As the Chasidic masters explain: "The desert is the most miserable of all places. Having received the Torah there, Israel could take its Torah to the deprived of the earth, and from lowliness ascend to the heights."
On the other hand, that the Torah was given in the desert teaches us about the purpose of the path itself. The questions the rabbis of the midrash ask, are reflective of our own resistance to embarking on any kind of spiritual journey.
We are the ones endlessly postponing our commitment to our path, waiting for the "right time" or the "right conditions." We wait for our Jerusalem, for our life to be in that "Promised Land" place where we'll finally have the time, resources and support to really do it. Once our life is no longer chaotic, unpredictable, and open-ended -- the very definition of wilderness -- then we will be able to receive Torah, to engage fully in our spiritual practice.
Not only will that day never come, the path itself invites us to take steps in the opposite direction. The Torah was given in the desert because that's exactly where our spiritual unfolding is taking us that we might become available to deeply hearing her teachings; that's where she is inviting us to meet her.
Awakening to the empty Truth of who we are can only be attained through emptying ourselves from all that we believe is our self. The process is one of deconstruction, of unknowing, of embracing uncertainty, unpredictability and open-endedness.
In other words, the desert is where we lose our self in order to find our Higher Self. As the midrash ultimately answers: "Who knows Torah? Those who make themselves like the wilderness."
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