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This week we read two Torah portions Mattot- Massai. Each contains seemingly insignificant LISTS.
Matot contains an exact record of the spoils taken from Midian, and Masai has a detailed account of the (forty-two) journeys the Jews made in the desert.
What is the purpose of all these three thousand-plus year old facts? What possible importance could it have to us today how many donkeys were taken from Midian, or where they stopped on their fifteenth journey way back then?
To help us understand here is a story.

It was miserable luck, two weeks before the banquet and she was stuck in the hospital with a swollen foot.
Mrs. Chana Lilian Cohen had been hired by the Chabad Yeshiva in Boston to organize their annual fundraising dinner, these last weeks were crucial, and here she was lying flat on her back.
Her only alternative was to make the hospital room into as much of an office as possible and try to get the job done; ‘Maybe it was all for the best’ she tried in desperation to convince herself.
Late one night when she was busily typing away by the light of her bed lamp a voice boomed out from over the foot of the bed. “What are you doing at this hour of the night Mrs. Cohen? You should be resting up. What are you typing there?’ It was none other than the head of the department. She was so involved she didn’t notice him enter.
She began explaining that she was working for Lubavitch and the Doctor’s face lit up. “Lubavitch!? Why, I know the Lubavitcher Rebbe personally! I was there! In fact, I have an amazing story about him. I mean, it didn’t make me a religious Jew or anything, but it changed my mind about a lot of things. I used to think that Judaism was a bunch of superstition and stale stories. Am I disturbing? I see you are awake anyway. would you like to hear it? ”
Mrs. Cohen happily turned off her laptop and listened.
“About thirty years ago, after I graduated University, I served for four years in the Army medical corps and after my discharge I opened a private practice. One day I got a phone call from the Army asking for help. They wanted me to fly to Guam, it’s an island of in the Philippines, where there was an army base with sick soldiers. Hundreds of soldiers had been hospitalized in the course of the last few months with severe intestinal inflammations and no one could figure out why.  It was a catastrophe.
“I called my mother to hear her opinion and she said that I should accept the offer. But with an addition of her own. She made me promise that on the way to Guam I would I would stop off in Brooklyn and see the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
“I checked my itinerary and in fact, there would be a short stopover in New York but I really didn’t want to see this Rabbi. First it would mean I would have to make a special trip from the airport and second, I was an atheist. I had absolutely no patience for religion. I tried to refuse.
“Well, she ignored my protestations, made all sorts of phone calls and several hours later announced that she arranged an appointment with this Rebbe that fit my flight schedule. And just to make sure I wouldn’t back out she told me she wanted to give me an envelope with some money in that I should be sure to hand it to him IN PERSON.
It seems that she had been sending monthly donations to this Rebbe and now she figured that  he would now give her son some Yiddishkite (aka Judaism).
“The next night at four thirty A.M. (on the way to Guam) I entered the Rebbe’s office. It was a fairly small room, walls lined with books and simply furnished. The Rebbe smiled and looked at me in a way I’ll never forget, as though he recognized something deep inside of me and paid no attention to my mother’s envelope when I put it on his desk. He only asked me what I am doing.
“When I explained my special medical mission in the Philippines, he suddenly became very serious, thought deeply for a few seconds, lifted his phone and asked the party on the other side (it was one of his secretaries) to bring him a map of the Philippines. About fifteen minutes later the map was spread on his table and he was making all sorts of lines on it with the help of a ruler and a small pamphlet from the American Naval Academy that he produced from somewhere. I was familiar with that booklet it contained tide charts and other nautical information throughout the entire world but he seemed to really know what he was doing. He was more familiar than I.
“When he finished, he turned the map around to me and said, ‘This is what you can do to help. And it’s not necessary to tell anyone where you got this information.
“‘Here’, the Rebbe pointed to a certain intersection of his lines that came out near the coast of Guam and continued, ‘Take this map with you. When you arrive, find this place in the sea near the shore and go there when the tide is out. According to my calculations it should be a bit before sunrise. Just as one of the waves recedes to the sea take a sample of the sand where the water was. Make an analysis of that sand and I think you will find the cause of the illness.’
“A few hours later I was in the plane, completely fatigued, on the way to Guam with the Rebbe’s map in my pocket but when I arrived there the next day I was so tired that when I got to my quarters I took a shower, went to sleep, woke up the next morning and forgot the entire thing.
I put on a new pair of pants got to work and it was as though I never had been in Brooklyn.
“A frustrating week went by. The hospital was already full, soldiers kept getting sick by the tens and with no solution in sight the army considered closing the base and sending everyone home. Meanwhile we were working day and night with no results. We checked everything possible; the kitchen, the drinking water, the dishwashers, the air, the sand, the toothpaste even the soap until we were literally at our wit’s end.
“A week passed, then one morning I woke up and suddenly remembered the Rebbe! But where was the map?! I jumped out of bed like a madman and started searching. Against all odds, in a pile of dirty clothes there were the pants! I was so happy that I actually held them up and kissed them. And there was the map neatly folded in the pocket!
“That day I went searching for the location the Rebbe indicated and when I found it I was so excited that I didn’t sleep the whole night. I waited till four in the morning, returned there and sure enough, the tide was low! I did exactly as the Rebbe said. I walked to the edge of the water with a small empty container and when the waves pulled out I filled it with the sand where the water had been and returned to the laboratory.
“The interesting thing was that I still had so many doubts about the Rebbe that I was ashamed to tell the other doctors what I was doing and decided to examine the sand myself. But as soon as I took a good look, I knew that that man had super-human powers. The sand was filled with small red shell fish! In an hour the entire staff was in the laboratory busy making an analysis of those fish and the results were astounding!
At this point the doctor stopped his story and, as though transported back to that moment twenty five years earlier, began pacing the hospital room deep in thought. Only after a few minutes was he able to continue.
“It seems those shellfish emitted some sort of poison! They were poisonous fish but it was impossible to know it because when the tide was in, the water washed the poison away. Only at low tide, like the Rebbe said, when some of these crustaceans got caught in the dry sand could the juice be detected.
“As soon as it this became clear it didn’t take long to discover that the local restaurants occasionally served these shell fish in salads to the soldiers ..and the mystery was solved.
“I can’t understand why the Rebbe didn’t want me to advertise what he had done and I don’t know where he got his powers but one thing for sure; the Rebbe saved that entire base of thousands of soldiers, and I discovered that Judaism is much deeper than I ever imagined.”

