Apparently, the idea of an itinerary was to be a foreign concept to the holy generation of Jews travelling through the desert on their way into Israel. The entire nation was on a "need to know", moment-by-moment, travel plan. "And only when the cloud rose...did [the Jews] travel, and at the place where the cloud settled did [they] camp. At Hashem's instructions did [they] travel and...camp" (9:17-18.) The clouds and the trumpet sounds would communicate Hashem's travel program to leaders and followers alike - when to pack and when to unpack. To be sure, this gives greater meaning to Hashem's later appreciation of this generation as those who "followed after me in the desert."
However, the Torah's continuing, with uncharacteristic redundancy, to detail various situations that we could have easily imagined is rather striking. The passage continues (9:19-23) "As long as the cloud rested...they remained encamped. Even when the cloud remained...for many days...[they] did not travel. It happened some times that cloud remained...for only a few days and at Hashem's instructions they camped...and they travelled." What do we learn from the seemingly belabored illustrations describing both the short and the extended encampments? What do these details add to the simple initial description of a spontaneous and unannounced schedule?
Harav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch suggests an insight that carries perhaps greater meaning to our generation than to times gone by. Many earlier commentaries (see Ohr Hachayim, Seforno) see in this emphasis the expression of a doting father, of Hashem's pride in His children's willingness to act and react entirely by His word. Contrary to that approach, Rav Hirsch understands that Hashem was preparing us for varying experiences that lay in our future. He points out that the Torah does not focus on the difficulty of a long desert journey, which seemed to have challenged the faith of the dor hamidbar from time to time. Rather Hashem stresses the length of the encampment or the brevity of the encampment. Apparently, the spontaneity they had to accept and the unknown that would become the rule contains tests of faith that had to be modeled for us and incorporated into our national DNA.
Looking back over the last seventy years, we can well understand Rav Hirsch's insight and the challenges for which we were being prepared at that time. Our present galus years, especially the unusually friendly America, allows us to perform mitzvos freely, yet nevertheless as the galus become longer and longer, it tests our patience and optimism. Our heretofore-unanswered prayers for the return of Yerushalayim in all of its glory and observing the apparent rejection of great daveners and souls of old, threatens our faith in prayer.
For my parents' generation, the decades inexplicably grind on further from the miraculous founding of the State just a few years after the horrors of the Shoah. For my generation, the redemption that seemed in grasp in 1967 continues to elude us. The miracles of kibutz galuyos, of foiling terrorist plans, and of uncovering tunnels abound, but in our minds we seem stuck in a locked pattern. The long encampments on their way up to Israel pushed off the mission of their lives a little longer and foreshadowed long moments of galus during which we would need strength waiting for a redemption that evades us.
Then there are the short encampments. After they are over, they seed the doubts which will plague the next camp. Should we bother to create infrastructure, and how rich and deep should it be? Of all recent events, I would think that our Gush Katif experience begs us to examine the short encampments and learn from them. As we watched the communal infrastructure, farms and schools all fall into enemy hands, we also saw the undermining of faith in a brand of Zionism and a spurt of cynicism questioning the value of dedicating creative energy to it. To continue unstintingly and optimistically, despite profound disappointments, is the test of the short encampment.
May we all merit to complete the long national galus travels, the short stays and the long nights, strengthened by the experiences of those who came before us.