To understand the whole, you first have to master the parts, one by one, on their own terms. Think of it like a machine: you can’t grasp how an engine works without knowing pistons, valves, and fuel injectors separately—how each moves, what each needs, where it fails. Only after you truly get every piece in isolation can you see how they lock together into something bigger.

It’s the same with ideas, systems, or even people. You study one element deeply, without letting the others bleed in and confuse it. Then the next. And the next. That’s the only way the full picture stops being fuzzy. Skip this step and you’re just guessing at connections that aren’t really there. Gotta earn the whole by earning each part first.

Here’s the full list of the 42 Stations from this week’s Torah portion:

1. Rameses (רעמסס) – The starting point of the Exodus, where evil began to melt away.
2. Sukkot (סוכות) – Temporary dwellings: our first taste of living in transition.
3. Eitam (אתם) – On the edge of the wilderness; a place of boldness and decision.
4. Pi Hahirot (פי החירות) – “Mouth of Freedom”; the place of true liberation.
5. Migdol (מגדל) – “Tower” or “Build up”; a time of strengthening.
6. Marah (מרה) – “Bitter”; the place of bitter waters and first tests.
7. Elim (אילם) – Place of twelve springs and seventy palms; abundance and rest.
8. Yam Suf (ים סוף) – By the Red Sea; site of the great miracle.
9. Midbar Sin (מדבר סין) – Wilderness of Sin; a place of emptiness and dependence.
10. Dofkah (דפקה) – “Beating” or “Striking”; a place of pressure and testing.
11. Alush (אלוש) – A place associated with gathering and preparation.
12. Rephidim (רפידים) – “Weak hands”- where Torah commitment weakened, and Amalek attacked.
13. Midbar Sinai (מדבר סיני) – The Wilderness of Sinai, where the Torah was given.
14. Kivrot Hata’avah (קברות התאוה) – “Graves of Lust”; where desire led to downfall.
15. Chatzerot (חצרות) – “Courtyards”: a place of community and order.
16. Ritmah (רתמה) – A place of binding or judgment.
17. Rimmon Peretz (רמון פרץ) – “Pomegranate Breach”; a place of breakthrough.
18. Livnah (לבנה) – “White” or “Purity.”
19. Rissah (רסה) – “Crushed” or “Broken.”
20. Kehelatah (קהלתה) – “Assembly”; a place of gathering together.
21. Mount Shefer (הר שפר) – “Beautiful Mountain.”
22. Charadah (חרדה) – “Trembling” or “Fear.”
23. Makhelot (מקהלות) – “Congregations”; place of community division or unity.
24. Tachath (תחת) – “Below” or “Low point.”
25. Terach (תרח) – A place of delay or wandering.
26. Mitkah (מתקה) – “Sweetness.”
27. Hashmonah (השמונה) – Associated with the number eight and strength.
28. Moserot (מסרות) – “Chains” or “Discipline.”
29. Bnei Yaakan (בני יעקן) – “Sons of Yaakan”; a place of heritage.
30. Chor Hagidgad (חור הגדגד) – “Cave of Gidgad,”; a place of revelation in darkness.
31. Yotvatah (יטבתה) – “A good place”; pleasantness.
32. Avronah (עברנה) – Place of crossing over.
33. Etzion Gever (עציון גבר) – “Giant’s Backbone”; a place of strength.
34. Kadesh (קדש) – “Holiness”; site of major events, including Miriam’s death.
35. Mount Hor (הר ההר) – Where Aaron died; a place of transition and loss.
36. Tzalmonah (צלמנה) – A place of shade or darkness.
37. Punon (פונן) – Associated with punishment or refining.
38. Ovot (אבות) – “Ghosts” or ancestral spirits.
39. Iyyei HaAvarim (עיי העברים) – “Ruins of Avarim”; wasteland on the border.
40. Divon Gad (דיבן גד) – Connected to fortune or betrayal.
41. Almon Divlatayim (עלמן דבלתים) – A place of many journeys or cakes.
42. Mount Nebo / Plains of Moab (ערבות מואב) – The final station before entering the Land, overlooking the Promised Land.

These 42 stations are Hashem’s loving record of every stop — the bitter ones, the sweet ones, and the quiet ones — exactly like a father recounting every stage of his child’s healing journey.

