SHELACH 5782

We Don't Write The Script

In today’s parsha, we find what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks refers to as, “the greatest collective failure of leadership in the Torah.” 10 of the spies whom Moses had sent to spy out the land came back with a report that demoralized the nation (Num. 13:27-33): We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large...We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are... The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height...We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.

This was nonsense, and they should have known it! They left Egypt—the greatest empire in the world—after a series of plagues that brought it to its knees. They crossed the seemingly impenetrable barrier of the Red Sea. They fought and defeated the Amalekites—a ferocious warrior nation. They sang at the sea: The peoples [of the world] have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away.

They should have known that the people in the Promised Land were afraid of them—and not the other way around. In today’s Haftorah, Rahab confirmed this to the spies Joshua sent 40 years later (Joshua 2:10): I know that Gd has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how Gd dried up the water of the Red Sea before you…and what you did to the 2 kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sichon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.

By telling the people, “We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them,” theses spies failed as leaders. If they were really midgets compared to the giants they encountered, why didn’t they say, “and we were like grasshoppers compared to them?” why did they say, “We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” This is what psychology today calls “projection.” How you feel about yourself is what you project to others. How you feel about yourself is how others will see you.

The spies were sent to inspect the Promised Land, to determine how best to conquer it, and to report how wonderful it is so that the people would get excited about going there. Their grave mistake was that they went beyond their mission and came to the conclusion: we cannot do it! They violated the most sacred quality of life: the confidence that we can face life’s challenges.

Every one of us has learned the hard way that life can be difficult and challenging. Yet, belief in Gd means that Gd would not give us challenges unless we had the capacity to face and overcome them. One who believes in Gd never asks WHETHER he can do it. A believer only asks: HOW he can do it?

When our inner confidence erodes or is lacking, then the forces around us look formidable. When the spies saw themselves as insects, then the “giants” also saw them that way. The spies exposed their own weakness. It was not that they could NOT conquer the land. They only PERCEIVED that they couldn’t do it. When you think you cannot, then that becomes your reality.

Joshua and Caleb were the only 2 spies that didn’t partake in the mutiny. When they heard the other spies’ report, they objected saying (Num. 13:30): Ki yachol nuchal la (WE CAN CERTAINLY DO IT!); we can enter the Land as Gd promised us. How were they different than the other spies? They connected with Gd. Moses prayed for Joshua, and Caleb went to the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron to pray at the gravesite of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

You see, when you connect with Gd, it empowers you. Connecting to Gd through prayer and with appreciation of what Gd has done for us in our past, gives us the power to overcome the challenges of the present. When you’re stuck in a pit overwhelmed by difficulties, you can’t solve the problem alone. You need someone to throw you a rope to get out. The Talmud (Berachot 5b) teaches: “A captive cannot release himself from prison.” Being in a pit you can’t free yourself. By connecting to our ancestors, by connecting to Gd—we attach ourselves to a force beyond ourselves and beyond our circumstances. And this connection gives us the ability to transcend the immediate hardships and overcome our challenges.

Chassidim say, “When you are bound above, you do not fall below.” We may be small, but a midget that stands on the shoulders of a giant—when we stand on the shoulders of the generations before us—we can see farther than the giant.

My friends, no message is more important today. Our world faces an uncertain future—enemies of humanity killing innocent people in the Ukraine, in Israel and in the classrooms of America. Do we have the confidence to overcome these challenges? If we face them armed with Gdly values, if we act Gdly, we will surely overcome.

What about the challenges of our personal lives? Let me tell you about one my mentors, Rabbi Mordecai Goldstein of the Diaspora Yeshiva z”l. I remember once while I was visiting him, he was making a wedding for his daughter. He booked a hotel in Jerusalem and sent out invitations to hundreds of people and scholars. However, since his institutions were always scraping for money, he had no idea how he was going to pay for the wedding. But this holy man had such faith!

         The week before the wedding he kept a stiff upper lip and seemingly out of the blue, someone knocked on the door of his office. He had been going through one of the small museums Rabbi Goldstein had on Mt. Zion, Jerusalem, and found an artifact that caught his eye. The Diaspora Yeshiva occupied 800-year-old buildings from the time of the Crusaders and often would find such artifacts. The man offered to buy the artifact. Rabbi Goldstein didn’t think it was worth very much, but he asked him how much he was willing to pay. The man said, “$25,000.” Precisely the cost of the wedding! I was there. I saw it!

