It was literally four years ago that I first got a FitBit. When I looked back at my statistics, it was actually July 25, 2016, and I am writing on July 24, 2020. The FitBit helps keep us aware of how much we move. In New York City, it is a little easier to get steps if you need anything, but it becomes easy to just sit and sit. Famously, FitBit advocates for getting 10,000 steps a day (which involves walking several miles total). But beyond that, it encourages one to get 250 steps every hour during a time range of your choice. This comes with a variety of both physical and mental health benefits. While we may practically have to do a lot of sitting for a variety of reasons, it is still important to take a break – and to move frequently. I even get a reminder – “time to move!”

Although it takes a long time for B’nei Yisrael to reach Eretz Yisrael – and they do not even get there in the Torah itself – we know that was supposed to be their destination. That is the promise that Hashem makes to Avraham, and Hashem makes it clear to Moshe and B’nei Yisrael that is the destination following their liberation from Egypt. However, we should not take it for granted that B’nei Yisrael always bought into that goal. On the one hand, at various points in their journey, B’nei Yisrael (or some among them) beg to go back to Egypt, where it was supposedly better. This comes up as early as at the juncture of the splitting of the sea, and it comes up throughout Bamidbar. In this week’s parasha, Devarim, we even have a reference to it when Moshe recounts the tragedy of the spies and how B’nei Yisrael did not want to continue on to Eretz Yisrael – ולא אביתם לעלות – yet you refused to go up (Devarim 1:26); in Parashat Shelach, they specifically say נתנה ראש ונשובה מצרימה – let’s go back to Egypt (Bamidbar 14:4)! But in addition to that, there could also be the mentality of not going backwards but of staying put.

If we think about it, why ever leave Har Sinai? There is plenty of holiness to be found there! If we want to be engaged in a life of holiness, where better to do it than the very spot it was given? Rashi (Devarim 1:6) explains, based on a Sifrei, there was a great amount B’nei Yisrael gained there – we built the mishkan and its vessels, we received the Torah, we instituted the Sanhedrin. There was a great deal of accomplishment there – why change? Why move? Keep doing what we are doing?

Yet, Moshe says that Hashem exclaimed רב לכם שֶׁבֶת בהר הזה – you have sat at this mountain for too long! You cannot stay here any longer. פנו וסעו לכם – turn around and journey. Go forward! Time to move! It is time to go to Eretz Yisrael.

It is, of course, not a call to merely travel and to physically “move.” This is not just Hashem telling us to get up and walk so that we have a change of scenery. But with all of the holiness surrounding the Sinai experience, Hashem is telling B’nei Yisrael that they have not entirely reached their spiritual heights. After all, Eretz Yisrael is the holiest of all lands. There are mitzvot that simply cannot be done in Sinai that can be done in Eretz Yisrael (Mishnah Keilim 1:6). The command to move is not just so that we can live somewhere else, but to live somewhere else where we can grow. Ibn Ezra explains וסעו לכם is like לך לך, the command Avraham received. Was Avraham’s move merely about moving from one state to another because of economic opportunity or just to try something different? Avraham was on a spiritual journey to a grand destiny – to start a new faith, a new nation, a new way of life. So, too, the call for B’nei Yisrael is to move forward – because there is yet a greater destiny to be reached that requires moving forward. There is a special spiritual mission to execute, and it requires going forward.

There would seem to be an implied resistance to moving from the fact that Hashem is saying “you have been here too long.” Why are B’nei Yisrael resistant? It could be because of what Rashi explained, that there had been so much accomplishment at Har Sinai, so much holiness there, that they could not fathom leaving. But in Oznayim La-Torah, Rav Zalman Sorotzkin explains there is more to it. B’nei Yisrael were not ready to go because after the sin of the golden calf, Hashem did not want to “personally” guide them on their journey. Rather, Hashem would send an angel. But B’nei Yisrael were not satisfied with that – they wanted, needed Hashem on the journey with them. It was only when Hashem promised to go “Himself” that B’nei Yisrael accepted the command פנו וסעו לכם.

The tension between רב לכם שֶׁבֶת בהר הזה and פנו וסעו לכם is an important one for us to consider from time to time. We might become very comfortable in our current circumstances, whatever they might be. Depending on the amount of changes and the magnitude of those changes we experience, we may feel stability and a routine way of life, and that can be very valuable. It is good for our mental health to feel that we have a handle on our lives and that we have a confident identity of who we are that remains with us.

Still, when it comes to our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, stagnation undermines our ability to connect. As life is normal, tefillah becomes normal, Shabbat becomes normal – we can really pick any mitzvah we do on a regular basis and realize that it is easy to just perform it the same way on a regular basis. But at a certain point, it becomes רב לכם שֶׁבֶת בהר הזה – we have been sitting in the same seat for too long. We need to move around. Not even necessarily miles and miles – but to shake it up, take a walk, get those 250 steps so to speak, in a figurative way. How am I breaking out of my norm, my stationary setting, in order to think, see, and feel differently? What is the next thing I want to learn? What is one step to enhance Shabbat even more? What is the next tefillah I want to focus on a little better? While we may accomplish a tremendous amount wherever we find ourselves “sitting,” it is still important periodically to move forward and to dream bigger in our relationship with Hashem.

If it feels hard to make changes when we feel like we need to make them, though, one thing that can be assured, as Oznayim La-Torah explains, is that Hashem is here to guide us through it all.

Over the last few months, our life routines have been thrown upside down, and I need not elaborate. Justifiably, that has presented numerous hardships for many. But whether this has been a particularly hard time or just a different, extraordinary time, there is room to reflect: how has our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu changed over the last few months? How have our experiences in performing mitzvot changed? What are the things that were good that we should go back to? What are the things that were better for me during the time at home that I would like to translate when we iy”H get to a more “normal” time? If I had a difficult experience, in what ways did that impact my relationship with Hashem and Torah? How am I moving forward?

Next week, we observe Tisha B’Av, which is one of the hardest holidays to observe. It is not because of fasting per se; I find Yom Kippur to be extremely meaningful and uplifting. But it can be hard to relate to Tisha B’Av. And I’m not even sure if it is because the churban took place such a long time ago. But even with antisemitism occasionally arising in alarming fashions around the world, there is a certain degree of comfort we have achieved in the United States. But one of the things we are asked when we reach next world is צפית לישועה? Did we yearn for salvation? It is hard to yearn for salvation when it is רב לכם שֶׁבֶת בהר הזה. We have accomplished a tremendous amount spiritually in America; Judaism has had its many successes here. But we have become used to a comfortable way of life. While I do not wish for that to change in any detrimental way, there may still be room for us to reflect on what we are still missing. Can we live our blessed lives here and still realize we have not reached full redemption? Can we dream of moving forward onto something even better than what we have right now? When it is time to move, will we be ready to pick up and go?

The journey from Har Sinai ended up not being directly to Eretz Yisrael. We moved, albeit slowly. We do not necessarily need to travel numerous miles (at least in one sitting) in order to still be moving forward. But nonetheless, we still need to be constantly moving forward, even a little bit, a proverbial 250 steps, to reach greater spiritual heights. Tiferet Shlomo says רב לכם שבת בהר הזה – Shabbat (שַבָּת) is our “rav.” As we go into Shabbat, we perhaps avoid moving physically too far forward, but may Shabbat guide us into reflection to how we will achieve our spiritual פנו וסעו לכם, our moving forward.