Numbers is filled with challenging and inspiring narratives. And sometimes, it is filled with high drama. This week’s parasha is that high drama.
You know the story: twelve men walked into the Promised Land. But these were not just any twelve scouts: the were the leaders of their tribes, chosen for their courage and their standing. They saw the same hills, drank from the same streams, tasted the same fruit and all saw the abundance of the Land of Israel. And yet they came back with two completely different reports.
Caleb and Joshua returned with wonder in their eyes. “The land is good,” they said. “We can do this.”
But the other ten came back with something else entirely: fear. Listen to their words: “The cities are fortified to the sky. The people are giants. We were like grasshoppers in their sight — and in our own sight.”
Notice that phrase. In our own sight. The giants did not tell the spies they were small. The spies told themselves. The fear did not come from the land. It came from within the minds and hearts of the spies themselves.
And here is what makes this parasha so profound and so sobering: that fear did not stay with ten men. It spread. Within hours, the entire community was weeping. The Torah tells us, ׳The whole congregation wept that night.׳ It’s easy to imagine this. Hundreds of thousands of people, broken and despairing — not because they had seen the land themselves, but because they had heard the report of those they trusted.
Fear is contagious. It moves faster than fact. It does not need evidence — it only needs a voice, and a community willing to listen. And that community can be a nation which is steeped in conspiracy theories and inclines to the purveyors of fear or, of course, to a community like Shir Shalom. I often say that inertia kills the spirit of a congregation. But, if you think about it with me, even more than inertia that hurts a congregation is fear. And along fear comes the inability to move…the very definition of inertia.
To thwart that inertia, our temple has led with faith in the future. I am so happy that with the changes coming to our temple, we have avoided the trap of fear. Of course there are unknowns. That’s what happens when a temple grows. But Shir Shalom did not freeze immobile when facing a new future together. Rather, as a family we lived a faith in each other and in our shared future. For too many congregations, a fear of a new rabbi means ‘what direction are we moving in now?’ while at Shir Shalom we have turned that question into an exclamation saying ‘what amazing new directions we are moving into now!’ A shift in the prayer service.
We all know that, at times of big change, we can feel like standing at the border of Canaan: vast, unknown, and terrifying. But Shir Shalom didn’t stand immobile. We had faith in the future and in ourselves. There was unknowing, but there was little fear and it that faith in the future that take this beloved place to a new level of holiness and spirituality and simchat halev – a joyous heart.
Keep in mind the question the rabbis had about the spies. They ask, why were the spies punished so severely? After all, they were honest — the cities were large, the inhabitants were powerful. Their sin was not lying. Their sin was losing faith in possibility — and then giving that faithlessness to others as a gift.
Shir Shalom did not fear the possibilities of the future. Rather, it embraced them. And that is why we will continue to thrive.
Remember, the Torah story could have ended right then and there. But Caleb and Joshua saw the possibilities, not the fear. Sure, they were concerned about what they would face but fear did not have final word. They looked at the same mountains and chose to see a future instead of a threat. And they brought that optimism back to the people of Israel.
The antidote to apprehension and fear is not false optimism. It is solidarity. It is turning to the person beside you and saying: I am not leaving your side.
The Israelites forgot that in the wilderness, they were never actually alone. The pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire — God was present with them. And so it is with us. In every change, every uncertainty, every moment when the land ahead looks bigger than we feel — we are held. By our tradition. By our values. By each other.
So let us continue to be the voices of Caleb in our community. Let us be the ones who carry grapes instead of fear. Let us uphold one another — yes, realizing that a new rabbi will take us in new directions but finding joy in the possibilities on the other side of those plains and mountains.
Because the Promised Land of Shir Shalom is not a place. It is what we build together, on the other side of our fear.
Shabbat Shalom.
