A Matter of Perspective

Parshas Shlach

Posted on June 24, 2024 (5784) By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky | Series: Drasha| Level: Beginner

 

This week we read about the twelve spies who were sent to scout out the Land of Canaan. Their mission of surveillance was meant to prepare the Jewish nation so that the entry into their promised homeland be smooth and virtually without surprises. Total trust in Hashem’s Divine design should have warranted no mortal meddling, but mortal prudence or perhaps apprehension and skepticism prompted their desire to manage the situation in their own way.

 

And, as has been the case with the relationship between Jews and their land from time immemorial, the results were disastrous. All the spies, save the righteous Calev and Yehoshua, brought back tales of woe, predictions of destruction, and assurances of defeat. The Jews were quickly and simply swayed, and the buoyant expectancy of a gallant entry into the land promised to our forefathers, quickly turned into a night of bemoaning anticipated enduring misfortunes. That night, the 9th day of the fifth month, became engraved in the annals of our history as a night of weeping. What began as unwarranted wailing turned into a forever fateful night the 9th of Av. From the saga of the spies to the destruction of two Temples, to the signing of inquisition, to the outbreak of World War I, the war to end all wars, the 9th of Av is a hallmark of Jewish misfortunes. But if we analyze the complaints of the meraglim (spies), we find an emerging pattern of skewed vision. They saw fruit so big and beautiful that it had to be carried on a double pole. Yet they viewed it as an indication of giant produce, indicative of the degree of food matter that nourished their powerful and physically giant adversaries.

 

But not only the living species gave them conniptions. They brought forth to the Children of Israel an evil report on the Land that they had spied out, saying, “The Land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants! All the people that we saw in it were huge! (Numbers 13:32).

 

Rashi explains the meaning of “a land that devours its inhabitants.” The meraglim complained, “In every place which we passed we found the inhabitants burying their dead” They missed the point. In fact, Hashem caused many deaths amongst them at that time, and so the Canaanites were engaged in burying their dead. This proved beneficial for the spies, because the giants were occupied with their mourning and paid no attention to the spies.

 

How can an event that was providentially meant to be so beneficial, be misconstrued as an omen of misfortune?

 

Back in the early 1950’s a large shoe consortium with stores across the United States and Canada, decided to take their business venture into the emerging continent of Africa. They sent two of their salesman to explore the prospects of business in the remote villages across the Dark Continent.

 

After just one week, they received a cable from the first salesman: “I am returning at once. No hope for business. Nobody here wears shoes!” They did not hear from the second salesman for four weeks. Then one day an urgent cable arrived. “Send 15,000 pairs of shoes at once! I have leased space in five locations. Will open chain of stores. This place is filled with opportunity. Nobody has shoes!”

 

The Steipler Gaon, Rabbi Yisrael Yaakov Kanievsky, in his classic work on chumash, Birchas Peretz explains that poor attitudes help forge opinions that are diametric to the truth. The Talmud tells us that, “Man is led in the path that he chooses to travel!”

 

Imagine. The spies see these giants wailing and weeping at massive funerals day after day. They should have figured that this plague was an anomaly, for if this was the norm, then the funerals would have become part of their everyday existence, and hardly an event worthy of disrupting their normally tight security.

 

In fact, comments the Steipler, that in the times of Yehoshua, the two spies who entered Canaan were immediately detected on the very day they arrived, and they were hunted with a vengeance!

 

Yet these twelve spies remained unnoticed. But the spies did not look at the events with that view.

 

When people have sour opinions and want to see only doom and gloom, then even a ray of light will blind them. When one is constantly weighed down with worry, he will only drag his feet down the path of discontent. However, if we take life’s bumpy road, as a chance to exercise our endurance, and turn the lemons handed to us into lemonade, then unlike the meraglim (spies) we will glean light from even the seemingly darkest abyss. And one day we will follow the path of that light to the Promised Land.

 

Dedicated by Steve & Faye Kollander and family with great praise to Hashem upon the marriage of our children Arielle and Adam Parkoff

Good Shabbos!

 

The Grasshopper Syndrome

Parshas Shlach

Posted on June 26, 2019 (5779) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

So near and yet so far. The Jewish people were massed in the Desert, waiting for the signal to enter into the Promised Land. In a matter of days or weeks, they could have been in possession of the land that Hashem had promised to Abraham’s descendants centuries before. But fate intervened. They decided to send spies to scout the land and its defenses, and these spies returned with slanderous reports, causing an insurrection among the people and their exclusion from the land for forty years.

 

Who were these spies who took it upon themselves to slander the Promised Land, to inflame the minds of the people with their distortions and exaggerations, to instill fear in the hearts of the innocent? Our Sages tell us that they were among the greatest and finest leaders of the respective tribes.

 

How then is it possible that these righteous men would do such a terrible thing? Hadn’t they themselves witnessed the wondrous miracles Hashem performed for the Jewish people in Egypt, during the Exodus and at Mount Sinai? Did they think He was incapable of leading the Jewish people to victory against the Canaanites entrenched in the Promised Land?

 

Let us look into this week’s Torah reading for the answer. When the spies returned from their mission, they made a very revealing comment, “We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that is how we appeared in their eyes.”

 

The commentators explain that this comment illuminates the underlying reason for the downfall of the spies. These people did not believe in themselves. They lacked confidence and a sense of their own worth. They felt like grasshoppers in the presence of the Canaanites, and therefore, the Canaanites viewed them as grasshoppers as well. This selfsame lack of confidence also led them to slander the land. They saw the major obstacles that had to be overcome, and they felt intimidated and overwhelmed. They shriveled within, unable to believe that they were worthy of yet another display of spectacular miracles. And so they chose to slander the land in order to deflect the Jewish people from their plans of conquest and to persuade them to remain in the relative safety of the Desert.

