Masei

📜 The Story

'Masei' means 'journeys.' The parsha begins with a long list of all 42 places where the Israelites camped during their forty years in the desert. The list goes from the day they left Egypt until they reached the plains of Moab, by the Jordan River, across from Jericho. God took care of the people at every single stop.

God tells Moses that when the people enter the Land of Israel, they must drive out the nations living there and destroy their idols and altars. God describes the exact borders of the Land of Israel. He tells Moses to choose a leader from each tribe to help divide the land fairly among all the families.

The Levites did not get a large area of land like the other tribes, because their job was to serve in the Tabernacle. Instead, God told the other tribes to give the Levites forty-eight cities to live in, with fields around them for their animals.

Six of those cities were very special. They were called cities of refuge. If someone killed another person by accident, without meaning to, he could run to one of these cities and be safe from relatives who wanted revenge. He had to stay there until the High Priest died, and then he could go home in peace. The Torah also says a court must always check the facts, and that at least two witnesses are needed before anyone can be punished for murder.

The parsha, and the whole Book of Numbers, ends with the daughters of Zelophehad. They had no brothers, so they received their father's land in the tribe of Manasseh. To keep the land from passing to another tribe, they married men from their own tribe. Every family's share of the Land of Israel mattered.