Parasha Masei (Journeys) talks about the 42 Journeys the Jewish people had to take to get to the Promised Land.
The founder of Chassidism, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, explained that those 42 journeys correspond to the 42 spiritual journeys that each person has to take in their lifetime.
We begin with birth, just as the Exodus from Egypt was the birth of the Jewish Nation and the last journey is the Promised Land which alludes to our spiritual redemption, which is the life that awaits us in the world to come.
In these journeys, the Jewish people sometimes had to go back to where they were before. Sometimes they advanced and sometimes they retracted. Life is the same, sometimes we feel we have reached the top of the mountain until we realize we had a setback and we have to start all over again.
The key to life is to WANT to chose the good path, when we choose good over evil, we will be able to fulfill H”S will in every facet of our life and this will allow us to advance. But sometimes the test is just too hard and we fall. The key here is not to despair. The sages teach that the only reason a person falls is for him to get up, learn the lesson and go to a higher stand than he was before the fall. These experiences should be transformed into building blocks of growth and transcendence that will allow us to reach our destination.
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