Shelach Lecha – Torah, Parsha & Jewish Teaching - Giants & Grasshoppers: The World We Choose To See

0:00 SPEAKER_00: There's a British man, an American, and a Jew.

0:03 SPEAKER_00: And they're spies and they're working together and they get caught.

0:07 SPEAKER_00: And they're put in a cell.

0:09 SPEAKER_00: And the guards take the British man and they tie him up and they torture him.

0:13 SPEAKER_00: And after a few hours, he tells them everything he knows and they take them back to the cell.

0:18 SPEAKER_00: And then they grab the American and they tie him up and they torture him.

0:23 SPEAKER_00: And a few hours go by and then he tells them everything he knows.

0:27 SPEAKER_00: And they take him back to the cell.

0:29 SPEAKER_00: And finally they get the Jew.

0:31 SPEAKER_00: And they tie him up and they torture him.

0:34 SPEAKER_00: One hour.

0:35 SPEAKER_00: Two hours.

0:37 SPEAKER_00: Four hours.

0:38 SPEAKER_00: Eight hours.

0:39 SPEAKER_00: They go all through the night.

0:41 SPEAKER_00: The Jew doesn't say a word.

0:42 SPEAKER_00: Eventually they take him back to the cell, and the others are in awe.

0:46 SPEAKER_00: The Briton, the American, they say to the Jew, How did you do it?

0:49 SPEAKER_00: How did you go all that time and not say anything?

0:52 SPEAKER_00: And the Jew turns round and he says, How could I say anything?

0:55 SPEAKER_00: They tied my hands.

1:00 SPEAKER_00: So this week's Pasha, Shalachlacha, think is one of the most troubling, if not the most troubling, in the whole of the Torah.

1:10 SPEAKER_00: Here we are on the precipice of going into Erit Ishrael, with Moshe Rabbeinu as leader, and there's an understanding that if he'd taken us into Erit Ishrael, the Beit Hamidash could never have been destroyed.

1:24 SPEAKER_00: And there's an idea that it would have led to the final redemption.

1:28 SPEAKER_00: And instead, the Moraglim give a bad report, and the people cry all night.

1:34 SPEAKER_00: And of course, famously Hashem then says, Because you cry over nothing, this will be a time when you cry, and of course, this is Tisha Ba'av.

1:42 SPEAKER_00: And we've had thousands of years of Jewish suffering.

1:46 SPEAKER_00: We commemorate on Tisha Ba'av to this very day because of what happens with the Moraglin.

1:54 SPEAKER_00: It's a very, very difficult thing to understand.

1:59 SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Torah is not a history book.

2:02 SPEAKER_00: The Torah is for us today, living now.

2:06 SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what do we learn from the episode of the Moraglin?

2:11 SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to get out of it?

2:13 SPEAKER_00: What are the lessons that we're supposed to take into our own lives?

2:20 SPEAKER_00: Says a famous folk story of the 19th century of two shoe salesmen that go to Africa, and the first one sends a telegram back, and the telegram says, It's a hopeless situation, nobody here wears shoes.

2:38 SPEAKER_00: And the second salesman sends a telegram back saying, What an amazing opportunity, nobody wears shoes.

2:46 SPEAKER_00: And of course, they're seeing exactly the same facts on the ground, but the way they choose to interpret it is completely different.

2:56 SPEAKER_00: And that's our lives, because we live in a world of war and destruction.

3:01 SPEAKER_00: We live in a world of terrorism and natural disasters all over the world.

3:07 SPEAKER_00: And of course, the media perpetuates all the bad things that go on because that's how you sell newspapers and get clicks online and everything else.

3:16 SPEAKER_00: But of course, there's another side to that.

3:19 SPEAKER_00: There's billions of people that get up every single day of their lives, and whether it's by foot or by bike or car or bus or train or plane, they go about their business and they go home safely in the evening.

3:34 SPEAKER_00: And there's brachot all over the place, the clothes that we have on our back, the food on the table, our families, our friends, the fact that every morning we wake up and give it another day of life, as we say Molda Ani.

