Lesson from ‘Mount of Transition’: Be prepared

The listing of the travels of the Israelites in the wilderness finishes, in Parshas Masei, with these verses: “They left Almon Divlathaymah and camped in the Avarim mountains in front of Nebo. They left the Avarim mountains and camped in the West Plains of Moab on the Jericho Jordan.” (33:47-48)

The problem here is that the presentation does not seem to follow the order of the Torah. Go back a few chapters and we find that they came to “Arvot Moav” (west plains of Moav) in 22:1, and a number of things took place there, as noted in 26:3, 63 (census), 31:12 (post-Midian war), and of course Devarim 34:1 (Moshe’s ascent up Mt. Nebo to die), which suggests that Arvot Moav was the last stop.

The events on Mt. Avarim are described in Chapter 27:12, when Moshe is told, “Climb up to the Avarim Mountain where you will be able to see the land that I am giving to the Israelites.” Shortly after this he is told to appoint Yehoshua in his stead to be the leader.

One might argue, following the viewpoint of Rashi in the book of Bereishit, that there is no chronological order in the Torah. Whether they got to Arvot Moav first, or Mt. Avarim first does not really matter. Except that here, the Torah’s listing of the travels very clearly delineates how this is the order of travel.

To answer the seeming discrepancy, one might argue that Mt. Avarim is within Arvot Moav — they stopped at the mountain first, and then settled in the plains of Moav. More succinctly, they had specific business at the mountain — Moshe’s reminder of his pending death — while the nation had general business which could not take place on the mountain but needed to take place in the plains.

But perhaps a better question to address is what is the purpose of Mt. Avarim?