My Favorite Book of Maps |
One of my favorite books is called Eleh Mas’ei by Dan Schwartz. Why do I love this book so much? Eleh Mas’ei is a collection of maps and satellite
photos depicting the precise location of the places mentioned in the Torah.
When we read Parshat Masei without the help of a Biblical map book it is very
hard for us to understand where B’nai Yisrael traveled and camped when they
were in the desert as well as the exact Biblical borders of the When we sit in shul and listen to the Torah reading we hear
a list of places, some that we may be familiar with, for example, Yam Hamelach
(the Dead Sea), The Yarden ( When we follow Parshat Masei with the maps, we have the opportunity to focus on the fact that the Sinai desert is not very big depite the long list of places where B’nai Yisrael camped and that the only reason that they spent 40 years circling the desert was because of the sin of the spies when B’nai Yisrael declared that they didn’t want to enter the Land of Israel and they therefore received the punishment that their generation would die in the desert and that they would not enter the Land of Israel. The maps also help us focus on the fact that the Biblical Land of Israel is not very big and that the modern State of Israel is even smaller. What do I like even more than reading Parshat Masei with my
book of maps? I enjoy traveling the The next time that you are in |