Madaleine Rand [July 29, 2020] Parshat Pinchas

Shabbat Shalom everyone!

My torah portion is about the journey the Israelites took to make it into Canaan. In the beginning of the story the Israelites selected 1 person from every tribe of Israel; the twelve were called emissaries also known as spies or scouts. The story is based on what happened after they escaped from Egypt after following god through the desert to the outskirts of Canaan.  After forty days the emissaries returned and they reported that the land was fruitful. Ten of the emissaries said the cities and countryside were filled with giants and it would be too dangerous to try and conquer them.  But the remaining two Caleb and Joshua urged the Israelites to conquer the land.  Some of the people even wanted to go back to Egypt.  

God became angry because some of the Israelites didn’t have the right amount of faith in him, because of that he made the Israelites stay in the wilderness for 40 years. One year for every day that the emissaries were gone.  After the forty years had passed the younger generation with Joshua and Calab were allowed to go into the land of Canaan.

In the section of Torah that I will be chanting there is a famous line. 

Numbers 13 chapters 27-33 reads:

This is what they told him: “We came to the land you sent this to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large, moreover, we saw the Anakites there.” 

It goes on to say: 

V’sham ra’eenu, et ha’nehfeeleem b’nai anak meen ha nehfeeleem, v’heenai v’aynaynu cachagaveem, v’chen hayyinu b’eiyneiychem. 

And there we saw the Nepheelim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nepheelim; and we saw ourselves  as grasshoppers, and so we must have looked to them.

This statement has fascinated rabbis and scholars for generations. It also resonants with modern psychologists. 

Nechama Liebovitz, a famous twentieth century Torah scholar asked the following question of this verse: 

“How did the spies know what the “giants” thought of them? They don’t report any interaction with these bizarre “Nephilim”; if they really were giant beings, then one could understand the feeling that “we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes,” but how did they know if the “giants” even noticed them?”

And indeed this is the question! 

A famous midrash (interpretation of the Torah) from the fifth century CE shares how God must have felt when God heard the spies doubting themselves. 

God remarks: “I take no objection to your saying: ‘We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves,’ but I take offense when you say ‘So we must have looked to them.’ How do you know how I made you look to them? Perhaps you appeared to them as angels!”

God was not mad that they felt like grasshoppers to themselves.  They were in a new environment with strange people and felt insignificant because they had previously been slaves.  He was mad when they said the people of Canaan thought they were grasshoppers. Meaning that they didn’t have faith that god had their backs if they needed help.

An example in my Torah portion about how two people can perceive the same event differently is that while ten of the twelve spies talk of giants and grasshoppers, Caleb returns from the mission and reports that the promised land is safe, that the Israelites should move forward with their mission. He is without fear and self-doubt. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a contemporary “giant” of Torah scholarship, reminds us of one of the main lessons of this Torah portion. The end of my Torah portion talks about the Tallit. A prayer shawl like the one I am wearing today. The tzitzit on the prayer shawl Rabbi Sacks says “is itself a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, saying: “Do not be afraid. God is with you. Do not give way to fear and self-doubt, believe in yourself. From here we get the life-changing idea: never let negative emotions distort your perceptions. You are not a grasshopper. Those who oppose you are not giants. See the world as it is, not as you are afraid it might be, let faith banish fear!”

As you can see, my torah portion is about perspective and how perspective can get in the way of challenges that we face.  Perspective is the way we see ourselves versus the way others see us. For me, perspective is seeing something from different points of view. Perspective is also the way we feel versus the way others do.  I can relate to the different challenges that perspective can make.

Most people when they see me they think that I am older than I am. Right now I am 5’10”.  I have grown a lot in the last 2 years and I am still getting used to being taller than some of the teachers, and my mom.  I have always been one of the tallest kids in all my classes while being one of the youngest. I feel that when people think that you are older, they expect more.  When it happens I feel like I can’t make mistakes.  Sometimes I think that people think that I know more than I really do.   I guess I will just have to let them think what they want to think and for me to just be myself.

I like to sing and perform on stage.  There are different perspectives during a performance like being on stage with the cast and seeing what is happening around you versus what the audience is seeing in the scene.   When the actors are on stage they are able to see what is happening backstage.  The actors also know everything that is going to happen in the whole show.  The actors can see the whole audience from the stage.  The audience reacts to what the actors are doing on stage but they don’t know how it was put together.  After the performance the actors may remember all the mistakes that happened during the show and the audience remembers all the amazing parts of the show.  On stage the audience looks like grasshoppers and in the audience the actors look like giants.  If I make a mistake on stage I have to believe that I can continue my part. “ The show must go on.”

There are many different perspectives on traveling.  In some places that you might travel to you might look different to the people who live there.  When traveling the world it is common for there to be different languages and cultures wherever you go.  When I travel I love exploring different cultures. To the people that live in the region, they are just living their daily lives and so they don’t see anything different, why would they?  Even here in Marin there are many different cultures.  Not recognizing different cultures can lead to people getting offended.  Sometimes meeting someone new who is different from you can be intimidating. It is intimidating because you don’t want to offend them and you don’t want to be offended.  It is important that we treat people different from ourselves as equals and have faith that they will do the same.  

One possible reason why the Israelites felt like grasshoppers to the people of the land of Canaan is because of perspective.  Maybe they felt like grasshoppers because they were lying in the grasses to stay hidden.  They believed that the people of Canaan were stronger than they were so they felt insignificant to them.  For them to be able to go to the promised land they had to have more faith, because they were scared, they forgot that god had said the land was theirs.

 I have noticed that perspective can either get in the way of some of the challenges that we face or help with them.  We have to believe that we are not grasshoppers and instead that we are giants. It is also important to remember that we should always see the best parts in others and not their failures. That is not enough though, we also have to treat ourselves the same way. See the best in ourselves and not just our own faults. Sometimes this comes as a challenge but we have to be brave and have courage. We all have to believe in ourselves and others and take that leap of faith.

Shabbat Shalom!