Holy Land of Presence | Parshat Shelakh L’kha

Parshah Summary – P’shat (literal level)

The parshah begins with the Children of Israel encamped in the wilderness of Paran, and Moses sends out twelve spies to the land of Canaan. After forty days, they return with great reports, carrying some of the land’s bounty: an enormous cluster of grapes, a pomegranate and a fig. But, ten of the spies warn that the inhabitants of the land are giants and warriors; only Caleb and Joshua insist that the land can be conquered. The people side with the ten naysayers and complain that they would rather return to Egypt. In response, Hashem decrees that the entire present generation of the Children of Israel will wander in the desert for forty years until they all perish, and only their offspring will enter the Promised Land. When they hear this news, a group of them storms a mountain on the border, but they are swiftly defeated by the Amalekites and Canaanites. Hashem then gives mitzvot about the offerings of grain, wine and oil that their descendants should bring when they enter the land, as well as the mitzvah to consecrate a portion of dough when making bread, which is the origin of challah. Finally, a man is found gathering sticks on Shabbat. In response, the mitzvah of tzitzit, which are special fringes worn on the four corners of garments, is given as a bodily reminder of the mitzvot.

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Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching

​שְׁלַח־לְךָ֣ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְיָתֻ֙רוּ֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן אֲשֶׁר־אֲנִ֥י נֹתֵ֖ן לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל
 אִ֣ישׁ אֶחָד֩ אִ֨ישׁ אֶחָ֜ד לְמַטֵּ֤ה אֲבֹתָיו֙ תִּשְׁלָ֔חוּ כֹּ֖ל נָשִׂ֥יא בָהֶֽם׃

Send for yourself people to spy out the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Children of Israel, one person from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send, each one a leader among them... 
- Bamidbar (Numbers) 13:2, Parshat Bamidbar​

​On the literal level, the Children of Israel stand on the threshold of entering the land, and scouts are sent ahead to investigate. Why is this land is so crucial to the tradition? Because it points to an inner reality – the “land” before which you and I now stand at the threshold. There is a hint in the verse recited before each chapter of Pirkei Avot:

:וְעַמֵּךְ כֻּלָּם צַדִּיקִים לְעוֹלָם יִירְשׁוּ־אָרֶץ
And your people are all tzaddikim; forever they shall inherit the land.
- Isaiah 60:21
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The verse connects the idea of the people tzaddikim with their eternal connection with the land. But in what sense are “all” the people tzaddikim? A tzaddik is a spiritually perfected person, and all Jewish people are obviously not spiritually perfected. And yet, according to our tradition (and according to your own experience, if you take the time to notice) there is a level of our being that is untainted by our imperfections:

:אֱלֹהַי, נְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּתַתָּ בִּי טְהוֹרָה הִיא
My God, the soul that You have placed within me is pure.

Beneath all of our shifting thoughts and feelings, beneath our imperfect personalities, there is a dimension of being that remains untouched: the n’shamah, or soul. The n’shamah is not ambiguous or debatable; it is the awareness that reads these words right now. All experience appears and within it and disappears back into it, yet it is not diminished by any perception; in this sense, every person is already whole at this deepest level of being. And this is why the “tzaddik” inherits the “land” – free from the seductive and dramatic pull of thoughts and feelings, one comes “home” to the present moment; the “Holy Land” is, it turns out, always the place upon which we now stand.
What keeps us from entering it? 
In the story, the spies report that the land is inhabited by giants. They are unable to muster the strength to enter the “land” because they fear the “giants.” But for us, the “giants” are fear! Fear, anxiety, judgement, resentment, and the persistent sense that something is wrong with our situation or with ourselves—these are the “giants” that block a deeper intimacy with life. But there is a way through these obstacles:

:רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל הָיָה אוֹמֵר: עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וְהִסְתַּלֵּק מִן הַסָּפֵק
Rabban Gamliel used to say: Make for yourself a teacher, and remove yourself from uncertainty.
- Pirkei Avot 1:16

The simple meaning of this aphorism is that a teacher can help us navigate confusion. But on a deeper level, Aseh l’kha rav, “Make for yourself a teacher” means: make whatever is present into your teacher! Furthermore, v’histalek min a safek – “remove yourself from uncertainty” doesn’t mean that we learn more stuff; it means we should stop fixating on what cannot be known. Anxiety thrives on uncertainty because it continually asks questions that have no certain answer. To be anxious is to be tangled in the web of uncertainty, ignoring what we actually can know: the truth of this moment, as it is – the actual flow of life as it is happening, now. 
When we allow present experience to become our teacher, attention begins to return from imagined futures and unresolved scenarios, into its own inherent Wholeness. We become students of what is rather than prisoners of what might be.
Caleb and Joshua represent this deeper realization, and so stand apart from the other spies: 
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...אַךְ בַּיהוָה אַל־תִּמְרֹדוּ וְאַתֶּם אַל־תִּירְאוּ אֶת־עַם הָאָרֶץ כִּי לַחְמֵנוּ הֵם
Do not rebel against Hashem, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are our bread…
 -Numbers 14:9

What does it mean that “they are our bread?”
The very obstacles we fear can become nourishment when we meet them consciously. Fear itself can remind us to return to Presence. Anxiety can become a signal that attention has wandered into an imagined future; emotional pain can be the beacon back to ecstasy. Seen in this way, the “giants” are no longer our enemies; they become our teachers.
The “land” is always here. The invitation is always present. The question is whether we will listen to the fearful voices that insist we cannot enter, or whether we will learn to trust that deeper dimension of ourselves: “Your people are all tzaddikim; forever they shall inherit the land.” That is, we come into the sacred ground of this moment through this very simple act of paying attention.