Desert

“I wanna go with you Tatty,” my little girl says.

“Sure, you can come along!”

“Where are you going?” she questions.

And I think. 

She doesn’t even know where her tatty is going yet she wants to go with him.

This must be what it means when Hashem praised the Jewish people with lechteich acharei bamidbar-that we followed Him in the desert, not knowing where we were going.

If you love someone, when they go somewhere, you want to go along with them.

When you feel safe and secure with someone, it doesn’t matter where they are going, you just want to be in their presence.

Just like my daughter.

Just like the Jewish people.

We trusted Hashem. We felt safe in His presence. He took care of us while we were in Mitzrayim, even though at times He put us through so much and we may have felt so distant and so hurt. 

We still called out to Him, even though He was the One causing us to have to work so hard.

We loved Him, even though it was He who made us go through the back-breaking labor.

We connected to Him. 

And we followed Him. Into the desert, the barren land…not because of where we were going, but because Who we were going with.

And by sticking through it all, the rough times in Mitzrayim, the pleasant and not-so-pleasant times in the Midbar, we became who we did. 

The Jewish People. 

The Chosen Nation.

The special people that we are.