A Drash on My Birth Parsha: Matot–Masei

Part of the ‘On Second Thought’ series

By: Ezra Nadav

On 26 July 1979 (2 Av 5739), I entered the world. In Jewish tradition, every life begins with a portion of Torah: a parsha and haftarah tied to the week we are born. Mine is Matot–Masei, a double portion recounting vows, promises, and forty-two wilderness journeys. Its companion, the haftarah from Jeremiah, speaks with searing honesty about a people who wandered far from their source, yet ends with a note of hope: “Will you not from this time call to Me, ‘My Father, the guide of my youth?’” (Jeremiah 3:4).

These texts are not just ancient words. They are mirrors. And when I hold them up to my own life, I find an uncanny reflection.

Journeys and Detours

Masei lists every place Israel camped in the wilderness — each stop named, even if it was only for a night. The Torah seems to say: every stage matters, even the hard ones.

I think of my own forty-two journeys, or perhaps more. When Hurricane Katrina forced me to evacuate, my life derailed overnight. Home washed away, roots pulled up, I found myself wandering academically and personally. What should have been a straightforward degree became a six-year odyssey, stitched together by persistence and survival.

The Torah doesn’t hide the messy path of its people. Neither can I. My journey has been defined less by straight lines and more by detours — some chosen, many forced.

Living in a Foreign Land

Years later, I moved to Australia. English may be a shared base language, but culture has its own dialects. Customs trip you up in unexpected ways. Humor doesn’t always translate. Even everyday interactions remind you: you are a foreigner.

Here too, I hear the echo of Masei: Israel standing on the border of the land, knowing it is both home and not-yet-home. The challenge is not just arrival but learning to live inside a landscape that reshapes you.

And there is Matot as well: the portion of vows. Words matter. In a new country, every word carries weight — spoken with a different accent, received with assumptions you can’t always control. What does it mean to make promises, to keep your word, when the very language feels unsteady beneath you?

The Haftarah’s Edge

Jeremiah does not pull punches. He names betrayal, misdirection, and loss. Reading his words alongside my own story, I feel the sting: the times I have wandered, the moments I wondered if I was building anything lasting at all.

But the tradition insists that we don’t end there. We skip Jeremiah’s harshest verses and close instead with a possibility of return: “My Father, the guide of my youth.” The editors of our lectionary seem to be saying: despair is real, but it cannot have the final word.

Longing for Return

Lately I have felt the pull back to the land of my birth — to Austin, to New Orleans, to America. And yet I hesitate. Have I outgrown it? Or has it outgrown me? To return is to risk discovering that what once felt like home has become foreign ground.

This is Jeremiah’s question, too: Can we return? Will home receive us? Will we still recognize one another? The answer isn’t simple. Return is always laced with fear. But the haftarah insists on one truth: God urges Israel to call out anyway — to risk relationship, to believe that being received again is still possible.

The Drash of a Life

So what do my parsha and haftarah say to me, born in their week?

They tell me that every stage of my journey matters, even the ones that felt like waste or exile. They remind me that words — promises — have power, even when spoken in a foreign accent. They warn me that forgetting who I am and where I come from can be dangerous. But most of all, they teach me that despair is not the end of the story.

Perhaps this is the spiritual DNA I carry from 2 Av 5739: to live as one always on a journey, never quite settled, yet always moving toward hope — toward a return that is never impossible.

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Shalom Aleichem

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