Parashat Sh'lach L'cha, Numbers 13:1-15:41

Twelve spies scout out the Promised Land and return to Moses with two reports.

Joshua and Caleb are ready for the conquest.

The other ten argue against taking the land:
There we saw giants.  We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we must have appeared to them. (Num. 13:33)


The report of the ten spies moves the Israelites into a fearful frenzy.  It is at this point in the Torah's narrative that God determines that the Israelites will wander forty years in the wilderness before being allowed to enter into the Promised Land.  The generation of slaves must die off so that the new political entity of the Israelites is one that has completely shed its victim mentality.

I'm not sure the plan succeeded.  As a people, it seems to me, we still carry an enormous victim mentality with us.  I think we are collectively still too frightened by the other.

The Kotzker rebbe noticed that the lesson in this passage is very subtle one.  He teaches that  for the Israelites to think we were grasshoppers in our own eyes, was a natural expression of fear.  Their sin was to assume and so we must have appeared to them.  Just because we feel inadequate or insecure in important moments in our lives, doesn't mean others perceive us the same way.

When we give in to our insecurities by avoiding both attention and success, we ultimately defeat ourselves.  Whether taking on the stature of a door mat or a black widow that leaves no survivors, we ultimately render ourselves impotent in the world, in the workplace, and in our family constellations.

It is only natural to have fears or feel insecure at times but the truth of the matter is that others judge us by our words and our actions, not our inner monologues.  Our challenge is to harness the workings of our minds rather than to let them lead us into self-sabotaging behavior and relationships.   Mastering this practice makes the difference between wandering in the wilderness and entering the Promised Land.

Parashat B'ha'alotcha, Numbers 8:1 - 12:16

The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving and then the Israelites wept and said, "If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic..."  (11:4-5)


The rabbi, Rashi, reminds us that the story of the Exodus tells us that when the Israelites left Egypt a mixed multitude joined them with a lot of cattle and sheep.  The Israelites have meat! So what's the gluttonous craving about?

Another rabbi notes that the Hebrew literally says that these folks craved a craving.  They were simply folks who wanted more.

A Chasidic teacher suggests that these particular Israelites with the craving were fooling themselves with a contrived yearning in order to feel that they were being unduly challenged by temptation.

Something in our nature enjoys creating problems so that we can feel that we're overcoming great feats and are therefore more important or more worthy than others who by comparison always have it easier than we do.

These sort of self-imposed hardships are much harder to shake than real problems.  I can't help but wonder if the true journey of our escape from slavery in Egypt wasn't running away from taskmasters, but rather facing our tendency to create troubles and challenges so that we can feel the joy of overcoming them.

It takes the Israelites 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before they realize that Israel just isn't that far from Egypt, even when traveling by foot.  But who would we be if not the ones who suffered and toiled in the hot sun for 40 years?