Scouting for the Best Response

 Half a year later…

The past six months have been filled with new friends, Shabbos dinners, concerts, explorations around NYC, a trip west (Arizona & California), a fabulous birthday party, dissertation work, a new job, new commute, new realities, new joys, new fears, new mourning, and a continued gratefulness for health and abundant life amidst uncertainty.

The busyness mixed with the highs and lows of this season have stymied my writing, but I’d also like to return to some parsha reflection, inviting a sense of grounding in a season of turbulence (for so many of us). Perhaps while we can’t make sense of the lands in which we find ourselves, we can ponder the new land into which the [Hebrew] community were taking a scouting glimpse.

In Parashas Sh’lakh, scouts representing leaders from each of the twelve tribes go into Canaan, literally sent out of the wilderness (מדבר), into the desert (נגב), and finally ascended the heights/mountain (עליתם את-ההר). Moshe asks them a series of questions meant to understand what kind of land Canaan is, including:

Are the residents strong or weak? Few or many?

Is the country/land good or bad/evil?

Are their towns in an open space or fortified?

How about the agriculture? What is the soil like? Are there trees and forests?

The final request Moshe makes is for the scouts to return with fruit of the land, which is followed in the text by a note that the first-fruits of the grapes were just ripening at the time.

The text then follows their trek through Zin, to Hebron, and into the wadi (נחל) Eskhol (named for the cluster of grapes the scouts took from there, complemented by pomegranates and figs). Forty days passed, and the scouts return to the community with their observations, namely that the land is rich but the people are powerful, and they fear a fight for the land.

There are many discussions available about this text, involving land rights, power balances, literary criticism about the two scouts who urge the community to go in and take the land…but this week, what calls out to me is the trepidation that often accompanies the first reactions we have to difficult situations and terrible news, and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies fear.

In the parsha, we read about the fear and powerlessness spreading through the entire community. When we mourn losses in the realm of society (legal, political, religious, etc.), there is often a feeling of communal grief, but digging away the layers of sadness uncovers a timidity and helplessness that we have to process and continually climb over to find collaboration and communal work against our woes.

While the last six months have been a season of joy for many of us as we appreciate new friendships, the hope of a brighter future, and warming weather, there is also the reality of a society plagued by a lack of public health efforts (and therefore caring for each other), an imbalance of governmental power and sadly lagging efforts to change the system, and the raft inability to communicate within an embarrassment of communication systems.

Perhaps because of the hope I’ve felt these past few moths, I also more deeply feel the problems which leave me feeling staggeringly helpless upon first encounter. This week’s parsha reminds me of the communal handicap that may occur in the meantime, and leaves me with questions about what to do in response. (I’m not there yet – but that’s what community is for, and I do have hope for those conversations.)

So yes, I’m using this week’s parsha as I work through fear and process the disappointments I harbour about the world and current events. I don’t know what’s next, but I pray for the strength to pursue collaborative action sooner rather than later.