3:47 SPEAKER_00: And of course, while human beings are flawed, the vast majority of human beings are decent people trying to just get on with their lives and do the right thing.

3:58 SPEAKER_00: And of course, we make lots of mistakes all the way.

4:01 SPEAKER_00: But that's another side of the world.

4:04 SPEAKER_00: And we choose to see what we want to see, and then we choose how we react.

4:09 SPEAKER_00: We can look at the world as a hopeless place with so much violence and destruction and problems and challenges.

4:15 SPEAKER_00: Or we look at the world filled with brachot and say, what can we do to improve it?

4:20 SPEAKER_00: What can we do to make it better?

4:22 SPEAKER_00: How can we make this world a nicer place to live?

4:26 SPEAKER_00: And of course, ultimately, this is the machlokus between Yoshua and Caliph and the other Maruglim, because no one disputes the facts.

4:37 SPEAKER_00: There were giants, there were armies, there were fortified cities.

4:42 SPEAKER_00: These were difficult things.

4:44 SPEAKER_00: But whereas the Moruglim say we can't do this, we can't conquer the land, Yoshua and Caliph say if Hashem desires us, he will bring us to the land, and he will give it to us.

4:57 SPEAKER_00: It was different perspectives on, of course, the same facts on the ground.

5:04 SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is to think about the background of the Moraglim.

5:09 SPEAKER_00: Because the Moraglim had been in Egypt.

5:12 SPEAKER_00: They knew that Hashem had made the promise to redeem us from Egypt, and they saw the plagues, they saw Yetsiat Smith's Rheim, they saw Kriyat Yam Suf.

5:22 SPEAKER_00: They stood at Hasinai, at Matantora, the greatest revelation in the history of the world.

5:29 SPEAKER_00: And of course they were living in the Midbah, where they were enveloped by the Ananea Kavod every single day, and they had the pillar of fire at night, and they were eating the man that fell every day, and drinking from the well of Miriam, and they were wearing clothes that never got old and grew with them.

5:49 SPEAKER_00: So the question is, how did they come to the conclusions they came to when they were living those miracles all the time?

5:57 SPEAKER_00: How did they get there?

6:00 SPEAKER_00: But here's what's interesting.

6:03 SPEAKER_00: Since 1948, we've experienced just a litany of miracles.

6:09 SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle that just a few years after the Holocaust we raised a flag over Eritz Israel.

6:16 SPEAKER_00: And then of course there was the War of Independence, which we had no right to win but did.

6:21 SPEAKER_00: And then the War of 1967 as well, the Six Day War.

6:25 SPEAKER_00: And of course, there's been many wars since.

6:28 SPEAKER_00: And even though we're surrounded by enemies, Erit Ishrael has gone from strength to strength.

6:33 SPEAKER_00: It's now one of the most powerful economies in the world.

6:36 SPEAKER_00: It's thriving, it's contributing so much to the world, despite all the challenges it has.

6:43 SPEAKER_00: And if you look at those five countries that invaded Israel in 1948, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and then if you add Iran into the mix, and of course that doesn't take into account other hostile nations, the total population today of all those countries is 301 million.

7:05 SPEAKER_00: And of course, Israel is 10 million.

7:08 SPEAKER_00: And therefore you're saying there's a ratio against our enemies of 30 to 1.

7:13 SPEAKER_00: And yet we're not just surviving in Erit Israel.

7:16 SPEAKER_00: We're thriving, we're doing so well.

7:18 SPEAKER_00: We're just seeing a litany of miracles all the time.

7:23 SPEAKER_00: And yet what do we say?

7:25 SPEAKER_00: Who's the president of the United States going to be?

7:28 SPEAKER_00: What do our enemies think of us?

7:30 SPEAKER_00: What do the world think of us?

7:31 SPEAKER_00: Let's be careful, let's not provoke anybody.

7:35 SPEAKER_00: These are the conversations of the Moraglim.

7:40 SPEAKER_00: So of course, one of the things the Moraglims say is that we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.

7:51 SPEAKER_00: And the Midrash in Tanchuma has Hashem turned round and say, I can forgive you with saying that you were like grasshoppers in your own eyes, because they're your feelings.

