In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

199  thirty-seven Ruach Acheret—Ruach Hakodesh/ Different Spirit—Sacred Spirit Parashat Shelach (Numbers 13:1–15:41) Camille Shira Angel Parashat Shelach tells the story of twelve scouts, one man from each ancestral tribe, who were sent forth to survey the land of Canaan, the land God promised to the Israelite people. The scouts return with a mixed message. While they are enraptured by the possibilities that the land holds for them, “it does indeed flow with milk and honey,” they are also terrified by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Ten of the twelve spies describe the land as a place that devours its settlers and its people. The Anakites, often translated as “giants,” appear enormously threatening. “V’chen hayinu b’eneichem”—“and we must have looked like grasshoppers in their eyes, too.” Scouting the landscape, the ten naysayers are filled with despair as they perceive the resident population as unconquerable. Sizing up their enemies, the Israelites feel minuscule in comparison. The idea of making this foreign land their own becomes impossible to fathom. Even as God has long promised the Israelites that they shall overcome, the spies succumb to doubts and consequently suffer a failure of nerve. Their mission becomes self-defeating. For many of us, as we considered coming out and living our lives as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, it was as if we too were facing an ordeal of epic proportions, a territorial battle for autonomy and self-definition. Likewise, we too were faced with the imposing, if not threatening, dominant culture, the gigantic power and privilege of mainstream thinking. In this passage of Torah, the contrast between the giants and the spies represents a duality between the Normative versus the Other, the Dominator versus the Dominated . The heavy residue of slave mentality veils the spies’ ability to see their own strength and the Divine shield. We do not know what the Anakites think of the Israelites , only what the insecure Israelites think of themselves. Feeling small and powerless , they internalize this deprecation, and it takes a whole new generation before they are able to realize their power. There are many problems when we judge ourselves through the eyes of others, especially those with an agenda for suppression. “V’chen hayinu b’eneichem”—“and we must have looked like grasshoppers in their eyes, too.” In the Hasidic commentary Itturai Torah, the rabbis say that it was a sin for the spies to use those words. 200 Camille Shira Angel Why? The rabbis continued, if you look at imposing people and say that you feel like a grasshopper, that is a reasonable thing to say because it is based on your feelings. But when you say, “We must have looked like grasshoppers in their eyes,” the Itturai Torah chides, “What difference should it make how we appeared to them?” What possible good is there in being concerned about how you appear in others’ eyes? But among the twelve, there were two people, Joshua and Caleb, who filed a minority report. Caleb said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” “We’re not paying attention to how we think we might be perceived in others’ eyes. Yeah, they’re big and we’re about to embark on a task that is huge, but” “yachol, nuchal la,” “we know that we are able to do it.” Seeing ourselves through others’ eyes will not chart the direction that we need to take. Perhaps the “sin”—“avon,” of the ten spies was to acquiesce to fear and lose sight of their authentic power. Internalizing a sense of inferiority, the Israelites lost confidence and became vulnerable to the inner voice of self-doubt and denigration. They felt paralyzed to move forward. After all, these people had been slaves descended from slaves. Their slave mentality, an overwhelmingly arresting sense of insecurity, grossly distorted their sense of being created in the image of the Divine; they felt incapable of creating new identities. This feeling is evidenced by their reaction to the spies’ message; they are initially inclined to return to Egypt upon hearing this news. Paradoxically, it is this sense of insecurity that does indeed reflect our being made in the image of God, and once they recognize this fact, they are able to transcend their insecurity and move forward. Unable yet to come to this realization, the ten spies collude in blaming themselves for not having the necessary attributes to...

Share