In this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach Lecha, our ancestors allow the intimidating reports from their spies sent into the land of Canaan to discourage them from fulfilling God’s instructions to enter the land and seize it. In fact, the Torah suggests that the Israelites, dismayed by the prospects of invasion, resolve to return to Egypt for safety.
In response, God condemns the Israelites to wander the desert for 40 years, until only Joshua and Caleb—the two spies who protest the Israelite complaints—remain to lead a new generation into Canaan.
The tragic tale of Shlach Lecha weaves a rich fabric containing a multitude of applicable lessons, including the pitfalls of succumbing to fear. As a biological impulse designed to promote individual survival, fear is designed to help the individual organism successfully evade danger. However, to do so, fear obscures potential choices from our mindscape to promote a quick resolution to the danger at hand. Such expedience has a cost: It may lead to rash decisions, like those made by the Israelites, who resolve to return to slavery in Egypt rather than take the time to address and overcome the fears raised by their spies.
Perhaps, the Israelites could have benefited from the litany against fear, presented as a prayer uttered by the Bene Gesserit priestesses in Frank Herbert’s science-fiction classic, Dune:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Like our ancestors, we too discover that, though our fears may be designed to protect us, our instinctive reactions to fear often leave us more vulnerable than taking the time to name and address our fears, so that we may act as our truest and best selves.
—Rabbi Josh Knobel