8:05 SPEAKER_00: But how can you say we're grasshoppers in their eyes?

8:09 SPEAKER_00: How do you know how they see you?

8:12 SPEAKER_00: And Hashem says in the midrash, how do you know they don't see you as angels?

8:17 SPEAKER_00: I decide, I put in their minds how they see you.

8:20 SPEAKER_00: You don't know how they see you.

8:23 SPEAKER_00: And why is it so bad that we say we look like grasshoppers?

8:28 SPEAKER_00: Because we were Hashem's partners in the world.

8:31 SPEAKER_00: We're the Koanim of the world.

8:34 SPEAKER_00: We were stood at Matan Torah and were charged with keeping Torah.

8:38 SPEAKER_00: And therefore, when we say we're merely grasshoppers, there's not just a thing about us.

8:46 SPEAKER_00: It shows a slight lack of emuna in Hashem.

8:50 SPEAKER_00: Because we have a tough kid to do.

8:53 SPEAKER_00: We have something special in this world to deliver to the rest of the world.

9:01 SPEAKER_00: So we have to understand where the Maraglin were coming from.

9:06 SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, we've been slaves.

9:08 SPEAKER_00: We've been a slave nation.

9:11 SPEAKER_00: And now we were asking to be asked to take on the most awesome responsibility.

9:17 SPEAKER_00: We are asked to go into Eritz Ishrael.

9:20 SPEAKER_00: We had to stop surviving and start building.

9:24 SPEAKER_00: We had to stop being passengers and start being leaders.

9:29 SPEAKER_00: We had to stop surviving history and start shaping history.

9:34 SPEAKER_00: And of course this was very, very daunting, going into the unknown.

9:40 SPEAKER_00: And it's only because of this that perhaps we can understand what might be the most shocking part of the entire episode.

9:47 SPEAKER_00: When the people ask when they're weeping after the reports of the Moraglim, they ask, would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?

9:57 SPEAKER_00: And you say really?

9:59 SPEAKER_00: To return to Egypt?

10:00 SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?

10:02 SPEAKER_00: The Egyptians enslaved us.

10:04 SPEAKER_00: They killed our children, they murdered our children.

10:08 SPEAKER_00: That if we'd carried on in Egypt with all the slave labor, we would have been annihilated as a people.

10:16 SPEAKER_00: And now you're saying that maybe we should go back to Egypt?

10:20 SPEAKER_00: How can you say such a thing?

10:24 SPEAKER_00: But of course there's a psychological phenomenon, and that is that however terrible a situation is, and of course, Egypt was the most despotic and terrible situation.

10:37 SPEAKER_00: However bad a situation is, it's still sometimes more comforting to for the known, even though it's terrible than to go into the unknown.

10:48 SPEAKER_00: Going into Eritz Ishrael and building a nation and shaping history.

10:54 SPEAKER_00: This was an awesome responsibility that was the unknown.

10:59 SPEAKER_00: And so they panic.

11:02 SPEAKER_00: They don't think they're up to it.

11:04 SPEAKER_00: Can we do it?

11:06 SPEAKER_00: We don't have the armies.

11:07 SPEAKER_00: These are giants.

11:09 SPEAKER_00: We're not going to be able to get there.

11:11 SPEAKER_00: These are the calculations that the Moraglim start to make.

11:16 SPEAKER_00: In light of this, what Yahushua and Kalev say is the most remarkable thing.

11:23 SPEAKER_00: Because they turn around and say, if Hashem desires us, he will bring us to this land and give it to us.

11:31 SPEAKER_00: And it's like they're having two different conversations.

11:34 SPEAKER_00: Because what are the Moraglims saying?

11:37 SPEAKER_00: The Moraglim are saying, we can't take on the giants.

11:40 SPEAKER_00: We're not strong enough.

11:42 SPEAKER_00: These cities are fortified.

11:44 SPEAKER_00: They'll have us for breakfast.

11:45 SPEAKER_00: They'll annihilate us because they're so fortified.

11:49 SPEAKER_00: They know what they're doing, these people.

11:51 SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not going to be possible.