Matot-Masei The World We Create

In Parshat Masei, the Torah lists all 42 specific journeys the Jewish people took through the wilderness — forty-two deliberate stops. Many of them had no miracles, no drama — just a name and a location. Rabbi Goldstein points out: if Hashem records every single one of these stations in the Torah, it means He cares deeply about the small details of our lives.

This Shabbat, we read the double portion Matot-Masei. In his powerful lecture this week, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein teaches that life is not linear. We all want the quickest, straightest path from where we are to where we want to be, but the Torah shows us something much deeper.

Last night at Beit Midrash, this truth came alive in a very real way. David came in frustrated, telling us how annoying his week had been. A bad storm broke two windows at his job. He had to order replacements, go pick them up, arrange installation — one frustration after another. When I asked him how this week’s Torah portion connected to his experience and whether he had asked Hashem why those windows broke, he said, “God is not concerned with small details like that.”

But Matot-Masei teaches exactly the opposite. If Hashem writes down every encampment in the desert, even the ones where nothing dramatic happened, then He certainly cares about the broken windows in our own lives.

This same message appears very early in the Torah. After Kayin kills his brother, Hashem asks him, “Why is your countenance fallen?” Then He says: “If you do well, will you not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at the door — yet you can rule over it.” Hashem was telling Kayin, “You have your whole life to improve.” The journey itself is the point.

Da’at – Becoming Aware of the Soul (Rabbi Akiva Tatz)

Rabbi Akiva Tatz, in his lecture Da’at – Inner Knowledge, begins with a powerful and honest admission. He says it is “almost by definition impossible to find the words for this subject.”

Da’at (דעת) means intrinsic wisdom or inner knowledge. It is not information you collect or facts you memorize with your intellect. You learn a deeper way of knowing — something you know from within, through a faculty of the soul. It becomes the part of you that knows you exist, that knows right from wrong without external proof, that knows “now” is now, and that knows Hashem is real.

He explains the fundamental problem: “The words needed to transmit the subject, by definition, are inadequate. That means the subject cannot be put into words — yet the only medium we have is words.”

This is why, Rabbi Tatz teaches, if a fundamental concept has no word for it in the Torah, it is ultimately a human-created idea. For example, there is no biblical Hebrew word for “believe” in the Western sense of blind faith, nor is there a word for “doubt.” The common terms used today — safek for doubt and vadai for certainty — are later rabbinic coinages, not found in the Torah itself. In the Torah’s worldview, these are not primary realities.

In contrast, da’at is the inner eye of the soul. Rabbi Tatz illustrates this with the classic bicycle example. You can explain the physics of balance, the mechanics of pedaling, and steering for hours, but no amount of talking will teach you how to ride. The father holds the seat at the beginning — that initial support is a gift. But at a certain point, he lets go. You wobble, you fall, you get back up — and suddenly you feel it. That moment when balance becomes part of you is da’at. It cannot be explained. It can only be experienced through doing.

Da’at (דעת) means intrinsic wisdom or inner knowledge — not information you gather with your intellect, but something you know from within, through a deeper faculty of the soul.

He explains the paradox clearly: The words needed to transmit this subject are, by definition, inadequate. That means the subject cannot be put into words — yet the only medium we have to share it is words themselves. So the very first problem is that da’at is not readily expressible verbally. You can only understand it by having your own inner understanding.

The Garden

In Rabbi David Fohrman’s A Book Like No Other series on Eden, he points out how uniquely Eve describes the tree in Genesis 3:6.

God had described the trees as “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” But Eve flips the order—she sees the tree as first “good for eating,” then “a delight to the eyes,” and “desirable for gaining wisdom.” She turns pure appreciation into utility and lust, starting with the practical benefit instead of beauty. That’s what leads her to eat it. It’s a subtle but powerful shift in perspective.

Nechmad Lemar’eh Tov Lema’achal

In Genesis 2, God describes the trees as “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” But when Eve looks at the Tree of Knowledge, she flips that order: she sees it first as good for eating, then a delight to the eyes, and desirable for wisdom. That shift from beauty-first to utility- and craving-first is exactly what Rabbi Fohrman highlights as the key change in perspective. It turns appreciation into lust.

