Parshah Sh'lach L'Cha: Afterthoughts or Of Spies, Grapes and Am Yisrael Chai

 - It's not Moses who sends the spies but God who directs Moses. Important distinction, since this means the One who initiates the reconnoiter already know the eventual outcome of the future campaign for Canaan. Therefore this mission is not to inform military strategy (because, grapes?*) but to inform God (and the Israelites?) the measure of the Israelites' faith.

 - (Num. 14: 2): "Why is Adonai taking us to that land to fall by the sword?" "Our wives and children will be carried off!"

How does the spies' fear make any sense to the Israelites? You've seen a slew of plagues in Egypt, a whole sea split in half, dew-dropped manna left for you every morning, followed pillars of fire, the rage of God made manifest in a myriad of delightful ways (sarcasm alert) yet NOW you think you've been brought to this place to die? How does that even make sense?

Of course, it doesn't. The idea of the impossible should have been left on the far shore of the sea you crossed over - ahem, walked through - two years prior. If nothing else, Parasha Sh'lach L'Cha is a powerful sociological case study on the spread of fear as a poisonous contagion. (Note to Great Britain post-Brexit and the United States in this Election Year of 2016.)

 - It occurs to me that the Israelites have a unique blessing in that God has shown them where and what their Promised Land looks like.

This is not always a given.

 - Um, much like the whole Golden Calf "incident", the idea that an enslaved and traumatized people should (never) show no fear seems uniquely obtuse. ow different things might have been if someone had just sat them down and said, Look, it's okay to be afraid; courage isn't the absence of fear but to move forward with it and through it? I'm sorry, we're out of time for this week.
(Psychology FTW!)

(And yes, you could counter with how The Torah isn't concerned with human psychology, modern or otherwise, as much as it is concerned with a particular [masculinist/patriarchal] idea of faith for a particular [masculinist/patriarchal] people at least three thousand years gone.)

 - Wow, can we talk about the resilience of the Israelites and their investment of future generations here for a moment?

Seriously.

God just condemned everyone (with the exception of Caleb and Joshua) to death in the desert. For doubting their eventual claiming of Canaan, they will all die. Now, what I find simply amazing is that, according to The Torah, no one calls God's bluff here. not a single Israelite says, "Oh really, God? Take away the one thing that has kept us alive and going all these miles and years? Fine. Then I quit. Ciao, bella."

No one, not a single one of these very flawed (very human) Israelites acts in a dysfunctional way, as understandable as that may be. Yes, they DO try to storm Canaan anyway, but being spurned so completely (Num. 14: 44) they must have collectively understood their shared fate. Which leaves me to wonder, what is their motive to keep moving forward now? They know they will never enter Canaan, they will never return to Egypt, they will die in the most foreign, strangest and hostile of lands. Why take one more single step?

The one answer - perhaps the only answer? - I can think of is the next generation. To keep going for the future of Israel as a people, as a nation.

That, I think, is amazing. In the face of divine condemnation, to keep moving forward, speaks to a communal resilience that leaves me breathless, stirred, inspired, and continually in love with my people. Am Yisrael Chai, indeed.

And finally, wow, God - you just condemned a whole people to death in their wilderness wandering, and then go on to instruct Moses to tell the Israelites"When you enter the land to which I am taking you..." (Num. 15: 18). So obviously this is a message for the next generation, which You are implicitly directing their parents to givethem.

In other words: I (God) have just condemned all of you to death - but before you die at my command, give this message to your children.

And still the Israelites move forward, step by step...

(* Toda Raba Rabbi Sharon Sobel for pointing out how the grapes are the current symbol for the Israel Ministry of Tourism. What fertile discussion could that lead to?)

(And, as always, an insightful d'var on Sh'Lach L'Cha from BimBam, formerly G-dcast.)

Parsha Bo

Parsha Questions: T'rumah

2 Adar, 5775

Reading through Parsha T'rumah - a.k.a. "The Ikea Portion of the Torah" - in prep for today's Trah study, some questions emerge, like:

 - just a few weeks ago, the Israelites built another in/famous structure, The Golden Calf, ostensibly to make a distant invisible God (connected to this new nation by a suddenly disappeared Moses) more visible and present in their lives. results were disastrous. (Anger management much, Moses and God? - although arguably we could not have expected more from a society Durkheim would have labeled as mechanic.) Is it coincidence then that a short time later, God instructs Moses to have the Israelites build a structure that would visibly represent God's presence in their midst? Leading one to ponder if the Tabernacle would have been built had the whole 'Golden Calf Incident' not have happened.

 - And just to be sure we're all clear which object God and the Torah prefer, we get elaborate instructions for the Mishkan, down to how the angels' wings on the lid of the Ark should be made, while we get no real details about Aaron's calf. (Yep, dude, totally throwing you under the bus here.) Also, please note that no Israelites were slaughtered in the aftermath of the Mishkan. (Whew!)

 - the dolphin skins, the dolphin skins, exactly how do dolphin skins make an appearance in The Torah? Ram skins, I get. Acacia wood? Absolutely. Dolphin skins?

 - "everyone...whose heart was so moved..." (Exodus 25:2) So yeah, I understand from a literary p.o.v. why it's important to add this, to show motivation. I think it's worth noting its inclusion inside a society that is clearly forming around mechanical solidarity. What I find so fascinating is that this one line did not need to be included - how many of us would have said, "Wow, if only those Israelites had volunteered their goods, that would have proved their devotion!" What are the Torah's writers'redactors trying to say here to their three-thousand year old audience? While Denise Eger in "The Women's Commentary" offers some compelling thoughts on the questions (470) they are written to a modern readership. What might the Babylonian exile have made of this passage?

 - In case you were wondering what a cubit is...

 - not a question but being very appreciative of the Golden Calf/Mishkan comparison. In the former, the Israelites construct a visual representation of (a?) God, while in the latter God calls for a dwelling so that God may still exist among them - invisible and nebulous as always. Remaining beyond the constructs of imagination is prioritized here (indeed, unto the death). What does it mean to be imagined by another, and how is that constraining to the one being imagined?

 - Finally, as one of my rabbis 'drashed: all the Israelites brought something to this project of God-dwelling construction - which leaves us with the question of what do we bring to our communities so that (our version of) God may find God's place among us?