11:53 SPEAKER_00: They've got great armies.

11:54 SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be possible to do it.

11:57 SPEAKER_00: And Yashua and Kalev don't argue.

12:00 SPEAKER_00: You would have thought Yashua and Caliph might turn around and say, no, we can defeat their armies.

12:04 SPEAKER_00: There are ways, strategic ways round the fortified cities.

12:07 SPEAKER_00: That's what you think they would be saying.

12:09 SPEAKER_00: But they don't say that at all.

12:11 SPEAKER_00: They say if Hashem desires us, he will bring us to this land and give it to us.

12:17 SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Maraglim are asking the question, are we capable of conquering the land?

12:24 SPEAKER_00: Yashua and Kalev are asking the question, what does Hashem want from us?

12:32 SPEAKER_00: It's a completely different question.

12:35 SPEAKER_00: Tanakh is full of seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things because of what Hashem wanted.

12:45 SPEAKER_00: Avraham Avinu at seventy-five years old is told to leave his land, leave his father's house, leave his relatives, leave everything he's ever known and ever accomplished, and go to a land that he doesn't know to become the father of a nation.

13:06 SPEAKER_00: Moshe Rabinu.

13:08 SPEAKER_00: Yes, he grew up in Pharaoh's palace, but he's gone to Midian.

13:12 SPEAKER_00: He's working as a shepherd, married man working as a shepherd.

13:16 SPEAKER_00: He's asked to give up that and go back to the greatest empire the world has ever seen and confront the most powerful leader the world has ever known.

13:29 SPEAKER_00: Yeshua is asked to lead Khalishael into Eretz Yishael, seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things because they didn't ask whether they were capable of it.

13:44 SPEAKER_00: They asked what Hashem wanted.

13:47 SPEAKER_00: That was the question.

13:49 SPEAKER_00: Yeshua and Caliph don't have greater faith in themselves, they have greater faith in the one that sent them.

13:59 SPEAKER_00: The giants were big, but Hashem's promises are bigger.

14:07 SPEAKER_00: And so we look at the Maragli and we say, How could they do that?

14:12 SPEAKER_00: But look at our lives, look at ourselves, because every single one of us has an Egypt that we need to leave.

14:20 SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us has a Midbar that we're going through.

14:24 SPEAKER_00: And every single one of us has an Eritrael that we need to get to.

14:30 SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us has Torah and Midot that we need to learn and get better at, and character traits middot that we need to work on.

14:40 SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us has relationships that we need to strengthen, that we need to work harder at, that we need to repair, that we need to get better.

14:50 SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us has challenges that we need to confront.

14:55 SPEAKER_00: And every single one of us has dreams that we need to pursue.

15:00 SPEAKER_00: And how many of us say, oh, we can't do it?

15:04 SPEAKER_00: The timing's not right.

15:05 SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is the time.

15:07 SPEAKER_00: And we see giants and challenges and obstacles.

15:11 SPEAKER_00: And how many of us don't ask ourselves, can we do it?

15:15 SPEAKER_00: But ask ourselves, what does Hashem want from us?

15:19 SPEAKER_00: Because that's the question.

15:22 SPEAKER_00: That's what we learn from the Maragli.

15:25 SPEAKER_00: About our own lives.

15:27 SPEAKER_00: And we also learn it about Khalisrael.

15:31 SPEAKER_00: Because for 2,000 years in Galut, all we had to do was survive.

15:37 SPEAKER_00: That was tough enough.

15:38 SPEAKER_00: But that was the mission.

15:40 SPEAKER_00: And of course, unbelievable Torah has come out of Galut, of course, Tamad Bavli for a start, and many other things.

15:49 SPEAKER_00: We had great gdolin throughout centuries while we were in Galut.

15:55 SPEAKER_00: We built amazing yeshivot.

15:59 SPEAKER_00: Amazing learning and davening took place in all of those places.

16:05 SPEAKER_00: But of course, in 1948, Hashem gave us a whole new set of challenges and opportunities when he gave us Eretz Yisrael.

16:17 SPEAKER_00: And building a nation is harder than building a community.

16:22 SPEAKER_00: And sovereignty is more challenging than survival.

