Because the Israelites had ticked G-d off, they did not get to go directly to the Promised Land. Instead, they wandered in the desert for forty years. Which is a lot of wandering, when you think about it.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that a standard Israelite wanders five hundred steps per day, with an average distance of two feet per step. That works out to a thousand feet per day. So for more than forty years—even if they didn’t wander at all on Shabbat, major Jewish holidays, Elie Wiesel’s birthday, and so on—the Israelites would wander about twelve million feet, which is more than two thousand miles. This means that, starting in Egypt, the Israelites could easily, with minimal exertion, have wandered to Norway.
And yet, somehow, after forty years, they were still in the desert. This suggests they were not wandering in anything close to a straight line. Many Jewish scholars have pondered the reason for this, but perhaps the best explanation was offered by Rabbi Moscowitz,1 who said, “They must have been hitting the sauce pretty hard.”
By this point, Moses was over one hundred years old, and most of the other original Israelites were dead. The rest had been born in the desert and after all the wandering were getting pretty cranky. “Are we there yet?” they constantly asked Moses. But Moses was not discouraged, because by this point he had basically the same hearing ability as a crowbar.
So long story short, they finally reached the Promised Land, but it turned out that Moses was not allowed to enter because of a problem with his passport.
“Don’t worry about me,” he told the Israelites. “I’ll just go up on Mount Nebo and die. Alone. After all I’ve done for you. It’s fine. Really.”
So the rest of the Israelites entered the Promised Land, which turned out, G-d had not mentioned this, to be already occupied by a number of tribes, including the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Kardashians, Mohicans, Kiwanis, and a small but enthusiastic roving band of Mormons. Also, instead of milk or honey, there were rocks and venomous scorpions the size of Yorkshire terriers. But other than that, it was everything the Israelites had hoped for, and for the next three thousand years, they lived there in peace and harmony except for getting nearly wiped out on pretty much a monthly basis. And that is why we are grateful.