Parashat Shelach – Inflection Point,

It is difficult to be an innocent reader when we come to this week’s parashah. When we read about Moshe sending the twelve spies to scout the land of Canaan, we already know how it is going to turn out. But it’s worth recalling that this is not knowledge that the protagonists themselves were privy to. As far as Bnai Yisrael knew, they were on their way from Har Sinai to the Promised Land. In fact, the entire Torah narrative from the second perek of Sefer Shemot has been a march toward freedom and independence. It is only as a consequence of the episode of the spies that that particular narrative path is changed. For this generation the journey is over; it will only be resumed for the next generation. The narrative arc turns.

Question: When history is progressing along one path, what is it that brings about an inflection point?

In Bnai Yisrael’s case it is their inability to step into a new future. The straightforward reading of this episode is that Bnai Yisrael are not ready to be free. Despite all the glories they witness on the road to liberation, Bnai Yisrael are afraid. They have physically left bondage in Egypt, yet still they carry it inside themselves.

A second reading of the text locates the spies’ hesitancy in their comfort within the status quo and their anxiety before the unknown. The nation has witnessed God’s presence; they are fed daily and wrapped in the pillar of cloud, warmed by the pillar of fire; they have heard (and seen) God’s voice; they have been chosen as His people. True, there have been less joyous interactions, the complaining, the grumbling, the subsequent punishments . . . .Idolatry with the golden calf was certainly not a high point. But all-in-all, it is a life they know and are used to. According to this view, too, Bnai Yisrael are not ready to move on, they are not willing to be free.

And that is to deny something essential in their humanity: freedom may be a burden, but it is an indispensable one. As Sartre has put it: “Man is condemned to be free.”

And while Bnai Yisrael were turning their back on change, two individuals stood up and said: עָלֹ֤ה נַֽעֲלֶה֙ — “Let us go up” and יָכ֥וֹל נוּכַ֖ל — “We can definitely do it” and “The land is good” and “Do not be afraid.” What made Yehoshua and Calev different? What allows some people to say “we can do this” when others are fearful of moving forward?

We are not really given the answer to this question in the text. Perhaps the Torah needs us to ponder that for ourselves? But I wonder about that question as we come to the end of our school year with so much unknown ahead. I also feel that we, too, are potentially at an inflection point in our own society today. We have seen disturbing images these last weeks. And hopeful ones. But we may be at one of the moments where we can bend the narrative arc toward a better path. Will we embrace the burdens of our freedom? Will we move away from the comforts of the status quo? If called upon can we be a Yehoshua or a Calev?

Fortunately for us, we do not have to act alone, but as our parashah shows there are definitely times when we do have to step forward.