16:26 SPEAKER_00: And redemption demands fraught more from us than exile ever did.

16:33 SPEAKER_00: And in 1967, Hashem gave us even more challenges and responsibility and opportunity because he gave us a united Yerusha lion and he gave us ha bayat.

16:46 SPEAKER_00: And what have we done?

16:47 SPEAKER_00: We've said we don't want to upset our enemies.

16:50 SPEAKER_00: We've got to be very careful what the world thinks.

16:53 SPEAKER_00: We've got to worry about who the president of the United States is.

16:57 SPEAKER_00: These are the conversations and calculations we've said.

17:00 SPEAKER_00: But this is the maraglan.

17:03 SPEAKER_00: The question that we always have to ask ourselves is what's our tough kid?

17:08 SPEAKER_00: What does Hashem want from us?

17:12 SPEAKER_00: The most remarkable thing about this week's Pasha, in some ways, is the way that it starts is also the way that it finishes.

17:21 SPEAKER_00: Of course, it starts with the Moraglin being sent out to explore Eritz Ishrael, and it finishes with the third paragraph of what we now have as the third paragraph of the Shema and the mitzvah of Sitsit.

17:34 SPEAKER_00: But of course, at the beginning of the Pasha, in the first Pasrik pretty much, we have this idea of a Yaturu that, you know, you should go out to explore.

17:44 SPEAKER_00: And then Moshe says, Latur, you should go to seek or to explore or to spy out the land.

17:50 SPEAKER_00: And of course, in the third paragraph of the Shema, the mitzva sits it at the end of the pasha, we have Lotaturu.

17:58 SPEAKER_00: Don't go and explore stray after your heart and your eyes.

18:05 SPEAKER_00: Because the Maruglim only saw the physical.

18:21 SPEAKER_00: What Hashem wants from us, our destiny, and those things that are so important.

18:27 SPEAKER_00: And this is the point of the sitsit and the point of being told not to stray after your heart and after your eyes.

18:34 SPEAKER_00: Because the eyes are amazing.

18:36 SPEAKER_00: They give us so much clarity, we can see things, but the eyes can't see the spiritual.

18:42 SPEAKER_00: The eyes can only see the physical.

18:49 SPEAKER_00: The problem is we're told Shemai Yisrael.

18:53 SPEAKER_00: We're told listen, Israel.

18:56 SPEAKER_00: We're not told to see Israel because seeing is limited from a spiritual point of view.

19:03 SPEAKER_00: Spirituality takes listening, spirituality takes inference.

19:09 SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the best example I've ever heard about this is a dog barking.

19:13 SPEAKER_00: So if you hear a dog bark but you don't see it, you know it's a dog.

19:18 SPEAKER_00: You recognize the sound.

19:19 SPEAKER_00: And you can infer, oh, I know what that sound is, it's a dog barking.

19:23 SPEAKER_00: And you know it.

19:24 SPEAKER_00: You absolutely know it.

19:27 SPEAKER_00: But if someone were to press you in a kind of court of law, let's say, and say to you, are you absolutely 100% convinced that it was a dog?

19:38 SPEAKER_00: At some level there has to be a tiny element of doubt.

19:41 SPEAKER_00: You know it's a dog, but there's an element of doubt because you didn't see it.

19:46 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's our spiritual experience.

19:49 SPEAKER_00: We know, we know Hashem, we see the signs all the time in our own lives, the way Hashem talks to us, the way Hashem guides us.

19:57 SPEAKER_00: We see all the Nisim, all the miracles we've seen since the establishment of Erit Israel in our own lives in the modern world.

20:05 SPEAKER_00: But of course, we we see it, we really infer it.

20:10 SPEAKER_00: Because it's a listening experience, it's not a seeing experience.

20:16 SPEAKER_00: And because when we see, we don't see the spiritual, we can be led astray by the purely physical outlook that we can have.

20:24 SPEAKER_00: And of course, that is the sin, the first sin in the Torah of Adam and Chava.

20:30 SPEAKER_00: Because what does it say about the Eitzadat in Pasha Barashit?

