Shlach: Reacting and Remembering

Our world has been cultivated over the past decade to keep each of us in react mode. Our devices, and the way we use them, are modeled at least in part after technology developed in casinos to trap consciousness. It seizes our attention, waiting for the next ping of the slot machine - whether that's an angry comment on our social media, a text message from a loved one, or an email that will provide us a glimpse into our fate. Those pings draw our eyes, and can cause our hearts to leap, driving our bodies to react before we even make the conscious choice to do so.

This reactivity is at the core of this week's Torah portion, in which a band of spies returns from surveying the promised land. After the long trek, the Israelites have finally reached their destination. And, the spies come back with a terrible message: Ten of the twelve say they do not believe the collective will survive settling the territory. They react to their experience without remembering the whole of their journey thus far—the miraculous parting of the sea; the water and food in the wilderness; even the revelation at Sinai. Their reaction is based on their estimation of their own capacities; they forget to take into account God's role. The two who dissent from the negative report, Joshua and Caleb, do so on the basis of their believing God will live up to God’s promise. They alone are promised entry into the land, while the generation that reacted will live out its years and die in the wilderness.

This story is relatively well known, but the outcome is less so. The end of the parashah provides one of the most famous examples of ritual mitzvot: The tzitzit, fringes ordained to be worn on the corner of all four cornered garments. God's rationale, a rare occurrence, is also granted:

"That shall be your fringe; look at it and remember all God’s commandments and do them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your urge to stray." Numbers 15:39

The rabbis noted this long ago, and tell us that the heart and eyes are the mediators of the body; they create reactivity without our consent. Just like our eyes are ceaselessly drawn to our various screens, and our hearts respond to the contents of those screens without us even thinking, so too did the ancient Israelites allow their eyes and hearts to determine their path when they strayed. The rabbis provide a parable to help us understand what the other option is:

This is analogous to one cast into the water. The captain extended the rope and said to him: 'Grasp this rope in your hand and do not let it go, as if you let it go, you will have no life.' This, too, is what God said to Israel: "You who hold fast to Adonai are all alive today."' (Deuteronomy 4:4). (Bamidbar Rabbah 17:6)

This is not a suggestion that your belief in God will determine whether you live or die. If we look at the underlying meaning of the parable, God, here, is the source of our solid ground in Torah; it is the rope we can cling to so that we don’t get carried away by our reactions. One needn’t believe in God to believe the Torah can help us to govern our behaviors, and our reactions. Instead, it helps us to focus on doing what we can within our sphere of influence to respond cogently, rather than reactively. May these ancient technologies help us to address our own racing hearts today; and may we remember that something as simple as a fringe can guide us towards a more just and responsive life.