This week’s parashah is a turning point for our people, and not a good one. Astonishingly enough, the journey from the foot of Mt Sinai to the edge of what the Torah calls the Land of the Promise is relatively very short: our ancestors began to journey in last week’s parashah and already they have arrived.
So what took so long? Why did it take forty years to make a trip of a few months, at most? (When I was in rabbinical school in Jerusalem in 1986 a few of my classmates and I took advantage of the relatively new peace with Egypt to travel from Jerusalem to Cairo: it was a 12 hour bus ride, with stops.)
The scene is this: the people are camped in the wilderness of Paran, and Moshe sends twelve leaders, one from each tribe, ahead to scout out the land. The scouts come back with a mixed report: some say the land looks inviting, and others share their fear of the local inhabitants.
At this moment the Israelite people seem to collectively lose their minds. All their fears, realistic or not, come pouring forth:
וַיִּלֹּ֙נוּ֙ עַל־מֹשֶׁ֣ה וְעַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֔ן כֹּ֖ל בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַֽיֹּאמְר֨וּ אֲלֵהֶ֜ם כׇּל־הָעֵדָ֗ה לוּ־מַ֙תְנוּ֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם א֛וֹ בַּמִּדְבָּ֥ר הַזֶּ֖ה לוּ־מָֽתְנוּ׃ וְלָמָ֣ה יְ֠הֹוָ֠ה מֵבִ֨יא אֹתָ֜נוּ אֶל־הָאָ֤רֶץ הַזֹּאת֙ לִנְפֹּ֣ל בַּחֶ֔רֶב נָשֵׁ֥ינוּ וְטַפֵּ֖נוּ יִהְי֣וּ לָבַ֑ז הֲל֧וֹא ט֦וֹב לָ֖נוּ שׁ֥וּב מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃
All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness!” “Why is יהוה taking us to that land to fall by the sword?” “Our wives and children will be carried off!” “It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” (Num. 14.2-3)
The midrash which expands the meaning of this account gets to the heart of the matter: there is no trust.
They [the people] said to them [Moses and Aaron]: ‘You are not trustworthy for us; our brethren [the scouts who shared their fear) are more concerned about us than you are,’ (BaMidbar Rabbah 16.21).
Torah here teaches us several truths: first, that trust in a community is not easily created, nor maintained, in the face of fear. Second, that a group of Jews (never mind the non-Jews, that’s a different teaching) can completely lose their mind – and destroy their community – over Israel without ever having set foot there.
And this is where we are this week ourselves: long before October 7 the actions of the State of Israel have been causing communities of U.S. Jews to experience divisiveness. Some Jews reach the conclusion that Israel is the least safe place for Jews rather than the haven the early Zionists sought to create; others side with feelings and center intergenerational trauma as if it excuses every act. Many Jews reject the idea that Israel should be given a pass on the occupation of Palestine, and some Jews seem to wish to “go back to Egypt” and forget there is a land to which all Jews will always be connected, since our culture comes from there.
Since World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel, the institutions of the U.S. Jewish community have known that the two reliable ways to rally any local Jewish community together was to invoke either the Holocaust or Israel. Over three generations, more and more of our inspiration and emotion was outsourced to these two historic events. And it was so easy.
The story of the scouts teaches us that these days are testing whether we are a community worthy of the name.
אַ֣ךְ בּ-ה֮’ אַל־תִּמְרֹ֒דוּ֒ וְאַתֶּ֗ם …אַל־תִּירָאֻֽם׃
only you must not rebel against ‘ה’. … ‘ה will be with us. Have no fear!” (Num 14.9)
A Jewish community can rest assured, and let go of fear, only when we act to keep the sense of the Presence of HaShem with us; this is what is meant by not rebelling.
In other words: out of fear we may permit ourselves to commit lashon hara’, in that we become unreasonably angry and hurt each other with words. We may go further and practice cancel culture, cutting ourselves off from those who don’t agree with us over Israel by leaving communities where we have long relationships and have weathered much together. And we may go so far as to commit what our ancestors called a crime akin to murder, ona’ah, oppression of others through words or acts, tearing down reputations and causing others to hate.
During my fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine in March, I witnessed real community: Israelis and Palestinians who struggle together for shared trust and hope in a better common future, practicing the mitzvot of respectful communication, mutual caring, and the benefit of the doubt. Those Jews, Muslims and Christians who are there and suffering the most are demonstrating better than we at our comfortable distance what it means to build resilient community.
A community that falls apart over our homeland, a place where most of us have never been, is a sign that it is no community at all. Our ancestors were incapable of learning this lesson and so they died in a wilderness of meaninglessness and of failure. Nowhere in our Torah are we commanded to love the state of Israel more than we love each other; that is idolatry.
The prophets call us out over and over again for being too willing to worship whatever our eyes and hearts find compelling. Israel is, literally, neither here among us in our community: nor there, for many of us who are still considered perfectly good Jews. In a healthy community we cannot excuse our behavior with the idea of intergenerational trauma, nor, comparably, should we excuse Israel’s faults in the same way.
These are the days when we are offered the greatest test of all: do our acts have the integrity of our ethics? Only when we can say yes will we be able to go forth together, as a community that supports each other, toward whatever will be.
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 