Now you don’t have to be a holy man like Rabbi Goldstein to have this kind of experience. I read about a couple who had lost both lost their jobs. They were about to lose their house. They started selling off their possessions. They got so desperate they put everything they had on eBay with pictures. Somehow word got out that the reason they were selling was that they were trying to pay their mortgage and save their house. A woman in another state bid $20,000 and her bid, by far, was the highest. When they went to make arrangements to have the furniture shipped, the woman said, “I don’t want your furniture. This is a gift so you can keep your house.” They had never met this woman, never talked to her before. That was such an unexpected chesed moment. 

You may be facing situations where you don’t know how you’re going to get through it, or how you could accomplish your dreams. That’s ok, Gd has it figured out. Remember this well and life will be much easier for you. You don’t write the script of your life, you just play your part! (Repeat) In our individual life scripts Gd has already lined up the right people, the right opportunities and the right solutions to our problems. Just like with Rabbi Goldstein and this couple, at the right time you’re going to come into your moment of chesed—Gd’s kindness.

I believe our shul is now being challenged. Yes, it’s a really great shul as it is, but we are stagnating and not growing as we should. I think Gd is challenging us to grow closer to Him…and part of that includes a full mechitza. This is not the time to go into the many reasons why I think so. Read the email I sent a few days ago and come to tomorrow’s Annual Meeting on Zoom at 10am, and you will learn more. But it is time to make this move, and trust in Hashem that this will be another chesed moment.

This week’s Torah portion teaches us that the question is not whether we can face life’s challenges, but how? We have a choice to be overwhelmed, confused by the difficulties around us, or to overcome and grow through them. Will you see yourself as an insect, or as a messenger of Gd? It’s all up to you. But know, that no matter how daunting the challenge, by connecting to Gd, we have the power to enter and settle in the Promised Land. Know that you control the process. How you see yourself is how the world will see you. So, my friends, travel life with confidence and strength of purpose knowing that if you to what you can to draw closer to Gd, He will always have your back. Amen!

BEMIDBAR EREV SHAVUOT 5782

Names are important. We believe that when parents give a child a Jewish name, they do so with Ruach HaKodesh (with the Divine Holy Spirit), and therefore, contained within one’s Jewish name is a connection to one’s destiny. If you want to find out more about your name and destiny, let me know, I’ll look it up for you.

For generations, ancient Egyptian Jews were viewed as objects—as lowly slaves whose existence was controlled by taskmasters. They were dehumanized...and it was very difficult to retain their humanity, self-respect, and dignity.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the census of the Jews in the wilderness. The Torah specifies that those who were to be counted in the census were to be identified by their names and families. This was a dramatic way of telling them:

“You have names; you have families; you are dignified human beings; you are not chattel; you are not nameless slaves; you are not objects. That’s why we celebrate our Jewish names with a baby-naming ceremony.

And it’s not just people. The name of a product, a company, a person is supposed to be the cover that represents the inner dimension within. Remember a couple of years ago when SunTrust and BB&T announced they were merging and changing their name to Truist? The name was intended to give the bank a single, fresh identity—no doubt implying “true” and “trust,” something that is important for one’s bank to have.

Tonight, we will usher in Shavuot where we will celebrate the giving of the Torah. It’s the one day in the history of humanity where Gd revealed Himself and handed us the book that changed the world. Charley Harary asks: You would think the name would be pretty impressive? You would think the name would be something like, Yom HaTorah (Torah Day) or Yom HaGadol (The Great Day)—something to give true manifestation to that which is within it. But it’s not. What’s the name? Shavuot! Why? because we count shavuot (weeks) till we get there. But weeks is just the middle. The weeks are unimportant. The end is important—getting the Torah! It’s like a bride and groom counting the days till their wedding. It’s the wedding that’s important. But when we get to the destination of this holiday that’s so important, we count every day and every week, we don’t call the destination “The Day of Torah,” we call it Shavuot (Weeks). Why? It doesn’t make sense!

The weeks after the 1^st Passover and the Exodus were for getting to the destination—receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai. When you get there, you go back and call it Weeks? It sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine. Imagine going to the Super Bowl and they rename the Super Bowl “The Season?” No, the season was to get to the Super Bowl. Why in the world would the Jews get to the mountaintop and forever remember the middle and not the end of the weeks. Why call this holiday Shavuot, “weeks” and not “The Day of Torah?”

One of the great mistakes we make is that we look at our holidays and think Gd gave them to us to commemorate past events. It’s like Thanksgiving. Why do we have Thanksgiving? because a long, long time ago, the Pilgrims and the Indians got together…and they had turkey and cranberry sauce, and they watched football. And so that’s what we Americans do. We think that it’s the same for us—just a little holier. We matzah on Passover; we sit in booths on sukkot; we learn Torah all night on Shavuot. We do things that our ancestors did. We think our holidays are our commemorations of previous events.

