Sermon: Shelach L’Cha: Don’t be a Grasshopper

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 18 September 2012

I don’t know how many of you share with me a major influence on our lives with millions of people around the world of all faiths and none.  I gained an enormous amount as a young man from being part of the Scout movement.  I was a scout in the early 1970’s.

 

The 9th Pinner was a Jewish scout troop which meant that we met in the old building of the Pinner United Synagogue, we used to say the Shema at the end of our meetings and we were much keener on holding gang shows and discos than doing more rugged things like tying knots or whittling woggles, neither of which felt terribly Jewish.    Nevertheless we loved our camping.  We used to go on troop camps, region camps, patrol camps – whenever there was the opportunity.  Its where I learnt to rehydrate soya bean mince – which since we were supposed to keep Kosher as a Jewish scout troop – was our main mealtime staple, that and burnt Jacket potatoes from the camp fire – I can still taste the horrible stuff a quarter of a century later.

 

My family left England for Los Angeles in America at the very beginning of 1977.  So I had to leave the 9th Pinner.  The obvious thing to do when I got there was to join a local Jewish scout troop.  Hopefully I would make new friends, and enjoy returning to the kinds of activities which had made the 9th Pinner so enjoyable.   I went along to one meeting – but really it was not for me – the Scout troop, my parents found for me in Los Angeles was very much into tying knots and whittling exotic woggles, not like the 9th Pinner at all, but horror of horrors their meeting that I attended had as its main focus learning how to cook sirloin steak on a camp fire, this was Los Angeles- I began to feel very nostalgic for soya bean mince and burnt Jacket Potatoes and I never went to another meeting.

 

As I said camping out was very popular among the members of the 9th Pinner – we young scouts tested ourselves against inhospitable surroundings and difficult conditions and came out of it better more confident people.  It is a tradition in which stand the twelve spies of our Torah portion who, scouted out the Land of Israel.   The spies of our Torah portion must have been brave as they set out to walk through the Promised Land knowing that they were not welcome.  Their bravery did not last for long as, aside from Joshua and Caleb, they returned from their mission into the unfamiliar and dangerous territory of the Land of Israel scared, demoralised, pessimistic and faithless.

 

Unlike the 9th Pinner with our Soya Bean mince and burnt Jacket potatoes the spies of our Torah portion had no problem with food – after all they spent forty days scouting out what they admit was a land flowing with milk and honey.  The cluster of grapes which they cut down at the Wadi Eshcol and had to carry on two poles was, according to Midrashic legend, so massive that its grapes provided enough wine for all of the ritual needs of the Children of Israel for the whole thirty nine years of their further wandering in the wilderness – every Kiddush and every libation at the Altar.

 

But also unlike the ninth Pinner camping out in the woods around Hemel Hempstead or at Gilwell Park in Essex the Spies of the Torah portion had to contend with the Anakites.  midrash went into overdrive with the Anakites.  It says in our portion that they were big but just how big and how fearsome were they?  Impossibly tall – Anak means neck and so Midrash speculates that they were big enough to wear the sun as a necklace.  Our portion itself told us that they were big enough to make the spies feel like grasshoppers in comparison.

 

And Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai the sons of the Anakites whom we mentioned – how big and fearsome were they?  Midrash speculated (all Numbers Rabbah 16:11)  that Ahiman was called Ahiman because he used to call out achai man – “which of you my brothers is strong enough to come against me” , Sheshai because he was strong as shayish (marble), and Talmai because wherever he walked he used to plough furrows (telem) in the earth, so massive and strong were his feet.  No wonder the spies returned from the Land of Israel scared, demoralised, pessimistic and faithless.

 

But of course this is an exaggeration?  Tall enough to wear the sun as a necklace!  Ploughing furrows with your feet!  Have you never exaggerated a little bit to get yourself out of something you did not have the courage to do?  Mum I can’t go to school today because I’m feeling really ill.  I can’t run this race because my knee is really killing me.  There’s no point in pitching for this business because they are so much better than we are.

 

Just on a rational note in this rather Midrashic sermon it is thought by Biblical scholars that the reports of giants inhabiting the Promised Land might have been a typical reaction to the Canaanites massive fortress cities – built with stones so big that giants must have built them – like giants might have been supposed to have built the Pyramids or Stonehenge or as the Greeks imagined that their ancient cities  had been built by the one eyed giant Cyclops because surely no man could have moved the massive  stones of the walls of Troy.