 

A great sage told his disciples for a walk, “Today, we will do something different.”

 

Without another word, he led them to a deep ravine at the end of the town. A taut rope was stretched across the top of the ravine, and a huge crowd was gathered a short distance away.

 

Presently, a tightrope walker holding a long balancing rod stepped off the rim of the ravine onto the rope and began to walk across the chasm. The crowd gasped in amazement as the tightrope walker made his way steadily along the quivering rope. When he finally reached the opposite rim of the ravine safely, the crowd responded with an audible sigh of relief and an enthusiastic round of applause.

 

The sage nodded gravely, turned around and started to walk away. “Why did you bring us here today?” one of his disciples asked him. “What are we supposed to learn from the tightrope walker?”

 

“A very important lesson,” said the sage. “Walking a tightrope is a metaphor of life, because all of us are indeed walking a tightrope. Did you watch that tightrope walker? He was totally focused on what he was doing, and he was confident in his ability to do it. If he had lost focus or confidence he would never have made it across.”

 

In our own lives, we are always faced with challenges and ordeals that may lead us to question our own capabilities and worth. Whenever we are inspired to do something good and worthwhile, the evil inclination immediately tries to make us second guess ourselves. Can we really do it? Is it too difficult? Are our motivations pure? And as our confidence erodes, the chances of success slowly fade away. But if recognize that the source of our inspiration is the divine spark within us, if we find within ourselves the courage and the confidence to persevere, Hashem will surely bless our efforts with success.

 

Text Copyright &copy 2009 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

 

Gentle Reminders

Parshas Shlach

Posted on June 25, 2024 (5784) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

The universal image of the devout Jew is a praying figure wrapped in a tallis, but it is not the tallis that is significant. Rather, it is the long fringes on each of its four corners. At the conclusion of this week’s Torah portion, we read that these fringes were to be dyed a particular shade of blue called techeiles. What was the significance of this particular shade of blue?

 

The Talmud explains: “Because techeiles is reminiscent of the sea, and the sea is reminiscent of the sky, and the sky is reminiscent of the Kiseh Hakavod, Hashem’s celestial throne.” Wearing techeileth, therefore, draws the mind to thoughts of Hashem and is a source of constant inspiration.

 

The questions immediately arise: Why do we need any memory devices at all to remind us of Hashem? Why doesn’t the Torah simply command us to think of Hashem continuously?

 

Furthermore, why does the Torah choose techeiles which reminds us of Hashem in such a roundabout way? Why doesn’t the Torah simply choose a color directly associated with Him?

 

The commentators point out that our natural tendency of people is to connect what we see with whatever is dear to our hearts. Thus, a businessman spotting a piece of paper on the ground will think of the problems of waste disposal, the new technologies, the investment opportunities in companies active in this field.

 

A policeman spotting the same piece of paper will think of the littering laws, zero tolerance policies, litterbug fines. An environmentalist will think of the tree that was cut down to produce this piece of paper which was so casually discarded. The businessman, the policeman, the environmentalist may all have been walking along absorbed in totally unrelated thoughts. But that little deviation from the ordinary, the simple piece of paper lying on the ground, pulls each one out of his reverie and sets him off in his own individual direction along the route that is dear to his heart.

 

In this light, the commentators explain the rationale behind techeiles. The Torah does not make unrealistic demands of us. The Torah realizes full well that no matter how spiritual we want to be, no matter how much we would like think of Hashem, we still live in the mundane world. We have to earn a living and pay the mortgage and take care of the children, and we cannot realistically expect to keep our minds focused on Hashem at all times.

 

If, however, we truly yearn to be connected with Him, if we harbor a strong love for Him deep in our hearts, then a few gentle reminders here and there will bring Him squarely back into our thoughts. Therefore, the Torah does not simply command us to think of Hashem at all times. It is too much to expect of us amid the sea of distractions in which we live. Instead, the Torah tells us to keep a symbol with us at all times, a symbol which will remind us of Hashem with just a brief glance.

 

To accomplish this purpose most effectively, the Torah does not choose a symbol directly associated with Hashem. Rather, the Torah chooses a fairly simple symbol which can insinuate itself easily into the mad rush of daily life, a shade of blue that reminds us of the sea. But once the chain of thought is set in motion, our natural tendencies take over. That flash of blue sets us to thinking, and if there is a true love for Hashem deep in our hearts, our thoughts will naturally turn to Him. If the heart is set in a good direction, the mind is sure to follow. But the converse is also true.

 

A great sage was visiting an art gallery, and he saw a large redfaced man protesting vigorously in front of a colorful abstract painting.

 

“How can you display such lewd art?” the angry man yelled.

 

Intrigued, the sage drew closer and looked at the painting.

 

“My good fellow,” he said. “This is a wonderful painting. It is a warm representation of a mother soothing a distraught child. The lewd images you see on the canvas are a reflection of the lewd images that occupy your own mind.”

 

In our own lives, we are all caught up in the dynamics of our daily existence, continuously distracted by financial, familial, social, emotional and all sorts of other concerns that make up the fabric of our lives. Under these circumstances, it is very easy to forget about Hashem. But if He has a permanent place in our hearts, if deep down we recognize and acknowledge that life has no meaning without a strong relationship with Him, then we will inevitably find myriad symbols everywhere that will nudge us gently back on track and bring Him back into our thoughts.

 

Text Copyright © 2010 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.