Parashat Mattot-Mas’ei — Pay attention, for goodness sake

A few weeks ago, my 4 1/2-year-old son picked up a few small stones at a gas station in Connecticut on our way to a family-friendly Jewish retreat.

He asked me to keep them in my pocket. I was not pleased. I was worried that he was picking dirty rocks off the ground and annoyed that he wanted me to keep them in my pocket. But I said yes, so he would get back in the car quickly. I was even more irritated when I noticed them weighing down my pocket on the last leg of our drive.

But soon enough we got there, and I forgot about the stones.

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A few days later, as I was packing up at the end of our weekend at the retreat center, I found those rocks in my pocket. But I didn’t feel annoyed this time. Instead, I smiled in wonder, recalling my son’s curiosity and ability to live in the moment. He was fully present with his feelings. He found a few rocks interesting, so he picked them up and asked me to keep them for him. It felt as if his past self had planned to remind me in the future: remember our stop at the gas station. We might’ve stopped just to use the bathroom and buy snacks, but our stop was important and good in its own way.

This is the lesson of Parashat Mattot-Mas’ei’s list of the 42 stations on Israel’s journeys through the wilderness. “The Israelites set out from Rameses and encamped at Sukkot. They set out from Sukkot and encamped at Eitam, which is on the edge of the wilderness. They set out from Eitam and turned toward Pi-Ha-Chirot, which faces Ba’al-Tzephon, and they encamped before Migdol” (Numbers 33:5-7). So it goes, for almost 50 verses. Why does the Torah include this record of all of Israel’s stopping places, including places where nothing of any significance is known to have taken place?

My teacher, Rabbi Shai Held, suggests that the text “serves to remind us that even seemingly inconsequential stops on our journey can be powerful opportunities for serving God.” In other words, each and every moment can be an opportunity for awareness, wonder, and gratitude. The Talmud (BT Berakhot 63a) puts it this way: “Bar Kappara taught: Which is a brief passage upon which all fundamental principles of Torah are dependent? ‘In all your ways know God, and He will direct your paths’” (Proverbs 3:6).

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook offers a powerful interpretation of what it means to know God in all our ways. Rav Kook says: “‘In all your ways know God’ (Proverbs 3:6) — one must seek the Holy Blessed One in the midst of the ways one acts [i.e., in all your ways].”

Rav Kook goes on, explaining that this applies not only to certain mitzvot, but to everything on which we spend our time: “The truth is that there is nothing in the world that is not for the honor of the Holy Blessed One, hence everything one does will be according to God’s commandment and will — and in each action one should search for God. When one strives with all one’s intelligence and with all one’s abilities to carry out every action… then one will know the Blessed Holy One in every way.” We serve God, then, by being fully present wherever we are.

Rabbi Held explains the import of Rav Kook’s teaching: “[Rav] Kook starts by inviting us to focus — to really focus — on what we are doing, to avoid constantly thinking about the next thing… Where is God to be found and served? In the present moment, in whatever I am doing… The stunning innovation in Kook’s words is that whether a given activity at a particular moment is holy depends not only on what we do, but also on how we do it — with what quality of awareness, presence, and availability.”

Rabbi Held and Rav Kook are inviting us to live each minute of our lives more fully. This doesn’t mean that it’s easy to be present in everything that we do, especially during life’s more difficult or painful moments. As someone who practices meditation, I know that it’s hard enough to focus on my breath for 30 seconds straight without getting lost in thought. But I also know that I would rather keep trying to live each minute of life than allow my attention to be sucked away into ruminations on the past or worries about the future.

We can practice this approach right now, this summer. If you’re traveling for a vacation, try to be present for the stops along the way. Perhaps, as you pack our bags for your trip, you can pay attention to each item you pack and cultivate gratitude for having everything you need. And if you aren’t traveling much, but are going to work, taking care of young children or ailing parents, or recovering from something yourself, know that you’re not alone in striving to be present as your best self. We can bring gentle, loving attention to ourselves and to each other, not just for the sake of getting to the weekend, but in order to bring the sanctity of love and kindness into every day.

Once a week, on Shabbat, we can embrace the unique opportunity to rest, unplugged from the worries of weekdays. We can then bring a bit of the ease of Shabbat with us into the week. Whatever day it is, wherever we are, let’s try to reveal the potential for holiness in each and every moment. Each moment is an opportunity to connect with that which is greater than us.

So what does the list of 42 places we read in this week’s Torah portion teach us? In the words of Rabbi Held: we can know God, and serve God, at every stop along our way. We can smile in wonder when we find the rocks that a child put in our pocket. We can approach packing, cleaning, eating, resting, and everything that we do as an opportunity for connection with the Divine — if we can just focus our attention on the present moment. The Jewish Buddhist meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein says it succinctly: pay attention, for goodness’ sake! Then we just might find meaning and joy at every stop along the way.