Monday, June 23, 2008

Parshat Shlach Lecha 5768: The Killer vs. Y-C-L

As I’ve mentioned before, this is a special portion to me since it is my bar mitzvah portion. It would not surprise me that my ongoing writing here comes from trying to make up for something: I never gave a bar mitzvah speech. Why I didn’t have a speech goes to the heart of this week’s Torah portion. Something happened in the desert that effectively killed 600,000 people before they stepped foot into the Land of Israel. That something has been driving all of the resistance I mentioned in the portion from last week. It probably will also drive the resistance we will see next week in the Korah rebellion.
We actually begin the portion on a happy note, the people are on the border, ready to cross into the land and end their journey. God tell Moses:
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2. Send men, that they may spy the land of Canaan, which I give to the people of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, every one a leader among them. [Numbers 13:1-2]

Twelve chieftains are picked to enter the land and report back on the conditions there:
18. And see the land, what it is; and the people who live in it, whether they are strong or weak, few or many; 19. And what the land is that they live in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they live in, whether in tents, or in fortresses; 20. And what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood in it, or not. And be you of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes. [Numbers 13:18-20]

Forty days later, the twelve spies return to the camp bearing a grape cluster so big it needed two people to carry it. Their report begins on a sweet note, but quickly turns sour:
And they told him, and said, We came to the land where you sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is its fruit. 28. Nevertheless the people, who live in the land, are strong, and the cities are walled, and very great; and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. 29. The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, live in the mountains; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and by the side of the Jordan…

There is one lone voice, crying over this din of a horrible report:
And Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.[Numbers 13:30]

Yet the other Spies retort:
We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 32. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied to the people of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 33. And there we saw the Nefilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nefilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight.[13:31-33]

The English translation of Caleb’s response does not show the power of what he said in Hebrew. For we are well able to overcome it is in Hebrew ki yachol nuchal lah. In the two verbs in this sentence the root is Y-Ch-L. This verb has an interesting usage in Hebrew as it really is a verb which acts like an adverb, modifying another verb. Usually, it means to be able to and requires another verb to have any meaning. For example, the other Spies retort to Caleb, lo nuchal la’alot meaning we are not able to go up. Yet in Caleb’s phrase there is no infinitive to modify the verb. To make thing more curious, is the use of the infinitive absolute, which strengthens the verb. Infinitive absolutes have the meaning of surely, or without a doubt. So this is a long chain of adverbial expressions meaning “can.” And while earlier in the verse Caleb mentions to ascend into the land, here it is missing. Caleb does not mean just that they can go into the land, but that they can do anything. More than that, he’s completely certain of it, expecting a good outcome.
Caleb was not the only one who thought that, Joshua did too.
6. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of those who spied the land, tore their clothes; 7. And they spoke to all the company of the people of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy, is an exceedingly good land. 8. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a land which flows with milk and honey. [Numbers 14:6-8]

