The screen flashed: “Device maintenance! Tap below to optimize your machine!” I tapped. “Wow! You’ve got 5 memory-hungry programs hogging up your memory! Let’s see what we can you about this! Tap below to improve it! This won’t affect your personal data.”

I tap the button. Immediately, circles spin on my screen, and little flashes, like so many drops of sweat, seem to spin off the circles as we valiantly do battle with those memory-hugging hogs. And then, in quick succession, “10 background apps closed.” “100 MB of storage space freed up.” “No abnormal battery use detected.” “No app crashes detected.” “No malware apps detected.” “Virus scanning turned on.” “Total freed up – 2.5 GB since you started using Device Maintenance!” And at the top the screen, inside a large circle throb the words: “100 – Excellent! Your device had been optimized.” I felt good about that.

It’s amazing how far a little encouragement goes – even from an inanimate machine.

“Moshe wrote their goings forth, according to their journeys at the bidding of Hashem, and these were their journeys according to their goings forth.”

In the first half of this verse, Hashem tells Moshe to encourage the people and write that all their “goings

forth” were only for the goal of reaching Eretz Yisrael — the destination of all their “journeyings.” That is why in the first half of the sentence, “goings forth” precedes the word “journeys.” Without that encouragement to the Jewish People in the desert, their journeyings seemed like nothing more than an incessant road-trip. In the second half of the verse, the word “journey” precedes “going forth.” Now, another place. Now, another place. Like a seemingly endless succession of “goings forth.” They didn’t focus on where the journey was taking them. A little encouragement goes a long way.