This answers the above questions about why the long lists of seemingly insignificant details in our Torah readings this week.

The Jews are not a normal nation or normal people; they are G-d’s holy people and a nation of priests.
Unlike the other nations religions and peoples, their sole purpose is to reveal the fact that G-d creates all being constantly and every detail has a purpose.
And the Torah is the only instruction book for putting it all together. (As the Rambam says in the end of his magnum opus regarding the Moshiach; that the world will be filled with knowledge.
This depends on us and it can be reduced to two simple principles; Turning from Bad and doing Good.
And that is the point of the lists found in our two sections. Matot stresses making war and destroying the negative force of Midian (turning from bad). While Masai describes doing good; traveling ever closer to Israel and thereby ‘purifying’ the empty desert with 42 journeys.
But both of these demand much detailed work every moment of the day and in every aspect of life.
Just as in our story; first there was the need to turn from bad and find a cure for the soldiers, and then to do good through the doctor’s connection to the Rebbe.

This is the job of Moshiach, the Jewish leader who will reveal the true Oneness of G-d to the entire world. As we say in the Alenu prayer thrice daily; all mankind will joyously turn from bad and do good in every single detail of their lives. And only then will every single detail of two thousand years of Jewish suffering and wanderings be translated into joy and celebration.
And, as the Rebbe said repeatedly; this should happen at any moment.

We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish service, hopes, prayers and suffering. It all depends on us! Just one more good deed, word or even good thought, can bring …….
Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel

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