However, it’s not true! Our holidays are not so much a commemoration of previous events. Our holidays are our outlets of spirituality. They are moments in time where Gd has us look past the physical world and tap into a spirituality that was manifest once in a very big way in our history…but is then manifest every single year again and again. Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler in his Michtav me-Eliyahu writes that our Yom Tovim, our holidays, are not merely events we commemorate; they’re spiritual events for us to go through now.

Let me share with you a story about an American holiday which is coming soon: Father’s Day. When my kids were young, one Father’s Day I came downstairs in the morning, and my kids had made breakfast for me and set the table as best they could. Right in front of my seat was a card my wife had gotten. She had all the children sign it. It was very nice. I sat down and they declared: “Happy Father’s Day.” Wonderful!

And then I saw next to the cards a piece of construction paper scribbled all over it. “What’s this?” I said. And one of my kids said to me, “It’s from me, Dad.”

And I said, “Well, what is it?

          He said, “I wanted to give you something for Father’s Day and I didn’t want to just give you mommy’s card. I wanted to give you my own card.” He looked at it and realizes that it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as the other ones and says, “I’m sorry if it’s an ugly card Daddy.”

I turned to him sand said, “Honey, this is the greatest card I’ve ever gotten in my entire life.”

Children think that parents want what they give them. Husbands and wives make that mistake too. It’s not the gift you give. It’s the person, the love that’s attached to it. Kids scribbling on a piece of paper is much more than anything in the world.

Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef in his book, Yalkut Yosef, wrote, “When Moses came down to Egypt, he told the Jews what was going to happen…that as we get out of Egypt, 50 days later you will see Gd.” Do you know what happened when they left? They started counting. They said, “O my Gd, only 50 days left…49 days left…18 days left.” They were so excited, they counted each day and each week!

Gd looked and said, “They’re counting weeks to see Me? Do you know what I’ll call My day? Shavuot (Weeks)! Shavuot, because of YOUR weeks, because of your desire, because of your interest, because you’re trying to get to Me.”

My friends, Shavuot to me is really about the scribbled construction paper. It’s how badly you wanted to be with Gd. It’s not just the commemorating of the giving of the 10 Commandments. In fact, the original tablets of the 10 Commandments didn’t really last very long. When Moses came down the mountain and saw the people worshipping the Golden Calf, he threw them down and destroyed them.

Shavuot commemorates something much deeper. Shavuot is the moment when Hashem married the Jewish people. In fact, legend has it in the Midrash that Mt. Sinai was lifted above the people as a chuppah, and the 10 Commandments were the Ketuba. When Gd offered the Torah—in effect saying, “Marry Me”—the Jews answered, Naaseh v’nishma (We will do and we will obey)…in other words, “I do! I will!”

What Shavuot really commemorates is the beginning of the relationship we Jews have with Gd that manifests in Torah and mitzvot and in our personal relationships. Shavuot is not the “ends” or goal of anything; it’s the means.

You don’t come to your 50^th wedding anniversary and say, “Well we reached it; we’re here. Somehow, we put up with each other for 50 years.” No, the celebration is about the relationship, about the work you put in along the way. Every relationship is a manifestation of all that happened before and who you’ve become because of it. 

When we celebrate Shavuot, Gd is asking us every single year, “Do you know what I want from you? All I want is a relationship.” No matter where you are on the spectrum of Jewish observance and commitment, the goal of Shavuot—our wedding anniversary with Gd—is to reconnect with Gd.

So, one of the greatest things we can do on Shavuot is to spend a few minutes just feeling the joy of being a Jew—the pride of Gd having given the Torah to us—and therefore this year, to make a commitment and say, “I’m going to shine in my relationship with Gd. I’m going to shine in my Torah study. I’m going to shine in my doing mitzvot this year, and get closer to Gd.

 My friends, let’s lock it in now—commit ourselves before Shavuot is over saying to Gd, “I’m telling you Hashem, I’m going to meet you every morning for a few minutes and connect. I’ll daven, maybe even put on tefillin. Every night I’m going to take a few minutes and learn some Torah. So, when I meet you here next year at the top of the mountaintop of Shavuot, my ‘weeks’ between this year and next year are going to be used to get closer to You.”

That’s the goal; that’s the point. Shavuot is the holiday of relationships and how we connect. Every one of us—no matter where we are in life—should stand up on Shavuot as our ancestors stood at Sinai and dedicate ourselves to take a much stronger and deeper journey in our relationship with Hashem. May it be so. Amen!