1:2]

Rabbi Abahu teaches that the word “eileh” (these) is to be understood as emphatic. Our verse is to be read thus: these are the journeys of the Children of Israel, to the exclusion of previous journeys, which are not to be considered as “journeys of the Children of Israel.”

My father suggested that the Torah’s choice of the word “eileh” in our verse is intended specifically to negate Israel’s journey of four hundred years earlier, when Jacob and his family descended to Egypt. Israel’s journey into servitude is not to be considered its true journey. It is the Israelites’ march out of Egypt, towards Mount Sinai and the freedom derived from accepting the Torah and the subsequent journey into the Promised Land which mark the “journeys of the Children of Israel.”

Ultimately, Israel’s true journey is defined by the twin destinations of Torah and the Land of Israel.