Tinyana 62 · תנינא ס״ב

“These are the journeys of the Children of Israel.” (Numbers 33:1)

The Midrash teaches: The “journeys of the Children of Israel”—i.e., the travels which the Jews take from place to place—atone for “These are your gods, O Israel” (Exodus 32:4)—i.e., for the blemish of idolatry.

For even if there is no actual worshiping of idolatry, there is the blemish of idolatry. This is because a marring of faith is also the concept of idolatry. This is as is brought (in the name of the Baal Shem Tov) on the verse “you will stray and worship other gods” (Deuteronomy 11:16)—as soon as one turns from God, it is the concept of idolatry. But through the travels of the Jews it is atoned.

And “as long as there is idol worship in the world, there is Divine wrath in the world” (Sifri, Deuteronomy 13:18). It follows, that when the blemish of idolatry is atoned, Divine wrath is mitigated and compassion is evoked.

And the main compassion is when “God Almighty will give to you compassion” (Genesis 43:14)—specifically, “to you.” In other words, that God will give us the compassion; He will put it in our hands. From God’s perspective, it can be that even the most serious illness and all [other kinds of] affliction are His compassion, since certainly everything which God sends a person, even terrible suffering, is nothing but compassion.

We, however, request that He give and put the compassion in our hands, because we cannot comprehend His compassion and are unable to bear it [when] His compassion [is in the form of suffering]. Rather, [we ask] that God put the compassion in our hands so that we ourselves might show ourselves compassion. And for us, the compassion is straightforward: to be healed of the illness and the like.

Thus, YiSRaEL is an acronym for “El Shadai Yitein Lakhem Rachamim (God Almighty will give to you compassion),” because the compassion comes about through the journeys of the Children of Yisrael,” as mentioned above.