[Previous sermon: "D’rash Erev Shabbat/Erev 7th Day Pesah ~ Friday evening April 25, 2008"] [Next sermon: "Shabat - August 29, 2008"]

Shabbat Shelach L’cha - ‘The Sin of the 10 Spies’ (6/20/08)

Our Torah portion opens innocuously enough with Moses being asked by God to send a troop of anashim - of representatives, to check out this ‘promised land’ that, according to our Biblical text, God is about to give to the Israelite people. The first aliyah, the first section, of the reading is fully devoted to describing this mission - beginning with a very specific listing of the leaders chosen to be sent forth, the: ראשי בני ישראל, the tribal chiefs of the Israelites, and ending with an outline of their task, namely to check it out - to see what is there in this land that supposedly flows with milk and honey and report back their findings.

After their report, we find God so incensed that God is ready to “strike them with pestilence and disown them.” Even with Moses’ intervention and Adonai’s statement of forgiveness (a quote that, btw, has become one the many liturgical gems in our high holiday liturgy: "ויאמר יי סלחתי כדברך"); even with this statement, 10 of the spies are struck with plague, the community is forced to wander 1 year for each of the 40 days of the scouting mission, and all over the age of 20 are condemned to death before entry into the Land.

What the hell went so wrong with this mission?

The story should be familiar - 10 of the spies, the 10 who will be punished with plague, returned from their journey frightened by what they saw and reported accordingly to the people inciting them as well: In short, they said, ‘We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey...but its people are powerful and its cities are fortified and large.... we looked like grasshoppers to their giants.’

In light of what they saw, the fear these scouts felt is certainly understandable. How they responded to this fear is questionable; and indeed, the behavior of these 10 leaders of the Israelite people is viewed by our tradition as nothing short of profound sin. The entire episode is understood by commentators as a huge communal failing. Our historical Rabbinic tradition puts it up there with the sin of the golden calf - idolatry - that immediately precedes the scene of revelation at Sinai. The compilers of The Midrash Rabbah, a compilation of ancient stories and legends on the text, go as far as to credit this community’s behavior for bringing about the much later destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. This imaginative Midrash reads:

“...the night was the 9th of Av, whereupon the Holy One said to them: ‘You have wept a causeless weeping before Me. I shall therefore fix for you a permanent weeping for future generations.’ At that hour it was decreed that the Temple should be destroyed and that Israel should be exiled among the nations.” (Numbers Rabbah XVI.20)

It isn’t enough that the generation at hand was punished. Apparantly, Jews for all time are to experience a taste of retribution for their Biblical ancestors’ actions.

As Reform Jews it might be easy to dismiss this anachronistic explanation of the downfall of Jerusalem as pure Rabbinic fantasy, but it begs us to look deeper into the text - something of import clearly bothered the biblical author as well as the early Rabbinic mind with regard to these 10 scouts.

The great Medieval commentator Rashi, along with others, explains the sin of the 10 spies as a lack of faith in God. Key to this understanding is the interpretation of the 10’s response to Caleb’s optimistic estimate of the community’s ability to overcome despite challenge. We cannot go up against that people, the scouts reply, כּי חזק הוא ממנו" because it is stronger ‘mimenu’ - a word whose meaning is quite ambiguous - and maybe purposely so, but is understood by Rashi to mean ‘than God’; ha-am, ki chazak hu mimenu - the people there are stronger than God. Accordingly, the spies have underestimated God’s power. This approach to the text seems to make sense at first, but really does the lack of esteem the people have of God’s power warrant such wrath? Such an interpretation smack of anthropomorphism - for it puts the human condition of needing outside of approval on God, a divine entity; it makes God overly concerned with itself. If God is all-powerful as the text purports, then God shouldn’t need outside validation of worth - in other words, a stamp of approval - from the people.

This ambiguous word Mimenu can just as easily be understood as ‘than us’ - “because the people there are stronger than us”. The failure, the sin if you will, of the 10 spies could just as easily have been a lack of faith in themselves. In their report to Moses and the community, these 10 saw themselves as insignificant: ונהי בעינינו כַחֲגָבִים וכן היינו בעיניהם"” “and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we must have looked to them.” What a huge assumption they made. These 10 are not the riff-raff of the community mind you. These are the leaders - the heads of each tribe - those in whom the community rests its faith. The failure is the loss of faith in their own ability, an insecurity that instead of working to overcome, they then brought upon the entire people.

The thoughts of Italian literature scholar and co-founder of The John’s Hopkins Civility project, Dr. P.M. Forni are insightful. In publicizing his newest book on NPR’s The Dianne Reim show this week, Forni, today’s newest, albeit quite scholarly ‘miss manners’ noted that often rudeness arises out of insecurity. Our personal insecurities, he offers, are projected, literally shifted onto others in the form of hostility. This core lack of confidence leads to a self- absorbed defensiveness that takes precedent over the larger needs of the community.

God’s anger - God’s fury isn’t necessarily about what the people think of God; it’s about what the people think of themselves. Their quick assumptions and self-negation leads to a self absorption that overshadows the communal agenda and leads to further uprising.

What if they were to look beyond the challenge? What if, instead of fixating on their insecurities, they could have channeled their energy into first, being in the moment and fully appreciating this rich land of opportunity that awaited them, and second, working to overcome fear by organizing the community towards a common goal?

That is not to say that the scouts should have dismissed the very real challenges ahead, but their quick judgements led them to fail to be fully aware of their own strengths which in hand due to their roles as leaders lead to the entire community’s failure to see the strength they had within themselves. Only Joshua and Caleb are able to see beyond the obstacles in their path, and only they will be rewarded with seeing this promised land of milk and honey.

It is easy to fixate on how others view us. In today’s media saturated world, it is all too easy to focus on how we should be rather than how we are. That of course is the unspoken goal of marketing, isn’t it. It is all too easy to spend more time comparing ourselves to others than honestly focusing on relating to and cooperating with others. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons of the ‘sin of the 10 spies’ is to accept ourselves - even, all the more so, when we feel insignificant like grasshoppers. Just because we feel small doesn’t mean that we can’t make a significant and positive impact in the world.

Perhaps the Biblical author’s use of the ambiguous mimenu is purposeful for how on earth can we appreciate the divine presence in this world if we can’t get past our own limitations. Lack of faith in ourselves ultimately leads to a lack of faith in all that is around us including God’s power.

We Temple Emanuel-ites know what it means to be small. Perhaps some view our congregation as the grasshopper in our local Jewish community that is sprinkled with so many larger congregations. I expect that throughout this past year, some of us at times felt lacking in our own ability; on the verge of losing that critical sense of self that would enable us to continue to be all that we are as a congregation.

Let us learn from the mistakes of the 10 spies. Let us continue to view ourselves, our Temple community as a valuable resource and a valuable expression of Reform Judaism in our broader community. As long as we are willing to confront the challenges ahead with optimism coupled with self- assured realism, then we will continue to be worthy of God’s blessing and the privilege of partnering with God and each other in worship, study, and g’milut chasadim.

Shabbat Shalom!