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In Judaism, wisdom is found where the wild things are

This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — Several weeks ago, I experienced the delights and the challenges of being on retreat in the high desert of New Mexico. Each morning, the sun flooded my cozy straw-bale house. Afternoon winds whipped the fields of tall grass into undulating waves, scattering the few wispy clouds and dusting every surface with a fine orange film of pine pollen. By night, a river of glittering stars flowed across the darkened sky.
For all its raw beauty and breathtaking vistas, the high desert is a harsh environment. I was warned to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widow spiders, not to mention the legions of bloodthirsty mosquitoes that appeared at sunset. My gut rumbled and my head ached with the sudden shift from my sea level home to an altitude of 7,300 feet. In the extreme dryness my skin itched, my lips cracked and my nose, irritated by the pollen, ran constantly. To compound my physical discomforts, distresses I’d been repressing for months bubbled up as searing neck and shoulder pain, obsessive thoughts and troubling dreams. I drank a lot of water and breathed deeply, praying that in time my body would adapt and my mind would clear.
Being in the desert especially attuned me to the weekly Torah readings from the Book of Numbers, whose Hebrew name, Bamidbar, means “In the Wilderness.” This Shabbat’s double portion, Matot-Masei, comprises its final chapters. The entire book — and much of the Torah, in fact — unfolds in an arid desert wilderness not unlike the scrublands of northern New Mexico. For 40 years, after narrowly escaping Pharaoh’s pursuing army at the Sea of Reeds, the Israelites roamed this unforgiving land, crisscrossing its hills and ravines, beset by challenges, struggling to find ways to live together and obey the dictates of a demanding, often wrathful, cloud-thundering, flame-throwing God.
Masei opens with a list of 42 spots in the wilderness where the Israelites camped along the way — 42 phases of their epic trek from slavery toward the ever-elusive promised land. Trouble and discord have plagued them every step of the way. Torah scholar Avivah Zornberg describes this wilderness as a space of “bewilderment,” “a quicksand ready to consume human bodies” where “cries and whispers and rages and laments fill the air.” Other voices in the tradition romanticize the people’s extended desert sojourn, nostalgically recalling the spiritual intimacy of those times when God’s voice would pour through Moses and the Torah, like a marriage contract, bound them and all of nature to divinity.
Why is the midbar so central to the Israelites’ mythic journey? What is it about wilderness that both fascinates and repels, excites and terrifies? For me, midbar represents not simply a tract of wild land, but a state of mind. Unbounded, undomesticated, these trackless “deserts of the heart” are those times in my life when I don’t know which way to turn or what’s coming next, when I’ve lost my internal compass and feel at once overwhelmed, unmoored and wrenchingly vulnerable. And yet the shattering realities of the midbar can also confer a breathtaking sense of freedom, inducing me to wriggle out of old identities like a snake shedding its skin.
A radical teaching attributed to the famous second-century mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai answers the question of why God brings the people the long way around on their way out of Egypt like this: “Only to those who eat manna is it given to really study the Torah.” (Mekhilta Beshalach 1:34) Manna, the food of faith that drops from the sky to feed the Israelites during their desert wanderings, symbolizes their dependence on an invisible power for sustenance. This midrash suggests that only those who face the rigors and incalculable risks of the midbar, trusting they will be provided for, are able to receive the deeper layers of meaning buried in Torah.
During my recent retreat, my mind and body eventually settled. As I leaned into the land, offering up to it my fears, self-judgments and perceived limitations, I began to hear whispers of wise inner guidance and to feel enveloped in a protective, sheltering presence — something akin to what sages and mystics through the ages have referred to as shekhinah, a sense of immanent divinity woven into everything. The Hebrew word for wilderness, midbar, shares a root with the verb l’daber, to speak. The desert spoke to me, fed me, renewed me and softened my heart. I received its teaching as a gift, with humility and gratitude.
Returning home to the city, I faced a challenge similar to what I imagine the ancient Israelites must have faced at the end of Bamidbar as they prepared to leave behind 40 ragged and majestic years of wilderness strife and holy intimacy: How shall I weave the open spaces, the silence and the words, the struggles, triumphs and raw emotion of that desert time into the daily routines of work, home and relationships? How can I keep the whispers and visions, the gifts from the wilderness, alive in my soul?
Holding these questions, I find myself listening for the silences, the unbidden voices, and even the doubts and creative confusions that stir just beneath the surface.
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The post In Judaism, wisdom is found where the wild things are appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.