“These were the journeys of the Children of Israel who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron” (Numbers 33:1).
Parashat Matot-Masei concludes the Book of Numbers, and with it the wanderings of the generation that left Egypt, received Torah at Mount Sinai, then wound its way through the desert for 40 years in pursuit of the promised land. They would never enter it. The wilderness generation was a traveling generation — always on the way, never at rest.
This was also a generation that made many mistakes. They built and worshipped the golden calf, they rebelled against Moses and Aaron, they begged to return to Egypt, they believed the cowardly scouts who brought back an evil report of the promised land. They were, in the Torah’s telling, chronic sinners punished with a life of wandering — a generation that disappointed and fell short.
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In contrast to the Torah, the Zohar is full of unmitigated admiration for this generation of wanderers, referring to them as the greatest generation in the history of the Jewish people. The Zohar models its own company after this generation, creating a portrait of scholars who, while they may have had homes, seem to have done their best teaching and learning on the road.
To pick one example among many, most of the Zohar’s comments on Parashat Vayakhel, are dedicated to a journey of Rabbi Hiyya, Rabbi Yitzhak and Rabbi Yose, along with Rabbi Abba whom they meet on the road. While traveling together, the companions discover the secrets of building a tabernacle in the heart, a new interpretation of the story of Jonah and the whale, and gain a new understanding of the entire sequence of Shabbat, including the Zohar’s earliest contribution to Jewish liturgy, the prayer Berich Shmei which is said in many communities when the ark is opened for the Torah Service. At the end of this adventure, they report back to their teacher, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai:
When they came back to Rabbi Shimon, they presented all these words to him, everything that had been said on the road. He opened and said:
“The path of the righteous is like radiant sunlight,
Ever brightening until noon.
The way of the wicked is all darkness;
They do not know what will make them stumble” (Proverbs 4:18–19) . . .
What is the difference between a path (orach) and a way (derekh)? A path has just now been opened and revealed; a path is created in a place where feet have never stepped before. But a way is like what we read in the verse, “treading (dorekh) grapes” (Isaiah 63:2) — anyone who wants, can walk through there.
The term “path” is used for the righteous because they were the first to open that location. But it is not about the place itself. Even if other people have walked through that place, now that the righteous walk through, it becomes a new place … The righteous renew that place with the power of the words they say there, words that God desires. Also, the Shekhinah now walks in that place, which it did not do previously. This is why it is called “the path (orach) of the righteous” — because a holy, divine guest (ore’ach) now lodges there. The “way,” on the other hand, is open to all and traveled by anyone who wants to, even by sinners.
Zohar 2:215a
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
In Proverbs, the words “path” and “way” are synonymous. But Rabbi Shimon gives them different inflections, describing the lesser “way” as having been trampled by many feet (like a crowd treading grapes). In contrast, what he appreciates about his students is that they journey on a “path” where no one has traveled before them.
In this exposition, Rabbi Shimon is most likely referencing the prophet Jeremiah’s description of the desert the ancient Israelites journeyed through: “A land nobody had traversed, where no human being had dwelt” (Jeremiah 2:6). But while Jeremiah’s description is meant to evoke gratitude to the God who saved the Israelites from unavoidable and terrifying conditions, for Rabbi Shimon the desolate, abandoned terrain is precisely what makes the journey a worthwhile adventure.
Rabbi Shimon also teaches that you do not have to travel to remote lands for adventure: “Even if other people have walked through that place, now that the righteous walk through, it becomes a new place.” One can take the quality of adventure anywhere. Any way can become a path.
When Rabbi Shimon describes the quality of the journey, he is also describing the quality of the Torah that comes into being on those roads. Ultimately, what Rabbi Shimon loves about his students’ practice and, by extension, what the Zohar loves about itself, is the commitment to adventure and to the excitement and fun that come with it. Even on the well-trodden highway, even with a text that has been studied a thousand times before, the Zohar will find its way to an experience, vision or understanding that is totally new. Every familiar word of Torah is an opportunity to discover new meaning and depth and greater understanding of the divine. It is the creative drive and the love for the road less traveled that give the Zohar its unique quality both in its engagement with traditional texts and in its storytelling.
The Zohar does not love novelty for its own sake. As Rabbi Shimon creatively points out, the word used for the path of the righteous, orach, has the same consonants as the Hebrew word for guest, ore’ach. By engaging in Torah in unexplored places — spiritual, textual and geographical — we allow the divine presence, the Shekhinah, to enter as a guest into places it has never been before. The great explorers of the Zohar are journeying through the world and the soul to find new places, new settings in which the supernal guest, the Shekhinah, can be invited in. And in its pages, we can come with them.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