20:34 SPEAKER_00: It says it was a delight to the eyes, it was enticing physically.

20:40 SPEAKER_00: And Adam and Chava forgot who they were.

20:42 SPEAKER_00: They forgot themselves, they forgot their mission, they forgot what it was all about, and they couldn't see the ramifications of negating Hashem's word and eating from the tree.

20:54 SPEAKER_00: And of course, they eat from the tree.

20:56 SPEAKER_00: And what happens?

20:58 SPEAKER_00: Chavah's gonna have pain in childbirth, and Adam is gonna have to toil the land, and death is introduced into the world.

21:07 SPEAKER_00: But what happens after that?

21:09 SPEAKER_00: What is the first thing Hashem does after he tells them about their punishment?

21:14 SPEAKER_00: The first thing Hashem does is clothe them.

21:17 SPEAKER_00: And the Zohar wants to bring down on that, and he says, What did he clothe them with?

21:23 SPEAKER_00: He clothed them with sitzit.

21:25 SPEAKER_00: Because sitzit is the symbol that we have to remind us, a physical reminder, something that we can see that tells us that there is more to life than just the physicality that we see.

21:40 SPEAKER_00: There's more to life than that.

21:41 SPEAKER_00: There's the spiritual as well.

21:44 SPEAKER_00: We have to see beyond the physical.

21:46 SPEAKER_00: And so Adam and Hava got enticed by the physical.

21:50 SPEAKER_00: They forgot the spiritual and they lost paradise.

21:55 SPEAKER_00: The moruglims saw the physical, the giants, the fortified cities, the armies.

22:01 SPEAKER_00: They forgot the bigger picture, they didn't see destiny, they didn't see Hashem's promise.

22:08 SPEAKER_00: They didn't ask what Hashem wanted from them.

22:11 SPEAKER_00: They got caught into the physical world and seeing it through physicality, and they lost the chance of redemption, and they lost Eritz Ishrael for a generation.

22:23 SPEAKER_00: And of course, we have the Gomorrah in Manachot, 43 Ahmed Bet, that tells us the sitzit are a sign, they're a reminder of all the mitzvot we're supposed to keep.

22:33 SPEAKER_00: And the Gomorrah goes on to say, when we see the Techhalet, which is the colour of the sea, the sea then reminds us of the sky.

22:42 SPEAKER_00: And then when we look up to the sky, we're reminded of the Kise Hakavod, the throne of glory of Hashem.

22:48 SPEAKER_00: And then we're reminded of the spiritual.

22:50 SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Gomorrah describes it like that.

22:52 SPEAKER_00: Does it mean we go through that cycle every time we see sit-sit?

22:56 SPEAKER_00: No, but the sitsit are there to remind us there's more to life than physicality.

23:01 SPEAKER_00: More that we just see with the eyes.

23:04 SPEAKER_00: Something bigger.

23:05 SPEAKER_00: And that of course was the mistake the Moraglin made.

23:08 SPEAKER_00: But it's the mistake that we often make today.

23:12 SPEAKER_00: Because when you just hear the chattering in the cafes, or you watch the news on the TV, or you hear the talk of the streets, what is the talk about?

23:21 SPEAKER_00: Who's the president of the United States going to be?

23:23 SPEAKER_00: What do our enemies think of us?

23:25 SPEAKER_00: How we mustn't provoke and upset people.

23:28 SPEAKER_00: But do you ever hear on the news or people talking in the cafes or in the streets saying, what does Hashem want from us?

23:36 SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to be doing?

23:38 SPEAKER_00: What does Hashem demand of us right now?

23:42 SPEAKER_00: That's the question.

23:44 SPEAKER_00: And so the Moraglim saw giants instead of seeing Hashem.

23:49 SPEAKER_00: They saw obstacles instead of seeing our destiny.

23:54 SPEAKER_00: They saw the world as it was and not as it could be.

23:58 SPEAKER_00: And they asked themselves, can we do it?

24:01 SPEAKER_00: instead of asking themselves, what does Hashem want?

24:05 SPEAKER_00: And this Pasha comes to remind us and to teach us that we mustn't do the same.