God describes the trees in Genesis 2:9 as nechmad lemar’eh — pleasant to behold — and then tov lema’achal — good for food. Beauty first, then utility.

Eve flips it in Genesis 3:6. She sees the tree as tov lema’achal first — good for eating — then a delight to the eyes and desirable for wisdom. She starts with craving and utility, turning appreciation into lust. That shift in perspective is what Rabbi Fohrman zeroes in on.

“This week’s double portion, Matot-Masei, lists the 42 journeys the Jewish people took through the wilderness. Not 40 years of constant wandering, but 42 specific stops—each one a deliberate stage. The Torah wants us to see that every stop mattered.

This mirrors exactly what we’ve been exploring with Adam and Eve. Hashem doesn’t push. He brings us to the edge, like a father holding the bike seat just long enough, then letting go. The command ‘do not eat’ brought them right to the moment of choice. Eating wasn’t rebellion—it was stepping into the wilderness of ups and downs, failures and heartaches, so we could learn what it means to truly live.

Just as those 42 stops weren’t random, neither was their choice. The path of knowing good and bad, tasting both life and death, is how we grow into who we’re meant to become. No shortcuts. No staying safe like angels in the garden.

The Torah never calls what Adam and Eve did a sin. It calls it a journey. And every journey has its stations.”

This process of becoming aware of the soul is exactly what our personal 42 journeys are for. Every stop, every broken window, every frustration is an opportunity to move from intellectual knowledge to inner da’at — from being carried to riding on your own.

Rabbi Goldstein on Becoming Aware of Your Soul

In another powerful teaching, Rabbi Warren Goldstein explores “Becoming Aware of Your Soul.” He challenges us to rethink our very identity and what it truly means to be human. The soul is not an add-on to the body; the body is the vehicle, and the soul is the essence. Becoming aware of it means learning to see life through that inner faculty — the same faculty Eve reached for in the Garden, the same one Kayin was being called to develop.

This awareness doesn’t come in a straight line. It comes through the detours, the falls, the seemingly insignificant stops. That is why Hashem records every single one of the 42 journeys. Each one is a love letter reminding us that the soul grows precisely in those moments we might otherwise dismiss as annoying or meaningless.

During our discussion last night, David became upset when I quoted verses also found in the Christian Bible. I explained that I do not recommend the Christian Bible as a spiritual guide. However, I do sometimes use it to help Christians see that their book is not independent — it constantly draws on the Tanakh.

One example I gave was “turn the other cheek” in Matthew, which echoes themes in Lamentations where Hashem reminds the Jewish people that the true source of their suffering was not Babylon but their own failure to follow Torah and keep the Shemitah. Another was from the book of James, chapter 4 — a midrash on the fight between Cain and Abel.

James writes: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, carry on business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

Notice the Hebrew wordplay. Kayin comes from the root kinyan — to obtain, to acquire, to grab. Hevel means vapor, something here one moment and gone the next. James is describing the same brotherly conflict we see in Genesis — the arrogance of thinking we control tomorrow while chasing material gain.

This is why I wake up motivated every day. Since 2012, I’ve listened to Rabbi Tovia Singer daily. His teachings opened my eyes to a painful truth: 99% of Christians have never been shown what their Bible actually says in its original Jewish context. A foreign story has been laid over the text that simply isn’t there.

We are all one family. Adam and Eve are the father and mother of all humanity. After the flood, only Noah and his three sons — Shem, Ham, and Japheth — survived. Modern DNA confirms all males today trace back to three primary paternal lines. That means you and I are either brothers or cousins.

So why do brothers fight? Why do brothers murder? Why do we not show kindness to one another?

The whole world is connected. The Ten Commandments are the only way to fix this broken world — by realizing we are truly one family.

Every stop in your personal 42 journeys matters. Even the broken windows. Hashem is paying attention to all of them, and each one is an invitation to become more aware of your soul.

• Series: Part II That Which You Have Not Heard.
• The Eternal Struggle of Self: Reincarnation, the Expanding “I,” and the Soul’s Never-Ending Journey
• Creating a Vessel of Worship: The Midbar of Silence, the Question of Justice, and the Song of the New Generation
• Parashat Chukat 5786: The 38 Years of Silence and Singing Your Own Song
• Becoming Aware of Your Soul: The Tree of Life Blueprint Christianity Never Answered