Guest Columnists
A Kabbalist's Guide to Hieroglyphics

Anyone who thinks "Poindexter" is a long name never studied this week’s Torah portion with a Kabbalist.

A Kabbalist understands the Jews’ zigzagging 42-stop journey across the desert as an allusion to G-d’s mystical 42-letter name, the one G-d uses in creating the world.

This helps overturn the misconception that the Jews were "wandering" through the desert. They were no more wandering through the desert than a spelling-bee champion wanders through the alphabet. Rather, each stop was another letter in a divine composition.

Their journey represents the journey through life. The Talmud likens it to a long trip taken by a father and son; together they share life’s pains and joys, its triumphs and defeats.

Likewise, the trip across the desert included triumphs and joys, but also mistakes, pain and doubt--a fairly normal range of experience. The difference is that every up and down was intimately bound to the Divine--shared with their Father in Heaven.

There’s a Chassidic adage that G-d loves each individual like a king loves an only son. When the son is dirty, the king bends down to offer the son a damp cloth. If the child refuses the cloth, the king lovingly cleans away the schmootz himself.

When the schmootz is removed, one sees that life forms a divine hieroglyphic--G-d’s mystical plan for creation. The wise person realizes the need to pursue this hieroglyphic with an archeologist’s determination for discovery.