Guest Sermon by Jason Lever 6 June / 21st Sivan 5786

Parashat Sh’lach L’Cha

Today’s Parasha, Shelach Lecha, covers a very well-known episode of the Israelites’ journey from

Eretz Mitzraim to Eretz Y’Israel – sending the so-called spies out to do a recce of the land and

people. So, these emissaries were sent, one macher (or chieftain representative) from each of the

tribes to scout the land. They return to report back. 12 Jews. Two opinions. Who’d have

guessed…

The majority, whilst reporting positively that Canaan was indeed flowing with milk and honey,

stressed instead how strong were the people they saw there and the large, fortified cities. This fed

into the prevailing pessimistic take that “if only we had died in the land of Egypt” or “it would

have been better for us to go back to Egypt!”.

The brave opinion outliers – the optimists – of the 12 were Caleb and Joshua. Caleb exhorts the

people to have the faith to “go up” and overcome these barriers. The Talmud lauds Caleb’s lauded

exhibition here of self-confidence and sacred audacity, drashing that he is really saying “we can

go up – even to Heaven, if He [God] were to say ‘Make ladders and go up there”. Yet this only

prompts more misgivings from the rest of the emissaries who now remember there were giants

too, who made them look like grasshoppers in comparison.

Joshua has his turn too, reminding the people that it was “an exceedingly good land” and that “the

Eternal will bring us into that Land”.

All to no avail. Many of you will know the rest. God is exacerbated at yet another instance of

mass kvetching and doubt and threatens to spurn them as they have done Him, until Moses

effectively gets their sentence commuted from being struck down with pestilence to having to

wander in the wilderness until a new generation is born to merit the Promised Land.

A little side bar into leadership at this point. While this episode heralds the ascendancy of Joshua

to leader-in-waiting (with his name changed from Hosea to Joshua – by addition of a yud, the first

letter of YHVH – symbolising his future role as Israel’s leader), and destined with Caleb as the

only ones to enter Canaan, we also still see Moses at his best. Rather than merely petition God to

have mercy and be patient with us, Moses ups the ante and makes an extraordinarily bold,

diplomatic-cum-PR case to God that if He disowns or destroys the Israelites now, what message

will that give the world? “It must be because the Eternal was powerless to bring that people into

the land promised them on oath…”

But back to the pessimists’ view of the prospects for continuing on their journey to the Promised

Land eclipsing those of the optimists. I wanted to draw some parallels that occur to me with the

times we’re in as British Jews.

There is more talk about not feeling safe here as British Jews than ever in my lifetime. We’re not

alone amongst our co-religionists elsewhere in the Diaspora facing such a dilemma of residency.

In national radio interviews. In the JC. In novels I’ve read this year by Howard Jacobson and Will

Self (pretty robust types). About a decade or so ago, we were hearing this more from Jews in

France and I felt thank goodness for being this side of the Channel. On my last visit to Israel

earlier this year, I encountered as much concern from family or complete strangers about what life

was like for me back home as I was worrying for them on when the next attack might be coming

from Iran or Hezbollah.

While I’m not going to attempt to analyse the realities versus perceptions, or make any

assessment of real or potential risks, in this dracha, I’d like to share my reflection when

preparing to speak about today’s Parasha that we can maybe identify with the optimists and the

pessimists who took the cues from the reports of opportunities versus dangers ahead of them in

Canaan.

In the pessimist camp, some of us are perhaps sensing the threat of the giants in, collectively,

the marches in Brighton and other cities; the heightened anti-Semitism, explicitly or casually

bound up in anti-Israel sentiment; and of course in the foiled but sadly also actualised fatal

attacks on us in synagogues and other settings that should be safe spaces.

Personally, like many of you I’m sure, I have at times been drawn into this mindset, and cannot

help comparing it to my many times studying, praying and just day-to-day living in Israel

without running the gauntlet of these challenges back home. In my Jerusalem home, the Shuls

have minimum visible security. I walk to my outdoor yoga class in the middle of the city with

my tallit bag for onward prayer. I thrive on proudly donning a kippa like the majority of folks

out and about. And showing off my bright blue Pomeranz Books of Jerusalem bag, that I don’t

use here now.

At the same time, in my optimist hat, I still find much in the “milk and honey” vein of thriving

in Diaspora life here. Drawing strength from a still predominant social culture and collective

values of practising tolerance and that old fashioned word, multiculturalism. Positive support

from governments of different stripes to our security through support to CST and other key

Jewish organisations. A genuine empathy and timely standing together with us by The King.

Above all, the resilience of our community and how so many have stepped up when needed.

I suggest that many of us who feel similarly affected probably vacillate between these two

poles of optimism and pessimism. And I’m certainly not saying, or even hinting, at either

being the “right answer” for our times. That would be like those people who place the highest

value in anti-racism of the lived or felt experience of the person affected by racism, yet

disallowing Jews the same when hate marches and Palestinian badges on NHS doctors feel

hostile and threatening to our daily lives, and contribute to cultivating an anti-Semitic

environment for us.

What I would say is that the Israelites in our Parasha, facing the news from the emissaries,

were not sufficiently ready to commit to the optimists camp. With the aid of Moses’ advocacy

and the nascent leadership potential of Joshua, God did not abandon us then despite our

waywardness if not outright rebelliousness. But He did give the time (40 years, a delay etched

into our tradition’s DNA) for delayed decision-making and ultimate realisation by the

Israelites to stay on the path to the Promised Land despite the hardships and uncertainties. It

just was going to take a new generation arising to commit to the end journey, less encumbered

by that put upon mentality shaped by several hundred years of subservience under Pharoah.

Crucially, doing so because they could focus on faith, developing a Kavanah towards trusting

in God being at their side and weighing up the good and miraculous in the Almighty’s steerage

of them through the Wilderness to be ready to tackle foes and impediments with His protection

and by shifting their mindset to governing themselves within the Mitzvot set out for them.

To reiterate, I’m neither downplaying nor over-egging the way we may or should be feeling

about life in our part of the Diaspora in Brighton; whether to gird our loins (in good Biblical

speak) and stay resilient here or say make the path of Aliyah, whatever other challenges life in

Israel can and will throw at olim, as new citizens claiming their space in our historic

homeland. As The Clash band said in the 80s, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’

To finish, going back to our Parasha, we sing every Yom Kippur, multiple times, the verse you

heard me lein earlier and probably spotted as I attempted to switch to High Holidays nusach

not leining tropes (Adonai erech upaim v’rav hesed nosai avon v’vach’ah; The Eterrnal!, Slow

to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression).

Doing so every year commemorates this seminal milestone of our peoplehood when Moses

spoke up for us to be forgiven, for God to be patient with us until we were ready to make good

on our Covenant with Him to be His people of Israel and follow his ways and be rewarded by

a new and better life in Canaan. Whatever decision we may make now, or down the line, on

our own residency in the Diaspora or Israel, I think we can take some comfort from this

episode that God knows and allows for us not always getting things right first time, and still

being there for us.

And, to mirror Caleb’s sacred audacity, in the words of Israeli Rabbi Raz Hartman, ‘with these

important and essential matters in life, one’s ultimate decision can only come from one’s heart

and soul’.

Shabbat shalom.