I have been reading the current Torah portion, Shelah-Lacha, Numbers 13:1-15:41. this has always been my favorite, because it deals with such issues as self-esteem and self-respect, issues I’ve dealt with for a lifetime.
God orders Moses to “send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people.” There was to be one man from each of the Israelite tribes, men of respect in each tribes, to examine the state of the land-is it fertile, are the people there strong or weak, are the cities fortified? Mosses sends these instructions to the twelve spies, two of them being Caleb, from the House of Judah and Hosea, from the House of Ephraim. (Moses changed the name of Hosea to Joshua, why?)
The spies receive their instructions, and go into the land for forty days. They scout the wilderness from Zin to Rehob, and in to the Negev and through Hebron, to the wadi Eshcol; they cut down a huge cluster of grapes, which they had to carry on a wooden beam. After the forty days, the spies return to the Israelite camp, and report, the does indeed flow with milk and honey, bu the people there are powerful, and the cities are fortified.”
Caleb insisted “We can take them on, we can beat them and take the land!” But only Joshua and Caleb were positive about the outcome, and the majority of the spies said, “we can’t attack these people they’re stronger than we are,” adding-this is the most important part-“we looked like grasshopper to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
The Israelites panicked, and rioted against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites scream, “If only we died in Egypt! Let’s go back to Egypt!” Here is their low self-image: the spies, leaders of the people, said their own people looked like grasshoppers, little crawling insects, to their., the leaders’ eyes, and they projected that low self-image as emanating from the people in the land. (That is projection: “I don’t like myself, and so neither does anyone else.”) The spies tell the people that they were grasshoppers compared o the people of the land, instead of trying to boost their self-image, which obviously was at bottom due to being enslaved in Egypt and forced into a slave mentality of feeling inferior.
God threatens to wipe the Israelite nation out due to their disobedience, but Moses tells God, “When the Egyptians, who whose midst you brought these people out, hear of this, they will say that God is powerless to bring these people into the land which he promised them.” Moses pleads with God to forgive the people, but God says that none of the people of the generation of slavery would enter the land, except for Caleb and Joshua. the entire Israelite nation would remain out of the land for forty years, for each one of the days the scouts reconnoitered the land. How often do our fears and self-limitations keep us from attaining out own “promised land,” the fulfillment of the best we all could be?
The Haforah for the portion is Joshua, second chapter, where he orders a duo of spies to scout out the city of Jericho. the spies enter the house of the harlot Rahab, right on the wall of Jericho. Rahab hides the spies in her house, and the king’s soldiers ask her if she saw them; she tells the soldiers, “The men left, I don’t know where they are, go after them.” Rahab tells the spies, “I know the LORD has given the country to you, because dread of you has fallen upon us, and the inhabitants of the land are quaking before you. e heard of how the LORD has dried up the Sea of reeds for you when you left Egypt, and what you did to the two Amorite kings.” Rahab, the harlot, knows that God is the only God of Heaven and Earth, and she helps the spies escape over the city walls. (A woman who we would look down on in this day was the hero of the story.)
Have you ever heard the line, “I didn’t know my own strength?” Do we really know how strong and capable we are? Have we been brainwashed into thinking we are helpless and powerless in changing our predicament? Lord knows I’ve had those feeling lot of times, but I’m resisting them, and finding my strength. I urge you to do the same.