Not only did these two men have confidence in their abilities, they also expected only one outcome if they kept their faith in God. Unfortunately, no one else did, and they began to pelt these two with stones. God then intercedes and plans to destroy the people. In a way he does so slowly: they are condemned to wander the desert for forty years, enough time for the entire generation to die off.
At a bat mitzvah last weekend, I re-iterated the theme I am giving this go-around in the reading of B’midbar. The question was asked in discussion: why is God so vengeful, killing so many people? Maybe one answer to that is that we should not look at this as individuals but the Israelites as a collective, the characters within different parts of a collective soul. The story of B’midbar is a story of those voices in our heads that keep us from our promised lands. They are the resistance in our lives. Our higher self in this scenario is what the text calls God. God is not killing people but instead removing the resistance in reaching the Promised Land. Remember, after the report of the spies the people said Let us choose a chief, and let us return to Egypt. [Numbers 14:4] Their point over and over again is to go back to the way things were, even if they were horrible. Such thoughts must be eliminated, and that is what is happening in the story of the wilderness.
I thought about that when my 3-year old nephew was moving around some small kid-size beach chairs lately. He wanted to stack them on top of one another, and as often is the case, instead of stacking them, he began to whine two words: “I can’t.” over and over again. Being three years old he had a valid point, but how often do we keep that three year old whine within us, even when we are 40? In Hebrew, the spies whine of lo nuchal, “we can’t” dooms them, just as Caleb’s yachol nuchal, we surely can allows him and Joshua to enter the Promised Land. The greatest monster of all, the killer of 600,000 people is two simple words “I can’t.”
When I was thirteen, I said those words many times. I was painfully shy. “I can’t go up to the grocery counter and buy something” “I can’t ask someone for something” “I can’t go up in front of others and talk.” The boy in the powder blue three-piece suit and messy hair would rather not have a bar mitzvah speech than speak in front of maybe twenty five or thirty other people as his very small bar mitzvah. Since he was so shy he had no friends, indeed he was so shy it was easy for others to hurt him for fun and throw him to the bottom of pre-teen social pecking orders, and so he hid. He became the completely isolated 14 year old computer geek I talked of last week. In other circumstances, maybe the isolation would have spiraled down to my own complete destruction. There were two stubborn dogs who wouldn’t allow that, who kept telling me I could accomplish great things if I only put my mind to it. My own internal Caleb and Joshua are always at it.
They were at it last Friday morning too. Once again this is posting late, indeed I’m writing this first somewhere over Kansas Friday morning, and then in a Tucson Starbuck’s. I have for the last three years been presenting at my national professional society. This year I’m not presenting once, but presenting three times, and moderating several more. For someone who couldn’t bear to be in front of four congregants and some family, to get up in front of hundreds is quite ironic, and I have to give my Caleb and Joshua a pat on the back for getting me here. But there was a moment this morning in the airport where I felt afraid. And like some junkyard dog (Caleb means dog in Hebrew by the way) Caleb was there beating the fear down. He was jumping on it and tearing it to shreds with the teeth of a rabid animal. The fear disappeared. I was ready for this trip even if I’m not as prepared as I’d like. Caleb is sure that I walk in to the sessions I’m presenting, including the one on public speaking, knowing the consequences can only be good.
I once said “I can’t” to being any good at art. A lot of people have. But most kids don’t flunk art in elementary school, or even ridiculed by the teacher for his work. Besides the usual “I can’t,” I also have some slight disabilities, including color blindness which makes art harder for me. But it did not stop me, as I was reminded by an art teacher of mine who thought I should go for my MFA. I’m still learning art, but I know I can do art, even when the results are not what I exactly wanted.
Once you say “I can’t,” It’s hard to take it back. We see this with the Israelites, who being told they are to die in the wilderness over forty years go ahead and try to ascend anyway.
44. But they presumed to go up to the hill top; nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not from the camp. 45. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that hill, and defeated them, and pursued them, even to Hormah. [Numbers 14:44]
Amalekites are the notorious cowards of the Bible. They only attack anyone who cannot fight back. This is an indicator of the kind of people who tried to ascend. Once the people said “I can’t” they never really believed they could. They were the weak that the Amalekites picked off easily. Their weakness was in God not being with them – they still did not believe they could ascend to the land, so they fought half-heartedly. Whether it is loving God or perusing your goal of your personal promised land, there is only one way to do so: with all your heart, soul and might. When they do not do this, they set themselves up for a failure.
With all the successes I’ve had, there are also failures, and most of them come down to this lingering “I can’t.” Much of the resistance in keeping on a diet is this lingering “I can’t.” The cravings are bred from a self image that we can’t be successful with maintaining weight. For me, I cannot get it into my head that I could actually date, there are always doubts that I could find a partner. The shy kid I once was is still lingering there; my old identity from my teen years of the lowest on the social order still restrains me from being as sure of myself in dating as I am while speaking to hundreds. Even my inner Caleb fails to control these nagging thoughts. Some destroy themselves, but some are more insidious. They create rebellions inside.
Next portion we’ll see that rebellion come to a head by a very bald head.

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