 

Because the spies were so pessimistic and managed to spread despair among the Children of Israel, their whole generation was not permitted to be the ones to enter the Promised land – rather a further thirty nine years was to pass before the Children of Israel could enter the Land of Israel.    The Children of Israel could not achieve God’s goal for them without courage, determination, optimism and faith.  They could not attain the Promised Land without a struggle.    And it is the same for each of us in our Jewish lives.  There is no way that each of us can achieve the best from our Judaism without the preparedness to struggle for it with courage, determination, optimism and faith.

 

What is that courage? – the courage to be a little different – to be a person whose Jewish duties mean that you can’t always be wherever your peers are.  That you cannot always follow the majority – if what the majority is doing you cannot accept.  In these days when it seems that the lives of the majority are ruled by the times of social arrangements and the need to go shopping that can mean having the courage to buck the trend – especially in a time based religion which Judaism is – Shabbat is always on Friday and Saturday – whatever is on the telly, even an England match in the Euros!   The festivals always come at their predetermined times – even if you have a meeting at work.

 

What is that determination?  The determination to ensure that your Judaism is well informed. To study Judaism as well as to practice it so that you know why you are doing what you are doing and so that you can open your mind to the possibilities of Judaism beyond those which you have already.  But it is also the determination to try to make the world a better place by doing what you can for the good of others. It is the determination for example that Israel will not be a home for racism against its migrant population.  There are now 40,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Israel– the majority of them from Eritrea, Darfur and Southern Sudan – as well as 180,000 migrant workers who live in Israel.  They are critical to the future economic success of our Jewish state and we should be proud that our state can be a welcoming home – and disgusted at the situation today in South Tel Aviv where a racist Jewish mob has been attacking black refugees indiscriminately.   Our Synagogue’s part of the determination to build Israel continues this week with the first in a series of three sessions led by Yachad, on the terminology of Israeli politics, on myths about Israel today and on squaring the vision of Israel with reality for a positive future.

 

What is that optimism?  We are part of a people, the Jewish people, whose demise has been predicted many times since the times of the ancient Greeks, through the rise of Christianity, through the expulsions in the Middle Ages, through the Pogroms and the Shoah.  We do not disappear.  We are to be optimistic that our future is going to be good and we have the tools in Judaism to make it so, with a religion that helps us to make sense of the world through our moral law, our ability to celebrate the cycle of the year and of life as we do today, our unity and the unity of our God uniting us with all humanity.  Only optimism will see us through – an optimism that we express in every service when we say the prayer – “Trusting in You we hope soon the behold the glory of your might when false gods will vanish  from our hearts.”  And it is  an optimism that must also be part of Synagogue life when presented with new ideas and challenges we must find out how to make them work rather than pick holes in them.

 

Finally what is that faith?  Faith for us is our willingness to search for God – to make time and space to pray, to meditate to open ourselves spiritually.  Yes to trust God to see us and the Jewish people through life under the wings of the Shechinah – the Divine presence.  But it is so difficult for us to comprehend God’s ways so we cannot define our faith by testing God to do what we want to happen or think is right and lose that faith if things do not turn out the way we wish.  No, faith for us is the process of making ourselves open to God – trying to meet with God by doing God’s will, the Mitzvot, our religious duties, and by giving ourselves time regularly to be with God through worship and more.

 

It is entirely possible to be the brave, determined, optimistic, faithful one whilst those around you are being scared, demoralised, pessimistic and faithless.  Joshua and Caleb did so in our Torah portion and our Midrash is full of praise for them – standing up against the other ten spies and saying we can achieve the Promised Land.  Joshua became the leader of the Jewish people and Caleb was greatly rewarded when the Children of Israel finally settled in the Land of Israel.

 

Though the other ten spies said that they felt like Grashoppers in the eyes of their possible opponents – Caleb and Joshua recognised that the will to succeed was in their hands not in the hands of those who opposed them.  So it must be for a small people with a great heritage such as the Jews, for a small nation facing seemingly impossible challenges such as Israel, for a small part of the Jewish people with a wonderful way to include all Jews in a non-judgemental and open congregations such as Reform Judaism, and for each of us beset with the challenges of the busy world around us.