DO YOU HAVE DOUBTS IN YOUR LIFE?

My wife left me because I am insecure.
No wait, she's back. She just went to get coffee.
A fat old man looks at himself in the mirror.

It is one of the most tragic episodes of the Jewish people’s journey from Egypt to Israel. After the debacle of the golden calf, after being ambushed by Amalek (Octber 7)…, after national mourning for the death of Aaron’s (our Soldiers) sons, still the Jews are on the cusp of entering the promised land.

There is just one more thing to do. They have heard about this legendary land from their grandparents. Moshe has painted for them a picture of a land flowing with milk and honey, a place to call home after centuries of slavery and wandering. All that’s left is to enter, conquer, and settle it. But first, they need to gather intelligence. What is the topography of the land? What are the people like? What are its vulnerabilities? What is the best way to enter the Holy Land?

Enter the spies—twelve of the Jewish nation’s most prestigious leaders, men of distinction, of intelligence.

They go. They come back. And it is a disaster. They started with a positive:
“We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.”

Then came the dreaded “however.” “However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large.” Caleb tries to divert his fellow spies from negative conclusions, but it is too late. They deliver a despairing verdict:

“We cannot go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are... The land devours its inhabitants....” And then their dramatic conclusion: “We saw the giants...In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”

Chaos ensues. The people lose hope.  (They wail through the night demonstrate @ Kaplan square). The promise of entering the Holy Land is taken from them. Only their children, the next generation, will enter the Promised Land. For the generation led by the spies, it is too late.

Everyone has a take on the spies. It is one of the most analyzed stories of failure in the Torah, and it is not hard to understand why. How could these distinguished leaders fail so spectacularly? But today I want to focus on a fascinating interpretation of the Midrash.

The Midrash zooms in on one small detail of their tragic monologue, and we can understand why. It is the nail in the coffin, so to speak, their final words that closed their speech and sealed their fate. It concludes and relates what the spies told the people upon their return from the Land of Canaan.

How do the spies choose to conclude their report?

“In our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said, “I tolerated that remark, but when they said ‘And so we were in their eyes’ I was aggrieved! Did you know what I made you in their eyes? Maybe I made you seem like angels in their eyes”

What is this Midrash trying to say? When the spies said they felt like grasshoppers, G-d said fine, I can tolerate that. But when they assumed that the inhabitants of the land of Canaan (the giants and the residents) saw them as grasshoppers, no, this is unforgivable. Why?

It is not good to consider yourself a grasshopper, but it has advantages. People sometimes thrive when they have a chip on their shoulder.

The Talmud says that one appoints a leader over the community only if he has a box of creeping animals hanging behind him (he has some skeletons in the closet). Why is that? If he exhibits a haughty attitude toward the community, one can tell him: Turn and look behind you and be reminded of your humble roots. (This is why David’s kingdom lasted while Saul’s did not, as David descended from a family with problematic ancestry, namely Tamar and Ruth the Moabite.

These are powerful words. The greatest danger to leadership is haughtiness. It is losing your simplicity, vulnerability, and humaneness. You take yourself too seriously and can’t laugh at yourself any longer.

Humility isn’t denying your strengths; it’s being honest about your weaknesses. If there is one thing we learn on this incredible journey we call life: the sign of a truly successful individual is humility.

I will only change others, Carol Young said, to the degree I am ready to be changed. Feeling that you are incomplete and have much room to grow, can motivate you and drive you to greater heights of success.

Yes, as Jews we sometimes self-scrutinize too much. We are too introspective and tough on ourselves. Jewish guilt and self-loathing are an age-old tradition. To say that you are a grasshopper in your own eyes is incorrect and excessive, but if you are making that self-assessment with a healthy mindset towards motivation and honesty, then G-d says, “For that, I can forgive you.” 

A deeply spiritually accomplished man, who really held himself in grand esteem, came to the Baal Shem Tov begging him to help him reach the deepest spiritual esoteric heights to the point he would be able to see the Prophet Elijah. The Baal Shem Tov instructed him how to live over the next ten years. The man dedicated himself completely to this work: for a decade he worked on himself, refining his character, liberating himself from negative qualities, cleansing himself from all corruption, and preparing himself for the revelation of the Prophet.

After ten years of intense spiritual labor. Elijah never showed up at his doorstep.

He returned to the Baal Shem Tov, broken, shattered. A sobbing man, he says: Rebbe! Ten years down the drain! Ten years I have worked in vain. All my days and nights of prayer, study, meditation, fasting, and introspection, were futile. I have accomplished nothing.

The Baal Shem Tov responded: how can you say that accomplished nothing? You have accomplished the most difficult task of all: You became humble!...

That’s as far as seeing ourselves as grasshoppers. It is not good, but it can be salvageable. If it motivates me to not stop growing and working on myself.

But when my self-perception causes me to engage in mind-reading, in projecting my assumptions onto others, then I have entered unforgivable territory.

Because while my image of myself may sometimes be a bit excessive in humility, it can serve a positive cause and have a meaningful outcome. I won’t stop climbing. But when I begin imagining that everyone around me thinks I am an impostor, a horrible person, a charlatan, or just a grasshopper, now I become paralyzed by inaction.

You want to be humble? Fine. But not on the world’s account. You can’t allow your insecurity to poison your self-perception to the point that you can’t do your job and deprive the world of the light you were sent to give it.

That is what the spies did when they said, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we seemed to them.” They had no way of knowing how they appeared to the people of the land, but they attributed to them, mistakenly, a sentiment based on their subjective fears.

How, could they wage war if they decided the outcome in advance? How can I conquer my Promised Land when everything thinks I am a loser?

Or as one man once said: “Just because I’m paranoid it doesn't mean the world is not out to get me.”

Rabbi Moshe Hecht is the founder of the first Jewish day school in New Haven, CT. He was an emissary of the Rebbe to build Jewish education in New Haven. In 1974, Rabbi Hecht was suffering from self-doubt and was frustrated with, what he felt was a lack of success in his activity. He felt that his work was useless and asked the Rebbe to send a successful emissary to New Haven, someone with the skills and fortitude to succeed.

Listen to the Rebbe’s response:

“I preempted you and responded even before you made your request. I did precisely as you advised and sent Rabbi Moshe Hecht to your city. It appears from your letter (and from your previous one) that you are unfamiliar with and do not know this person, or the abilities and powers he has been granted. It would be most advisable that you acquaint yourself with him, and immediately everything will change – your disposition, your trust in G-d, your everyday joy, etc.”

Rabbi Hecht stayed till his passing in 1992, and the school is flourishing to this day, now led by his son.

Rebbetzin Basya Garelick was sent by the Rebbe with her late husband, Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelick, to Milan in 1959. After a few years, she penned a letter to the Rebbe saying how unsuited for the job she is and that everyone knows it. The Rebbe’s response, in the form of a three-page letter, included this message: If you want to doubt yourself, and your abilities, that’s your business. But do you think it is right to doubt the one who sent you to Milan and think he made such a terrible error in sending you to Italy?!

Over the next decades, the Garelick couple revitalized Judaism in Italy. They have built over forty Jewish institutions.

This is why G-d takes so much issue with the statement of the spies. It is the most crippling sentiment: I am valueless in everyone’s eyes.

G-d said to the spies: “Maybe I made you like angels in their eyes!”

I have created you. I know exactly who you are, better than you know yourself. And I gave you a mission to do. You are My emissary, My ambassador. The moment you realize that you will also know that people look at you not as a grasshopper, but as an angel.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky