WEBVTT

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Shut that son on everybody, it is Jesus.

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We are at the end of the Jewish month of Sidan, which means the next month is the

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On a slow turn…

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which is coming.

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Happy almost summer to everyone.

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in the chat box…

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That was a great time to…

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And we dedicate a room to that.

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Let's take a moment…

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Rachel Maddansky, it's your heathen.

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Indeed.

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Thank you.

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So we seem a happy birthday.

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Okay.

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I mean…

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I suck at your time.

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Who sanctified us from God means more.

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to busy ourselves.

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amongst taller portions, I…

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As we wrote,

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Shabbat. This is the Torah portion.

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Our ancestors reached the place they are going.

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that some of them, many of them,

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ready to go, because they are…

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Famous lines will look like grasshoppers to ourselves.

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So I must have been talking to them.

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There is a poem to get us started.

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It's called Larger Than Life.

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Look, everything about the land is larger than life.

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The grapes there grow so heavy, no single man can carry them.

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The navel of creation is there.

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an eternal portal to Eden.

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Love and fear permeate the air like spices.

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like roses…

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like the echoing call to prayer and the Memorial Day sirens.

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If you don't feel at home there the moment the wheels kiss the ground, for God's sake, don't tell a soul.

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When the spies admitted their fears,

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They said the land ate its own.

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They doomed a whole generation.

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Written in 2008, the summer I was living in Jerusalem.

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It did not feel like a grasshopper, except maybe sometimes you did.

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Oh, my first morning of Old Pond, I definitely felt like a grasshopper.

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I need to…

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reach their destination and go through.

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where I want it to be.

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Maybe I can't.

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That's where our ancestors face.

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I'm gonna do Souls Plus slightly differently today.

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The excerpt from Torah.

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discussion. We're going to…

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In addition to that.

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In which we're gonna need some calories.

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It's very short.

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We're gonna need some characters.

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So, consider as we go whether any of these

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characters in the toy.

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should speak to you.

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6 chunks.

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And let's do what we do. We're in Numbers chapter 3.

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the land of promise.

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God says, Go send.

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folks to scalp the land.

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from each tribe.

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And then here's what happens.

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Next time you go.

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Moshe sent them to scout the land of Canaan and said to them

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Go up into the Negev and into the hill country and see what kind of land she is. Is the nation dwelling in her strong or weak

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few or many is the land in which they dwell good or bad, are the towns they live in open or fortified

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is the land.

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Is the land oh go ahead

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Okay. Is the land fat or lean?

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Does she have trees or not?

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And be sure to bring back some fruit of the land. It is the season of first ripe grapes.

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They came to Wadi Eshkol and cut there a cluster of grapes born on a frame by two,

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And pomegranates and figs.

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The place was called Wadi Eshkol.

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equals cluster. For the cluster, they cut there.

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They returned from scouting the land after 40 days.

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They went to Moshe Aron and all the assembly of the children of Israel at Kadesh in the Paran wilderness reported to them

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and showed them the fruit of the land. They recounted, saying, We came to the land to which you sent us

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Yes, she flows with milk and honey and misses her fruit, but no, powerful is the nation inhabiting the land

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The cities are fortified and very large. We saw anarchites there

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Amalek dwells in the Negev. Hittites, Jebusites,

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And Amorites dwelled the hills,

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And Canaanites dwell at the sea and on the Jordan.

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Caleb hushed the people, saying,

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Let's go up to inherit the land. We totally can do it.

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The scouts who had gone up with him said, we can't go up against them, they're stronger than us.

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They slandered the land. They scouted to the children of Israel. The land was scouted, devours her inhabitants.

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All the nation we saw there are men of size. We saw Nephilism

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They're children of Anakites

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are from Nephelim

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And our eyes were… we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes. The whole community cried loudly, and the people wept that night.

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Please.

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The children of Israel railed against Moshe and Aaron. The whole community

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shouted at them. If only we died in the land of Egypt, or if only we might die in this desert, why is Yudeh Vape taking us to that land only to fall by sword? Our wives and children will be carried off

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Better for us to go back to Egypt. They said to one another, let us appoint a new leader and return to Egypt.

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I wait all year.

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The sound…

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Are you a surfer, dude.

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And say on behalf of the children of Israel,

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There's you…

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We can't go in there.

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And to me, this somehow is funny.

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Let's read it.

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Does someone want to be God?

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Just raise your hand. I'll call on someone.

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It's okay to say you want to be gone.

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Deanna has got a great who wants to be Moses.

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Nobody wants to be much trouble to be Moses Great.

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to be airing. We're gonna need people for this.

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lines.

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Good, Amy will be out. Who wants to be the narrator?

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David, thank you. Caleb.

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We tell them we can do this.

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Caleb.

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Iris, thank you, Joshua.

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They're not in parts.

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Abby, Joshua.

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Thank you. Who wants to be…

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all the scouts.

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Running out of people, somebody being a scout.

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I will call on you, Nancy.

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Alright, Nancy's the scal, thank you. Who wants to be the children of Israel?

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Who's left?

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Lending of the children of Israel. Thank you.

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Right.

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This is a very short 8 scenes. Everybody unmute.

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See if you can do this with emotion.

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I chose Narrator because Narrator doesn't need emotion.

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In the heat of the desert sun, the people camp.

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Restless, suspicious, haunted by slavery, but terrified of freedom.

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And then, God speaks to Moses.

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then agents to scout the land of Canaan, which I give to the Israelite people.

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Moses obeys. From each tribe a leader, twelve in all,

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scene to the commissioning.

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Go see the land, its strength, its soil, its fruit

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Look with eyes open wide and bring back what you find. The season of first grapes is upon us

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I feel the earth calling. I want to believe it's our time

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Will they see what I see or only their fear?

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What if it's as terrifying as we were told as children? Giants, walled cities, doom

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Scene 3. No scouting.

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For 40 days they walk, sweat, fear,

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Oh! Grapes the size of fists, towering walls.

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Strange people, and memories that whisper, you do not belong here.

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We are nothing but grasshoppers

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Even the air here feels dangerous. The land devours its inhabitants

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will be consumed

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Do they not feel the promise underneath their feet

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They feel the chain is still on their backs

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See, the return.

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They return, their hands full of fruit.

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Their hearts, full of dread.

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The land is bountiful, but its people are powerful, strong, unbeatable

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Let's go up. We can take the land. We are stronger than we know.

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No, they are giants. We look like grasshoppers, even to ourselves.

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And that was the truth that broke them.

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C5… Night…

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Why did we ever leave Egypt? We'll die here. Our children will be taken. Better to go back, better to die

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Adenai

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Forgive them

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Do not rebel. The land is good. God is with

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Do not be afraid

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But faith is fragile.

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Fear is louder. Stones rise in angry fists.

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C6 The Divine…

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How long will they reject me? After all they've seen?

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If you destroy them now

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The world will think you failed

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Remember who you are. Slow to anger. Abundant in kindness.

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I pardon.

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But they will not enter the land.

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Only Caleb, only Joshua, their children shall walk where they would not.

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This is why they get turned around.

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to face the desert for 40 years.

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Scene 7. Despair and defiance.

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Grief washes over the can.

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Morning comes. A new resolve rises.

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But it is too late.

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We will go up now. We were wrong.

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Do not go. God is not with you now

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But pride, once bruised, often charges ahead. They go.

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And they fall, crushed by Amalekites and Canaanites,

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In the hills where hopes had once shimmered,

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C8. A new convention.

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When you enter the land, remember…

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Bring me your offerings. Teach your children.

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The fringes to your garments.

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look to them, and remember who you are.

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Even in exile, the story continues.

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A people broken, but not destroyed.

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A path delayed, but not ended.

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I saw promise in the soil

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I carried the memory of freedom

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I bore their burdens on my back

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And in my bones

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I saw myself as small and made it true

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The wilderness outside reflected the wilderness within

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In every journey toward a promised land, we face not only enemies without,

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With the shadows within.

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what we see depends on what we carry.

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question. Did people…

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characters and circling sound?

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Yep

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David, because the narrator has no emotion.

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Yeah

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Yeah, I was…

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Yeah, I've felt the emotion. I heard it in other people as well. And

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I felt as Caleb.

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In our like the Ruach. I'm sorry I don't remember the descriptor for that Ruach that means you have a different spirit

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You're like a spirit, yeah. The energy that comes through.

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Yeah, and… but the word that means that it was different, like I have, I'm sorry, I don't remember that word, but that Caleb

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I had the shot, a new spirit.

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Yeah

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That there was a different spirit that he was feeling and trying to convey and trying to

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I think engender that

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sense of commitment and courage

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And people.

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It must have been frustrating for him too.

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And we get some of that in the modern retelling that's not explicitly in the lines of the original.

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Because as is Torah's…

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Way.

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She just has Caleb… Caleb has the people, saying, we totally can do it!

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But there's nothing about what he was feeling.

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I think we have to infer that.

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That's… that's in the white fire, not the black fire.

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about storytelling, as we'll call it.

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I see Charlotte's hand coming.

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is that had these parts landed together?

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to death that everybody would have felt the emotions that went with the

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characters. God and more.

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and Caleb, and Joshua,

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Scouts and gone in there.

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Right, and the scouts who quailed at what was in front of them.

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left inside us, too.

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They're all in here.

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You know, there's a whole inner committee

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We are Joshua, we are all Caleb.

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grasshoppers.

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Where are all Israelites

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Amen.

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Israelites, that's right, that's right, that's right.

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So, with that…

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Oh my gosh. Let's return to the Torah text.

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Oh, I just made a pond.

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I am so sorry, I did not mean that.

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Yeah.

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Oh, I'm so sorry, Cheryl, you're in.

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Maybe it's because I was thinking about, boy, we are a whiny people

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Again

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I mean, this is the… this is one of the…

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It's a stiff-necked is usually the phrase that Torah uses, but yes.

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Finally, I think

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I… I know that's the phrase they use, but honestly, that feels like even more backbone than what we constantly hear with the complaining.

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And the same complaint, like, get over it already, people, that when I went in and played Moshe.

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I really felt like burdened

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You know, like

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Thanks so much. I didn't want the job. You gave it to me, there was no out, and it's like a constant effort. I do feel it in my bones, you know? It was like, enough already, and

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So that was really interesting to me.

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Yeah, and fast forwarding the story,

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And the end line

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goes ahead and hits the rock and says, alright,

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Rebels, I'm so tired of you people.

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It's like annoying

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And then I'm just really struck

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Also, in a very soul way, with

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outer wilderness, inner wilderness, and how often it sometimes feels like that

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It might not be a huge deal in our lives, but I know for me, sometimes something happens and it's

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I know there's a way to go. I don't know where it is at the moment, but it just feels like

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Outer wilderness, inner wilderness.

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Mm-hmm.

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This is a spiritual story, not just a story of people

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Deciding where to go.

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Alright, let's have it.

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Sure, yeah, Joan, I see your hand.

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I'm struck by the image of the enormous

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Yes.

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Fruit the heaven fruit

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it… the burden of it

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000
the fruit which is supposed to be a blessing

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:32.000
Ooh, becomes a burden.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:33.000
Yeah.

00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:34.000
literally a burden, right? I always picture…

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:39.000
You know, like, two guys with poles, like, you would see them carrying a deer, you know,

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:40.000
On… on a… on poles on their back.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.000
Rabbi Rachel will facilitate all this.

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:54.000
We saw that image. I think you, Rabbi David, might have had it on a screen of just as Rabbi Rachel describes it. And so, you know what they say, be careful what you wish for

00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:57.000
Right.

00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:01.000
Great. Love that.

00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:07.000
And I also love that Wadi Ash Kohl literally means… it means, like, a cluster river, or cluster stream.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:14.000
You know, which doesn't come across in the English, it's just a place name. But in the Hebrew, it's a reference.

00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:24.000
What else?

00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Yeah, Iris.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:34.000
Yeah, it feels like they weren't just afraid of the grasshoppers. And I know they were part of us

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:46.000
But that the abundance of the grapes is a symbol for the land and the potential and the potential for growth as individuals and as a community

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.000
Ooh, alright.

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000
I love that, right? Afraid of their own potential for growth.

00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:53.000
Yeah.

00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:54.000
Yeah.

00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:55.000
Yeah.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:56.000
That's… that's really powerful.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:59.000
Um, Deanna and then Cheryl.

00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:03.000
Thank you for some reason, I'm not finding my electronic hand.

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Um…

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.000
Your physical hand works.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:09.000
Okay, good. Um,

00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:15.000
I've had this experience many, many times of having, say, a very ambitious goal,

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.000
And going toward it, and then when I get close to it,

00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.000
It's so huge, it's scary.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:23.000
Mm-hmm.

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:28.000
And I back off. I go and hide, or, you know, I feel like the grasshopper. This has happened my whole life.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000
And it's a struggle, and I'm reminded of…

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:40.000
the poet David White, who some of you might know, he wrote a wonderful book called Contemplations years ago, and there…

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:45.000
little essays, each focusing on a different word, and they're very wise and beautiful.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.000
And he wrote, the best thing I've ever read about shyness.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:52.000
Which is the… which…

00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:58.000
It's this same kind of dynamic, but he talks about how shyness arises when we are faced with

00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:08.000
Something that we know, or maybe a relationship with someone, that we know in our soul is gonna change us. It's gonna be earth-shaking.

00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:12.000
And so, it's our natural response to

00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.000
need to take time

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.000
to stop, to contemplate what's going to happen, to, like,

00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:24.000
metabolize it in our bodies before we can move forward.

00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:27.000
I feel like this story…

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:34.000
is a very extreme, like, hysterical version of that, but it… to me, the same kind of emotional dynamic.

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.000
I love that. I love that.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:41.000
Cheryl and then David.

00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:46.000
I'm very interested in the Nephilim section

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:50.000
Which probably comes as no shock to most.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.000
wait, why is that a… never mind.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:55.000
Because

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:56.000
Uh, right, so…

00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:58.000
I'm like angelology

00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.000
I see.

00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:05.000
Yeah, sorry, Nephilim are… are referenced very early in Torah. We haven't heard about them in a long time. It's okay if you've completely forgotten who they are.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:10.000
Um, their… their name seems to mean something like Fallen Ones?

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:11.000
Yeah.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:15.000
Yeah, so it's an interesting thing, right? Because

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:18.000
In Judaic stuff

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:20.000
They are

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:27.000
something fallen ones, but they carry a name that's similar to angels

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Sure, it was a plural.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Of course you are, Cheryl.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.000
With the EM, right? Seraphine, methylene, you know, could be, not, whatever, just plural

00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:34.000
Yeah, that's just plural. Excel.

00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:35.000
plural

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:38.000
I was literally to fall in general school.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.000
Genesis before Noah.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:41.000
There was a phenomenal.

00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:42.000
really early Genesis.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.000
Like, like, during all the gats.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:47.000
Noah is the second Parsha in the whole book.

00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:52.000
Like, all the way back.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:54.000
Had something to do.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:57.000
Maybe half…

00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:58.000
And so you wind up with half angels?

00:25:58.000 --> 00:25:59.000
Right.

00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:05.000
whatever those are.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:06.000
Yeah

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.000
And that's the Christian view on it is that they are the offspring of angels and humans.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:08.000
Yeah

00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:09.000
So let's… go ahead.

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:10.000
And so the question for

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:15.000
Question for me is, is that how we

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:27.000
Hebrews Israelites were seeing it or was it just a way to describe negativity and in giantness, big fear

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:28.000
Yeah.

00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:30.000
actually grasshoppers? No.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:31.000
Well, no, but

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:32.000
then yeah, who are they?

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:44.000
It doesn't mean that they weren't the people who were large. I mean, some societies breed larger, taller, bigger, you know, people, like Vikings compared to, I don't know what, you know, but

00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:51.000
Yep, so I think this can be both a literal and a metaphorical…

00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Right? Porque no los tos.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Um, I'm sorry, David and then James.

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:04.000
My comment was about that paragraph as well, and particularly the word slandered.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:07.000
Until then, we know they're afraid, and we know that they're…

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:12.000
We know they're fearful, but now we're told that they're…

00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:17.000
either exaggerating, or they're making things up.

00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:20.000
And we don't really know which.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.000
But, you know…

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Right, and remember that slander is a… slander is a big deal.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:28.000
Yeah.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:35.000
in our tradition, right? Just… we… our tradition has so much to say about Lashon Harrah, about wicked speech, malicious speech, evil speech.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.000
In part because it's such a very human…

00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:42.000
Mistake to make, and we make it a lot.

00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:43.000
But…

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.000
I'm sorry, Rich, go ahead.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:47.000
Yeah, go.

00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:51.000
Notice how the people… this landlord didn't come

00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.000
The fear came first.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:56.000
First, the report came from the attribution came from…

00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:00.000
And then the slander came. It's like they're bubbling down.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:02.000
to match.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:06.000
they are feeling.

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:08.000
None of us ever do that.

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:13.000
Right, of course, words come out of our feelings, and…

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:18.000
There's that issue of, had they only stopped to metabolize the feeling,

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Maybe they might have wound up in a different place, but they sure didn't.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:23.000
James, what are you… what's on your mind?

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Part.

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:26.000
So, the whole thing with aniphilim.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:32.000
They're supposedly the offspring of angels and the women.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.000
But they were all supposed to be wiped out.

00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:37.000
During the Great Flood, with the exception of Og.

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:40.000
Who, of course, was so tall that he

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:41.000
waded in the water out to the ark.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:42.000
Color than the flood, yeah.

00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:50.000
Yes. And then hung on the side of the ark so that even the boiling waters could not possibly kill him.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:53.000
Somebody's read his midbrush.

00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:54.000
And by the way, there's a great comic book about Og.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.000
And then, yeah.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.000
For those who… in Hebrew, for those who like comics.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:01.000
And then we have all these…

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:04.000
Giants in Canaan.

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:06.000
Where'd that they come from?

00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.000
maybe Og got real busy?

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:12.000
No, no, these are supposed to be direct.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.000
They're like, you know, next gen.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:16.000
So, assuming…

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.000
Giants, the next generation.

00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.000
Yeah, so this could be…

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:23.000
that they didn't actually see the

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:28.000
They just got freaked out.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.000
Right, what we know is that they say…

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:40.000
The nation is powerful, its cities are fortified, and we saw Anakites.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:46.000
Then we have Amalek dwells in the Negev. Remember, Amalek is…

00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:51.000
the sort of tribe name, class name for…

00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.000
the class of people who attack from the rear and…

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:04.000
try to destroy us.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:06.000
I mean, they're about to encounter Og.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:13.000
You're in, what, Tumor Parsha? Parsia? That's Shukat, I think it is?

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:16.000
And then he gets a little more time a bit later on.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:20.000
But I just find it interesting that we have that here.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.000
With basically Torah essentially contradicting itself.

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:26.000
In the scout's reports.

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.000
I'm wondering why.

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:30.000
What is being said here?

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:31.000
is what I'm trying to figure out.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:39.000
Mm-hmm. What is being said here, and what is an actual report of what they saw, and what is an anxiety projection?

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:43.000
On the part of either the Scouts or their audience.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:44.000
we don't know.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:48.000
There's…

00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:51.000
Well, the thing is, the grapes really are huge, right?

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:56.000
The grapes are the size of fists, or basketballs, or something.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:59.000
The grapes need a carrying frame.

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:07.000
So maybe one piece of this is, if the grapes are this big, how big must the people be who grew them?

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:09.000
Right? There are giants in the sky.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.000
a big, tall, terrible giant in the sky.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:15.000
Thank you. Another Into the Woods fan in the room.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.000
Alright, what else? What else is popping for us?

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:22.000
Joan.

00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:32.000
The imagined or the perceived in David always corrects me, enormity, enormousness, whatever the word is

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:33.000
Those are both words.

00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:36.000
32 one

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:38.000
Is

00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:44.000
is, to me, just representative of the huge change that

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:55.000
They went toward, but now are afraid of, which has been referred to before, that you go towards something, and then you are afraid to do it, and

00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:00.000
largest change of all since they have been unto themselves

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:15.000
For all this time. And they don't they don't know what's going to happen to them. It's like people coming. It's like Jewish or any group coming to this country and not knowing what the effects of being among others is going to do

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:26.000
to them. Perhaps, perhaps stamping them out literally and figuratively. So your existence is at

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:29.000
Hand

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:32.000
And what do you do? Do you

00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:38.000
Do you preserve it in an untenable situation? Go back to Egypt.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:41.000
Or do you go forth with the

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:49.000
feeling that anything's better than that, which is the way a lot of people did emigrate

00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:51.000
Got to be better than this

00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:56.000
And this is a common in all our lives when we make big steps. So it

00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.000
Such a human feeling. Oh, there it went.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:32:59.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:01.000
Find it again, I'm sorry.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:05.000
It's such a familiar human feeling, that's not it.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:08.000
I'll get it. And notice, John.

00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:14.000
That was all of us that

00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.000
Sin. What is the one thing

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:29.000
Don't build a golden calf.

00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.000
You cannot go back.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:35.000
to slavery. And what is it they said?

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:41.000
That is a point in the reader.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:43.000
Right, it's undoing…

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:49.000
Seeking to undo the liberation which is our core story.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:57.000
That's how afraid they were.

00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:04.000
Iris and Cheryl.

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:10.000
So I'm thinking about a little more metaphors as well because

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.000
With the grid and the frame and two people carrying them

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:18.000
And that it was also… it had pomegranate

00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:28.000
And it's big, so I can't really see that phrase right now, but So those are all symbols of abundance, I think, and that the frame

00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:32.000
could be adonoi

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:38.000
That we have that to help us hold and to go forward.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:41.000
I do appreciate the abundance

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:43.000
And with it

00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:46.000
So I never thought of it that way, the frame, but that's how I feel

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:52.000
But God is the frame or the mitzvot, or the frame that help us carry

00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:55.000
our lives forward.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:57.000
Yeah.

00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:01.000
Thank you.

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:06.000
Cheryl, I see your hand.

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:13.000
Starting with numbers 17 to 19, but in

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:25.000
In more of the play that we read. God is telling Moshe to send out the scouts, correct?

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:28.000
It's basically a setup, isn't it

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:29.000
Yet again

00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:30.000
Uh-oh.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.000
Yet again

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:35.000
God is telling

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Motion set something up.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.000
I you know

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:51.000
Maybe we have a reason to complain

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:52.000
So

00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:54.000
So, with the Cheryl…

00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:00.000
The 64,000 shekel check.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:07.000
Dude, don't set the…

00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Or it was a test, another test.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:11.000
And therefore,

00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:12.000
Right?

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:16.000
And if it was a test, a test for whom?

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:21.000
And in any society, I just want to say that 10

00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:28.000
With an opinion versus two with an opinion. It's always going to go with the majority.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:29.000
So you know

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:33.000
Mm-hmm. So, one of the challenges here is, had…

00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:38.000
Had Moses just said, okay, this is what we're doing, I'm in charge, let's do it,

00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:41.000
We might have just gone into the land and everything would have been fine.

00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Right and

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:43.000
Democracy failed.

00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:45.000
But somehow, democracy…

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:51.000
is challenging, and sometimes it means that the loudest voices…

00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:54.000
win, even if they're wrong.

00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:56.000
What do we do with that, spiritually?

00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:58.000
Clearly. Clearly that's the case. You know

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:02.000
And so, Cheryl, the point of…

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:04.000
challenging them, questioning what…

00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:06.000
by the Scouts.

00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:10.000
The wash has got to go there, right? I mean, it has to.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:13.000
It's going to.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:19.000
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like a double-edged sword, right? On one side, it's

00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:35.000
go check it out. And maybe, maybe God was saying this isn't the right time for you. Maybe we've taken a wrong tack on this

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:36.000
Yeah, well, that is one…

00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:45.000
that we were punished to stay for time, and we had to go through other generations. Maybe that is so important, because people were constantly complaining. They constantly were like, they could not let go of that

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:48.000
And so God was like, you know what?

00:37:48.000 --> 00:38:01.000
They're really not ready. Go check it out. Let's see what you say. And it's not that Joshua and Caleb were the only people with clear eyes. You know, it was important for them to not go now.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:03.000
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.000
Huge.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:10.000
The question of… one way to understand all of this is through the lens of trauma.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:11.000
This whole people was…

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:14.000
Yeah, I have something probably unpopular.

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:15.000
I'm just

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:21.000
This whole people had been traumatized, and they weren't ready to grow and change in these ways yet.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:22.000
Yeah.

00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:24.000
Like, as we… it just said…

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:31.000
Marcy just added in the chat, right, Harriet Tubman threatened to shoot people who talked about going back to slavery.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:32.000
Yeah.

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:34.000
This is a trauma and a fear response.

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:36.000
a cancer.

00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:42.000
I mean, also, it does get transmitted down. I remember

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:47.000
Having friends who are children of Holocaust survivors

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:52.000
And I think now as adults, we probably even know more, right?

00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:56.000
And it is something that just

00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:59.000
You cannot

00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:00.000
Yeah.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.000
There's no way out of that

00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:09.000
mentality that comes from having been brought up with people who have had trauma.

00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.000
You know, not just that.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:11.000
Whether it's trauma, or fear,

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:15.000
just seeing the worst.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:18.000
problems with blush on that route.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:21.000
Not just the fact of the slander.

00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:23.000
the story of…

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:27.000
feathers that fly out of the…

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:29.000
Right?

00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:30.000
Yes, gather them up

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:35.000
Dealing with the consequences of

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:40.000
in our text were slammed on the Shankara in modern language is like trying to put

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:43.000
paste back in.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:50.000
I forget what you call the thing that you squeeze. It's like trying to put the feathers back

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:53.000
man's gonna take those words.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:59.000
fear and negativity and all that, it's gonna be

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:00.000
forest fire.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.000
But that's also why I asked you about the slandered word like what exactly does that mean? Because

00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.000
slander.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:08.000
It means slander. It means slander.

00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:10.000
It means Lander.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Debombing and slander.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:12.000
Having said slander there, having said yeah having

00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:18.000
Having said slander there removes my whole prior concept

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:27.000
That it really wasn't the right place to go. Because if it wasn't the right place to go, they wouldn't have had to slander it.

00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:30.000
Remember that in… in…

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:33.000
Torah, there doesn't need to be one right

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:35.000
way to understand anything.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:38.000
And everything carries a multiplicity of meaning.

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:42.000
Um, I see Joan's hand, I just want to offer one quick thought. One of the…

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.000
One of the people I follow on Facebook,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:51.000
Her name is Susan Paulwick, she science fiction writer and a retired hospital chaplain.

00:40:51.000 --> 00:40:56.000
And she was writing last night, or I saw her writing yesterday, about…

00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:59.000
grief, and the stages of grief.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:03.000
that we all know, and saying, please stop.

00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:08.000
repeating those to people who are struggling with illness, it's not that linear.

00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:10.000
That's not that helpful.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:16.000
And the main thing you need to know is that grief takes its own time and takes its own shapes.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:26.000
And cannot be short-circuited. When there's a grief process that needs to happen, it needs to happen. You can't just say, well, you should be over that by now.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:31.000
Which is really shaping how this is landing with me this morning.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:36.000
It's so easy to be angry at the spies and at the children of Israel for being afraid.

00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:41.000
But who am I to say they should've… they should be over their history of slavery by now?

00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:44.000
It's like, oh, that's so last week!

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000
But for them, it isn't.

00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:49.000
Joan?

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:55.000
And Rabbi Rachel, with what you've just said and show what you've just said

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:01.000
Perhaps this is simply a way of saying you you have a goal

00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:08.000
And you think it's going to be perfection. Let me warn you

00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:11.000
going to have its problems, too

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:21.000
So be aware that you are not being saved, so to speak, and you're going to have new and different difficulties

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:24.000
Promised Land has traffic.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.000
Yeah.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:32.000
The Promised Land has garbage dumps.

00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.000
Which is

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:40.000
You know, when we read, when we read prayers

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:56.000
and writings that, you know are glorious sounding. We can say, well, isn't that a wonderful idea, but we know that we're never going to reach that perfection, but it doesn't mean we can

00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:58.000
know that we can move toward it

00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:02.000
Right. Just for time.

00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:09.000
We have some things to share with you, Iris and Linda.

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:23.000
Thank you. So I'm also thinking about what the word Paran means and what I read online just now that it translates to abounding and foliage or glorious

00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:28.000
And so, to me, that's another metaphor for where

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:35.000
We were then, and that moving from the slavery mess takes time, as we're saying

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.000
So that… it also says that it

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:45.000
The wilderness, so then, if that's true, rabbis.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:51.000
It's another part of the journey through the wilderness when we are changing

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:57.000
We can maybe hear voice and hear our own voice not clearly

00:43:57.000 --> 00:43:59.000
And that

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:03.000
That's how we see what we see and how we see ourselves

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:06.000
None of this happens at the wall.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Yeah.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:14.000
Just interesting language.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:20.000
Um, I… I really appreciate, um, what you said, Rabbi Rachel.

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:22.000
about the course.

00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:25.000
of things, the course of grief and…

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:28.000
But I think this Parsha…

00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:31.000
could speak for us, like…

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:34.000
How… how long do we hold

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:38.000
the trauma. How long do we…

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:43.000
uh… let that stand in the way

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:46.000
of moving forward.

00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:48.000
into… whatever.

00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:51.000
Um, and so…

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:55.000
I think that is the question, too. Like…

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:01.000
We acknowledge it, and yes, we have it, and who are we to say they shouldn't have felt that way?

00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:07.000
But I think maybe God is putting before us the idea of

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:13.000
When do we let it go? How long do we hold on to it? You know what I'm saying? Like…

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:15.000
So, um…

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.000
That's all.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000
I mean, and this is the work of being human.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:21.000
Which, Chris's…

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:22.000
Yeah, yeah, so I appreciated what you said.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:23.000
Yeah.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:27.000
All right, we've got some… we do have some goodies for you this morning.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:32.000
Yeah.

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:35.000
is going on here.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.000
I always ask while she was buying.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:45.000
What's bothering Rashi is that we're being compared to insects.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:50.000
We heard them say to one another, there are ants in the vineyards that look like human beings.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.000
I get a mental image of ants crawling around with little teeny human ants.

00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:56.000
And so that's what they felt like.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:59.000
While she has a bit of a literalist.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
No.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000
It seems like he drunk a little too much of his own heart.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:06.000
He was a vintner, yes.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:09.000
So it's not totally far afield.

00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Maybe there were ants in his wine.

00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:13.000
There are answers, whine.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:17.000
But, like, what is it that they saw?

00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.000
question. That impelled them to

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:25.000
to this way…

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:27.000
to impute

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:32.000
they saw themselves, or they saw themselves as so little

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:33.000
into the…

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.000
Therefore, impute that to other people.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:36.000
Right. Which…

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:37.000
I. Yeah.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Well, let's get into our text, because that's where some of our texts are going to go.

00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:44.000
So that's where the score node goes. You know,

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:48.000
It's, you know, it didn't have to follow that they felt like these titles

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000
And therefore, they would think other people saw them.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:56.000
It could just be that they knew that they had a negative self-image,

00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Other people, you know, can see that we've

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:01.000
power and swords.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000
And she ain't some families, and God, and Torah, and all that, but not, nah, baby.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:07.000
do that either, they imputed their…

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:10.000
negativity, they can project it onto others, and they said,

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:17.000
This is how I feel about myself and therefore it must be how you feel about me.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:20.000
That's the move.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:25.000
Yeah. They didn't even bother to harm us when they saw us. They didn't think we were

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:28.000
We were just, like, so, we were just like so many.

00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:39.000
or grasshoppers at a picnic.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:42.000
You can raise your hands, we know Amy.

00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:45.000
When ants work together, they get a lot done

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:46.000
That is true.

00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:48.000
They got a lot of time. Right.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Right? And there are other mid-rush units, like grasshoppers.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:55.000
Have you seen a glass operators can do when they swamp?

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.000
Right. Think locusts was one of the plagues.

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:03.000
So, the injury…

00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:04.000
themselves. They didn't get it.

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:06.000
has two sides.

00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:09.000
I didn't get it exactly right.

00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Exactly.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:26.000
God has something to say about this.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:28.000
They said

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:44.000
In our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers. The holy blessed one said, I forgave them for that, but not when they said, and so we were in their eyes. The holy blessed one said to them

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:52.000
Did you know what I made in their eyes? Who's to say that you were not like angels in their eyes?

00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:59.000
How dare you project your own negative self-image on other people.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Right, and I

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:06.000
Oh, Cheryl's got hearts in her eyes.

00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:08.000
Thank you

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Right? Okay.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:10.000
Right. And I was thinking, yeah, how do you know what someone else is seeing, you know, seeing, thinking, seeing and thinking. Yeah

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:11.000
And we do it all the time.

00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Oh, totally.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:13.000
It's so human!

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:16.000
Did that because…

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:17.000
Yeah.

00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:18.000
I see James's hand.

00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:21.000
twice on days that ended wide. Yeah, hi, James.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:24.000
So, coming back to what we were talking about with Og earlier.

00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:25.000
Grasshoppers and ants?

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:28.000
really are all on over here, aren't ya?

00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:33.000
I wrote a long essay about them, okay? Somebody asked me, and I ended up writing, like, 3,000 words.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.000
All right.

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.000
But how is he defeated?

00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000
But he's got this big old mountain over his head about to drop it on the camps.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:45.000
And all of a sudden, something bore a hole, and then it drops around his neck.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:47.000
Grasshoppers.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:49.000
It's exactly what it is, grasshoppers.

00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:50.000
And there are some translations that say ants, but…

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.000
So this vast giant is taken down by tiny little nothings.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:50:00.000
Yeah, and then, of course, Moses leaps to 20 cubits and slices his ankle and all that stuff, but

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.000
The thing that renders them…

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.000
able to be beaten was grasshoppers.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:07.000
That's a lovely connection.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:10.000
And like I said, that's like 1 or 2 partialed away from now.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:11.000
Yeah.

00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:12.000
That's a lovely connection, yeah.

00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.000
Fast forward to my namesake.

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:17.000
Was it the big guy that took down the lion?

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:18.000
It was not?

00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:21.000
It was just a little bit of stalling.

00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:24.000
It was a… it was…

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:28.000
Little guy with a slingshot!

00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:40.000
So don't knock the grasshoppers.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:43.000
read Sharon Adamsville.

00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:44.000
links are… links to…

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:47.000
Right, when, when you get this…

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Later, you'll be able to read the whole thing if you want.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:08.000
The antidote, the Midrash insists, is cultivating the capacity to open up some space between our inner experience and outer reality. This is the vital, life-giving space of breath

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Hope, possibility. The voice of God. It's the voice that us saying, I understand that you were afraid. I understand that you feel small, but take a minute, leave room for the possibility that your fear is not the whole story

00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:37.000
How do you know, but that in their eyes, you were like angels? This points back to what Meredith was talking about before

00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:39.000
I love this group. I love this group.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:43.000
We're gonna say what we're gonna say, because they said it, so we're gonna say what they said before.

00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:45.000
that they said, because you said it.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:48.000
Mm-hmm.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:57.000
And it's that vital, life-giving space of taking a breath and saying, okay, I'm gonna notice what I'm feeling,

00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:01.000
And I'm gonna remind myself that feelings are not facts.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:03.000
Feelings are real.

00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:05.000
But they're not…

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:07.000
Always the whole story.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:10.000
Why are we confronting our…

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:15.000
capacity to feel so small.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:21.000
Why is this happening?

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:23.000
It's the runway

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:24.000
It's the wrong way to the runway.

00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.000
We are approach… we are approaching the runway.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Last week, we crossed 100 days before

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.000
Rosh Hashanah. We have no…

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:43.000
Ask us how we know. Well, and in a moment, I think our texts will take us to a marker in time.

00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:46.000
So Tora is starting to lay out our spiritual

00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:48.000
journey, not their spiritual journey, but

00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:49.000
But ours.

00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:53.000
spiritual journey. We can either move

00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:57.000
not without fear, but…

00:52:57.000 --> 00:52:58.000
And with awareness.

00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:02.000
you can wander.

00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:06.000
James, does somebody want to read Danny Moss?

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Meredith, go for it.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:13.000
The Scouts have no way to know what the inhabitants of

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:15.000
cane and think of them.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:21.000
The Torah preserves no record of interaction.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:26.000
The translation correctly conveys their presumptuousness.

00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:30.000
So we must have looked to them.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:35.000
The scouts assume that because they feel tiny, weak, and scared,

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.000
Next to the… to these fortified city dwellers that…

00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:44.000
The city dwellers want to stomp them into oblivion.

00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:47.000
And the Israelites would never prevail.

00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:56.000
But didn't God free them from Egypt with miraculous plagues? Didn't God give them the Torah amid dazzling,

00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:58.000
pyrotechnics.

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.000
How easily they forget.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:02.000
how readily they dealt.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:07.000
The scouts feel themselves to be the imposters.

00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:10.000
Losing faith in themselves and in God.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:15.000
The locals, they assert, are stronger than we.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:20.000
Talmud interprets the text does not really intend

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:26.000
stronger than we. Rather, read it to say, stronger than God.

00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:32.000
Like so many of us, these newly freed, freshly minted leaders

00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:37.000
unwittingly sabotage their own future, allowing faith

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:45.000
to acquiesce to fear.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:48.000
Uh, this does Torah say?

00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Not.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.000
I wouldn't say that today.

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.000
I would say it's okay to be afraid.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:02.000
Thank you, Brain.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:07.000
by fear and go backwards.

00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:11.000
don't let the fear drive the bus.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:13.000
name it, honor it.

00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:15.000
Mm-hmm, mm.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:16.000
Peter gets a voice.

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:18.000
And accepted for what it is and what it isn't.

00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:24.000
figure that's a voice. It does not get a veto.

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:28.000
My grandmother used to say, don't let fear manage your life

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:30.000
I love that.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:31.000
No

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:32.000
Right? And that's what they did.

00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:33.000
Yeah.

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:36.000
That's what our ancestors did in this moment, right?

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:37.000
Yeah.

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:38.000
They're huge, we can't.

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:40.000
Hashtag relatable, right? This…

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:43.000
So familiar and human.

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:45.000
Yes

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:50.000
And what spirituality here is asking.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.000
A little superhuman.

00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:58.000
To see the bigger eyes.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:01.000
To see more than art.

00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Most impulses are smallest cell.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Other smallest cells.

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:13.000
Of course, we had to confront that before entering.

00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:19.000
Mm-hmm.

00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:34.000
Somebody want to read Meredith Kahn?

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:37.000
A reader for Meredith Kahn.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.000
Kieran Schlachwacha

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:59.000
We find the people in a complete tizzy of fear, giants, ten of the scouts tell the people. We appeared as grasshoppers to ourselves. How can we succeed? Not even God could save us. The mass hysteria that followed led the people to want to go back to the safety of Egypt

00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:18.000
Of course, we are scared when faced with giants, or when we're fed terrifying misinformation. It is what we do with our fears and anxiety that is a key to Jewish spirituality. Can we quiet our amygdalas and let our frontal lobes, our higher selves

00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:26.000
Come back online. Can we put a space between the match and the flame as spiritual teacher Alan Marina would tell us

00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:30.000
Alan Marinus is, uh…

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:33.000
teacher, he…

00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:34.000
Scholar of Musar.

00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:35.000
teaches more so.

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:36.000
Yep.

00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:39.000
essentially Jewish character development.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:43.000
Um, everyday wholeness is his book.

00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:45.000
It's a classic.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:49.000
Um, he talks about bringing the space between the

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:51.000
between the trigger and the action.

00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Which, of course, means that we need to become practiced at stopping.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:58.000
Slowing down, stepping back.

00:57:58.000 --> 00:58:01.000
Not jumping into…

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:03.000
response.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:04.000
or I should say reaction.

00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:13.000
As our teachers… as our teachers at IJS like to… the Institute for Jewish Spirituality like to say, wonderful opportunity for practice.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:16.000
Oh, I'm having a feeling right now.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:19.000
What a wonderful opportunity to notice.

00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:22.000
There's an ant on my head.

00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:24.000
like that, uh, this is a real

00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:26.000
There's an ant on my head.

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Curiosity. Will there be…

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:33.000
What will it do?

00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:36.000
The curiosity that we can bring.

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:40.000
Dream Lanimates.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:43.000
sticks.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:45.000
Hardcore…

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:48.000
Which isn't to negate emotion.

00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:52.000
But it is to save your life.

00:58:52.000 --> 00:58:59.000
just that level.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:07.000
And we are not just our values.

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:12.000
Um, I… I know this question has no answer, but…

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:15.000
I'll ask it anyway. Um…

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:17.000
Why is it…

00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:19.000
that we…

00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:22.000
Forget. We forget…

00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:24.000
how we've been…

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:30.000
redeemed previously. Like, it just goes out the window.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:33.000
It's so difficult

00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:34.000
Yep.

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:35.000
to hold on to…

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:40.000
that each time we're faced with a challenge.

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:47.000
It just… I just don't know what… what… what is that? What… why do we do that? Why…

00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:50.000
when we've had so many

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:55.000
examples of…

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:56.000
Yep.

00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:57.000
you know. So, I don't know, there's no answer, I just…

00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:01.000
I can… I can tell you that, um…

01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:02.000
And then I see Deion.

01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:05.000
In parenting my teenager,

01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:11.000
There have been times when he's really struggling, and I say, remember you haven't always felt like this.

01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:13.000
And he'll say, yeah, but I'm feeling like it now.

01:00:13.000 --> 01:00:17.000
Right. Right, right.

01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:22.000
Which I tell myself is part of being an adolescent, is getting so stuck in the feeling

01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:26.000
that you can't remember that you ever felt

01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:29.000
Differently. Part of growing up

01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:39.000
is learning to put a space between the match and the flame, but it's a practice, and we do not always do it well.

01:00:39.000 --> 01:00:41.000
Uh, Deanna.

01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:49.000
Meredith, there is an answer to that, and we are… it's brain science. Our nervous systems and our brains are wired

01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:52.000
to respond first to danger or perceived danger.

01:00:52.000 --> 01:00:55.000
That's our survival instinct, and…

01:00:55.000 --> 01:01:01.000
That's why it's so frickin' hard to let go of trauma. You can't just do it by saying, I'm going to let go of it.

01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:02.000
It's in our bodies.

01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:05.000
Alright, now let's go with trauma.

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:08.000
Yeah, wood that it could be so easy.

01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:11.000
My whole life trajectory would have been different, right? Everybody's would.

01:01:11.000 --> 01:01:16.000
So…

01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:17.000
And…

01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:20.000
It's in our bodies, and it takes a lot of effort and knowledge and

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:21.000
all kinds of things, tools to overcome that.

01:01:21.000 --> 01:01:23.000
And I want to lift up

01:01:23.000 --> 01:01:29.000
In the chat, James has noted, this is why the portion ends with the mitzvah of tzitzit.

01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:30.000
Yeah.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:34.000
To put on the corners of our garments that we may look on them and remember.

01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:36.000
They're a mnemonic device.

01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:38.000
So…

01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:41.000
Judaism is full of reminders, because we all have Him.

01:01:41.000 --> 01:01:43.000
I actually wrote a whole article about that.

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:45.000
for the Jerusalem imposed back in the day.

01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:50.000
trying to find an input in the chat box.

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.000
to the Ardam.

01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:56.000
calls to, to, to…

01:01:56.000 --> 01:02:02.000
intended to be reminders, because we were gonna forget.

01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:06.000
to knock ourselves, that we should

01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:09.000
unlocking ourselves just for having brains.

01:02:09.000 --> 01:02:14.000
Because… exactly.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:17.000
And that's why we surround ourselves with

01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:19.000
And as Taurus says,

01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:22.000
fringes on your performance.

01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:25.000
at it, this is straight out of the Book of Numbers, you know, this week's Torah portion.

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:32.000
as James says, and you know the number.

01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:35.000
tattoo, and you will not scout.

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:37.000
Same words are scouts.

01:02:37.000 --> 01:02:48.000
After, after,

01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:52.000
You should be prostitution.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:56.000
And we don't usually translate it that way, but that is what it says.

01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:04.000
does say prostituted.

01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:07.000
stray. And then…

01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:09.000
Jeep, the next words are…

01:03:09.000 --> 01:03:11.000
And then, uh, I'm teased care.

01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:15.000
Thai.

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:17.000
For the sake of remembering,

01:03:17.000 --> 01:03:23.000
all mine, it's what I'm doing them.

01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:28.000
This is intended to not do what our ancestors did then.

01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:30.000
This is the power of dramatic moments.

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.000
and put a bond into the land to promise they were too scared.

01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:39.000
They souped up, they're scared, and they ran like help.

01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:42.000
So read us this next text, Rabbi.

01:03:42.000 --> 01:03:43.000
Last time. Someone will deploy them.

01:03:43.000 --> 01:03:47.000
Yes.

01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:50.000
I'm afraid if somebody plays the role.

01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:57.000
Some of you have been waiting for this moment.

01:03:57.000 --> 01:03:59.000
Hurrah is a king.

01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:01.000
Psychologist.

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:04.000
She knows that we all tend to see ourselves.

01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:07.000
I'm sorry, I'm channeling Shatner, sorry.

01:04:07.000 --> 01:04:08.000
That's no…

01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:13.000
Torah is a keen psychologist. She knows that we all tend to see ourselves and others a certain way.

01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:16.000
Both individually and as a community.

01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:23.000
And that we project our images good and bad, onto others, and especially onto challenging circumstances.

01:04:23.000 --> 01:04:29.000
But doing so, Torah teaches us year after year is our ticket to nowhere.

01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:34.000
We are not grasshoppers, and no future is full of scary giants intend to take us down.

01:04:34.000 --> 01:04:38.000
We are not our worst fears, small or incapable.

01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:41.000
We are daughters and sons of the sacred.

01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:44.000
Created in the image of the one we call God.

01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:47.000
A land flowing with milk and honey awaits us.

01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:51.000
If only we will fulfill our destiny and move forward.

01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:58.000
Amen. How have I? We should be so lucky.

01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:04.000
So we're shifting gears a little bit here into the question of who exactly we sent and why.

01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:06.000
This is Cheryl's question.

01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:07.000
to be asked.

01:05:07.000 --> 01:05:13.000
Right. Was God setting us up? Why did God tell us to do this in the first place?

01:05:13.000 --> 01:05:23.000
So, Cheryl, you want to read this one from Bumid Bar Rabba?

01:05:23.000 --> 01:05:24.000
No, she's still here.

01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:26.000
Send for yourself

01:05:26.000 --> 01:05:27.000
men

01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:30.000
And they will scout

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:37.000
Miriam and Aharon spoke against Moshe, and now send for yourself men

01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:38.000
It is as if

01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:50.000
They do not know, and they do not understand for their eyes are smeared and do not see. What did God see that God said, send for yourself men

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:53.000
after the incident with Miriam.

01:05:53.000 --> 01:06:03.000
It was revealed before the Holy Blessed One that the 10 scouts would speak Lashan Harah about the land

01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:15.000
The Holy Blessed One said, Let them not say that we did not know the punishment for slander. That is why the holy blessed one juxtaposed one matter to the other.

01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:21.000
For Miriam had spoken against her brother and was stricken with Zara'at

01:06:21.000 --> 01:06:25.000
So they would know the penalty for Lashon Haral.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:32.000
And if they ever sought to speak Lashan Hara, they would look upon what befell Miriam

01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:36.000
Nevertheless, they did not wish to learn

01:06:36.000 --> 01:06:39.000
That is why it is said

01:06:39.000 --> 01:06:41.000
One second

01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:52.000
It is said they do not know and they do not understand. For their eyes are smeared and do not see.

01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:55.000
So, a little backstory here.

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:58.000
Alright, some of us saw last week…

01:06:58.000 --> 01:06:59.000
Yes.

01:06:59.000 --> 01:07:06.000
that Moses, or sorry, Aaron and Miriam had something to say about Moses or against Moses.

01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:08.000
But it came out of Miriam's mouth.

01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:12.000
And… doesn't God talk to us, too?

01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:18.000
And Miriam gets stricken with Tsarat and his…

01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:21.000
Exiled from the camp for a week.

01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:27.000
Or maybe it's a vacation, maybe it's a reward, maybe it's a spiritual retreat.

01:07:27.000 --> 01:07:35.000
And maybe they were speaking against Moses, and maybe she was speaking on behalf of Moses' wife, right? We saw a lot of different Midrash about this last week.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:41.000
But here, Bharama is saying the juxtaposition is intentional. We just

01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:46.000
saw what happens when someone engages in Lashon Harrah,

01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:51.000
They get Surratt, they get kicked out of the camp, so they should know better.

01:07:51.000 --> 01:07:54.000
And yet, we didn't want to know.

01:07:54.000 --> 01:08:06.000
The scouts didn't want to know.

01:08:06.000 --> 01:08:10.000
So why… the Scouts?

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.000
perhaps to see if they would…

01:08:14.000 --> 01:08:17.000
From the experience of Miriam?

01:08:17.000 --> 01:08:20.000
Nope.

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:28.000
And Cheryl, you're right, they're not punished with sarat, they are punished with their entire generation wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, which is possibly worse.

01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:30.000
Or is that a punishment

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:32.000
Or is it mere league?

01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:33.000
Yeah.

01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:38.000
God, the loving parent, recognizing, right, you need…

01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:39.000
You're not

01:08:39.000 --> 01:08:40.000
You're not ready for this.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:41.000
You need a nap.

01:08:41.000 --> 01:08:42.000
Right.

01:08:42.000 --> 01:08:43.000
You need a timeout.

01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:46.000
You need a timeout. This is often how I understand.

01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:55.000
The chapters about us in the wilderness is God. God and Moses are the loving parents of a very cranky toddler.

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:56.000
we're all of a toddler.

01:08:56.000 --> 01:09:01.000
James and Ben were gonna do some gendering here.

01:09:01.000 --> 01:09:04.000
or re-gendering, or…

01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:11.000
So one thing you guys haven't hit on, I'm surprised, is that it was 10.

01:09:11.000 --> 01:09:12.000
Who said that?

01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:14.000
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:17.000
The requirement comes to…

01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:19.000
cure that, yes.

01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:24.000
I think I've taught that in the past, so I just didn't want to trace the same ground, but absolutely right.

01:09:24.000 --> 01:09:25.000
But right.

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.000
Dominion requirement comes from this, the 10 scouts goofed it up.

01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:32.000
It takes 10 to cure it, and that's the source of the medium required.

01:09:32.000 --> 01:09:35.000
Right, why we need a minion for certain things.

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:38.000
Um, and Cheryl's noting maybe it wasn't LaConne Hurrah,

01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:46.000
I… maybe, although most of our traditional texts do call it Lashon Hara.

01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:51.000
How were the scouts chosen, Deanna to checks in the mail?

01:09:51.000 --> 01:09:52.000
You want to read this?

01:09:52.000 --> 01:09:55.000
Yeah, great. Deanna, I want to read this one from the Klee Yakar?

01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:59.000
Yeah, I'd love to, thank you.

01:09:59.000 --> 01:10:02.000
Why were men specified?

01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:05.000
According to our sages, the men hated the land,

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:11.000
And said, Let us appoint a new head and return to Egypt.

01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:13.000
But the women loved the land and said,

01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:16.000
Give us a future holding in the land.

01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:21.000
Let me jump in here. Later on in the book of Numbers…

01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:24.000
Five daughters of a man named Somalafakant.

01:10:24.000 --> 01:10:27.000
died without nail heirs.

01:10:27.000 --> 01:10:30.000
I didn't go to Moses and say, hey now.

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:31.000
We should be able to inherit.

01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:33.000
What do you mean? Women can't inherit?

01:10:33.000 --> 01:10:39.000
We so want a portion of this wonderful land that we want you to go back to God,

01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:41.000
And say, hey now.

01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:42.000
Women should be able to inherit.

01:10:42.000 --> 01:10:43.000
women should be able to inherit.

01:10:43.000 --> 01:10:44.000
And so…

01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:48.000
And that is, in fact, exactly what happens. And God says, they're right, they should.

01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:51.000
And so the women stood up.

01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:53.000
And God changed Torah.

01:10:53.000 --> 01:10:57.000
It's really quite fascinating. That's not Midrash, it's in Torah. So…

01:10:57.000 --> 01:10:58.000
Yep.

01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:01.000
That proof text comes back to say,

01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:04.000
men were just sick and tired of the whole thing.

01:11:04.000 --> 01:11:06.000
Keep going, Deanna.

01:11:06.000 --> 01:11:08.000
Thank you, that's amazing.

01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:10.000
Isn't it…?

01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:14.000
mind-blowing. So the Holy Blessed One said to Moshe,

01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:17.000
In my view, for I see the future,

01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:20.000
It would be better to send women who cherish the land.

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:23.000
For they would not speak pejoratively about it.

01:11:23.000 --> 01:11:31.000
But for you, according to your understanding, as your opinion, is that these men are worthy, and they cherish the land,

01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000
Send men.

01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:36.000
This is the meaning of Numbers 13.1.

01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:39.000
Send for yourself men.

01:11:39.000 --> 01:11:45.000
By your knowing. But in my knowing, better to send women.

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:48.000
Lily Yakar was born in the year 1650.

01:11:48.000 --> 01:11:51.000
Just to be clear, this is not…

01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:56.000
Modern.

01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:58.000
And some of you are celebrating?

01:11:58.000 --> 01:12:01.000
And some of you are just sort of interested.

01:12:01.000 --> 01:12:09.000
What's in the room?

01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:16.000
Can I just say, I just… this, like, practically brings me to tears reading this.

01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:21.000
such a huge opportunity wasted.

01:12:21.000 --> 01:12:25.000
Because of patriarchy.

01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:29.000
arguably both in the original story itself.

01:12:29.000 --> 01:12:35.000
And in the centuries of our tradition that have unfolded since the 1600s,

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:41.000
In which this continues to be a minority opinion.

01:12:41.000 --> 01:12:45.000
I'm just surprised that none of us pulled that up.

01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:51.000
When we read it. It's such a thing that especially since we're doing this

01:12:51.000 --> 01:12:52.000
And… and at the end, if…

01:12:52.000 --> 01:12:55.000
Five books, you know, it's interesting that we didn't do that.

01:12:55.000 --> 01:13:01.000
At the end of what we read, they say, you know, our wives and children are going to be slaughtered, we should go back.

01:13:01.000 --> 01:13:05.000
Which makes it clear that the people speaking here

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:10.000
are not the women. Because in those days, women did not have wives.

01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:13.000
Classical Midrash include the excluded.

01:13:13.000 --> 01:13:18.000
Uplift world's themes, connect text to text. This is a classical

01:13:18.000 --> 01:13:21.000
No rush. In a classical.

01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:23.000
And it's not, let's face it,

01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:30.000
1600s were not exactly the era of women's live.

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:33.000
And yet the clear car saw something that was really important.

01:13:33.000 --> 01:13:34.000
Yeah.

01:13:34.000 --> 01:13:36.000
That isn't just…

01:13:36.000 --> 01:13:38.000
That…

01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:42.000
The scouts were too afraid.

01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:45.000
It's that the scouts themselves were wrong.

01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:49.000
selected, and not by God.

01:13:49.000 --> 01:13:52.000
By Moses.

01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:58.000
turns out Moses isn't perfect, and not every choice he makes is perfect.

01:13:58.000 --> 01:14:03.000
What strikes me immediately is that women

01:14:03.000 --> 01:14:11.000
At least from puberty, are very accustomed to uncertainty

01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:24.000
You know, it's a regular practice every month that you experience in your body uncertainty. When are you going to menstruate month to month

01:14:24.000 --> 01:14:26.000
And then in childbirth

01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:36.000
There's tremendous uncertainty and there's a lot of pain for something that's wonderful but uncertainty through it.

01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:44.000
makes me think of what Reb Zellman said many years ago at Shavuot about feminine consciousness.

01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:51.000
as a… as a different way of seeing the world. It's not actually about having a uterus, per se.

01:14:51.000 --> 01:14:55.000
It's about the consciousness that is built

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:57.000
As you say, around that uncertainty.

01:14:57.000 --> 01:14:59.000
And that embodiedness.

01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:03.000
So Ellen Frankel is… is going to pick up

01:15:03.000 --> 01:15:12.000
on these gender… on this gender piece, of course. Does someone want to read Ellen Frankel for us?

01:15:12.000 --> 01:15:20.000
I'd like to. Our daughters ask why all the people punished

01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:25.000
By being turned back to wander the desert for years

01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:31.000
Because 10 of the 12 spies have brought back an unfavorable report.

01:15:31.000 --> 01:15:42.000
As it is written, none of the men who have seen my presence and the signs that I have performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tried

01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:53.000
Me these many times and have disobeyed me shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers.

01:15:53.000 --> 01:16:03.000
That's in Numbers 14, 22, 23. Why should everyone suffer for the sins of those few?

01:16:03.000 --> 01:16:17.000
That's the question. Why should everyone suffer from the sins of those few? The rabbis answer, all the Israelite men, expecting Joshua and Caleb, accepting

01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:21.000
Joshua and Caleb lose

01:16:21.000 --> 01:16:37.000
Sorry, I can't see the… Thanks for making it larger, but then I'm losing a part of it. Lose heart after hearing the 10 spies disheartening report. All the men confront Moshe and Aaron protesting that

01:16:37.000 --> 01:16:41.000
Our wives and children will be carried off

01:16:41.000 --> 01:16:52.000
That's numbers 14 3 if the Israelites try to fight the people of Canaan so all the men deserve God's stern judgment

01:16:52.000 --> 01:17:08.000
But every one of the women takes heart and prepares herself without any qualms to enter the land, to reward the women of their faith as well as for their earlier refusal to contribute their earrings

01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:15.000
To make the golden calf, God grants all the women the privilege of entering the promised land.

01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:22.000
Miriam, the prophet interjects all the women, that is, except me

01:17:22.000 --> 01:17:43.000
But unlike my brother Moshe and Aaron, I was not told why I was doomed to die in the wilderness. I can only conclude that I was strong enough that I was a strong enough leader to have earned my stripes as they did

01:17:43.000 --> 01:17:52.000
I can only conclude that I was a strong enough leader to have earned my stripes as they did

01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:57.000
And this is because we will see a little later in Torah that Miriam dies.

01:17:57.000 --> 01:18:01.000
Before entering the land of promise. But apparently all of the other women

01:18:01.000 --> 01:18:06.000
When we say the whole generation that knew slavery needs to die, apparently that just means the men.

01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:08.000
At least according to one Midrash.

01:18:08.000 --> 01:18:13.000
Has anyone ever pulled over the top?

01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:17.000
And said to the children,

01:18:17.000 --> 01:18:24.000
You keep it up, and I'll give you something to cry about.

01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:26.000
I mean, hopefully not.

01:18:26.000 --> 01:18:28.000
But it's a pretty understandable impulse sometimes, right?

01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:33.000
I mean, not that anyone actually, you know, hopefully, you know, back to kids, or, you know…

01:18:33.000 --> 01:18:37.000
You want to kill yourself, kill each other back there right, the one who survives, that one will feed.

01:18:37.000 --> 01:18:41.000
So… here comes Tomuts saying,

01:18:41.000 --> 01:18:46.000
Why is this here?

01:18:46.000 --> 01:18:49.000
The whole community cries loudly, the people weep.

01:18:49.000 --> 01:18:52.000
The boss says that Radiochanan said,

01:18:52.000 --> 01:18:55.000
That day was the eve of Tish Abba'ab.

01:18:55.000 --> 01:18:58.000
They really lost the land.

01:18:58.000 --> 01:19:00.000
Romans destroyed the temple.

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:05.000
And the Holy Ghost had been said, on that day they wept,

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:07.000
gratuitously.

01:19:07.000 --> 01:19:11.000
I was established that day for them as a day of weeping.

01:19:11.000 --> 01:19:15.000
For all future generations.

01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:23.000
So the day that the scouts brought back this Lashon Harrah report,

01:19:23.000 --> 01:19:26.000
Is Tisha B'av?

01:19:26.000 --> 01:19:33.000
It's one of the things we commemorate on Tisha B'Av, not just the destruction of the first temple, the destruction of the second temple,

01:19:33.000 --> 01:19:37.000
On almost every other catastrophe that has befallen our people over the last…

01:19:37.000 --> 01:19:40.000
you know, 3, 4,000 years.

01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:43.000
And classically, the lupinic answer to the question,

01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:50.000
Why did the temple fall? You know, the rabbi said, lashem Harai, it's not different from what the scouts said.

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:53.000
Not being able to recognize the good.

01:19:53.000 --> 01:19:55.000
not being able to recognize the good.

01:19:55.000 --> 01:19:59.000
and stuck in place by fear.

01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:02.000
And Tisha Bahav, if you are…

01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:04.000
following along.

01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:08.000
is going to be an approximately 6 weeks.

01:20:08.000 --> 01:20:11.000
And our high holiday series will begin.

01:20:11.000 --> 01:20:16.000
So, as often happens, Torah is going, here's a map.

01:20:16.000 --> 01:20:20.000
Here's where you are, and like the old maps in the mall,

01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:21.000
war here.

01:20:21.000 --> 01:20:26.000
are here. We are going there.

01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:30.000
We have one last reading.

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:32.000
Notice that it's titles seeing the

01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:35.000
old and feminine eyes.

01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:42.000
And it is written by a guy, by somebody named Shlomo Katz.

01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:43.000
Before we read…

01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:45.000
I do not consider yet rich, if I may.

01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:46.000
Just for a second, because you're absolutely right.

01:20:46.000 --> 01:20:51.000
Corey.

01:20:51.000 --> 01:20:57.000
has… someone who is cisgendered male.

01:20:57.000 --> 01:21:00.000
It is easy for me to say.

01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:05.000
Guys can be feminists.

01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:11.000
I know that not everyone necessarily agrees with that.

01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:13.000
I consider it a victory.

01:21:13.000 --> 01:21:16.000
Albeit still partial.

01:21:16.000 --> 01:21:18.000
that feminist thought.

01:21:18.000 --> 01:21:21.000
can make its way.

01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:25.000
Orthodox, male,

01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:29.000
And that's who this guy is, by the way. Orthodox male rabbi.

01:21:29.000 --> 01:21:35.000
And… though we have fronted a bunch of female writers today,

01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:37.000
There must also be a bunch of middle riders.

01:21:37.000 --> 01:21:43.000
Embracing some of these fundamental questions of what kind of thought does it take?

01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:48.000
What kind of heart does it take?

01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:50.000
So, with that, I'm sorry, but Rachel.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:56.000
I have two quick things. One is a reminder from last week that one of the Midrash we looked at

01:21:56.000 --> 01:22:00.000
holds that Miriam was mad at Moses

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:07.000
Because there's a midrush that says Moses left his wife after the revelation at Sinai.

01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:13.000
Moses decided he no longer wanted to sleep with his wife, because now he's so married to God that…

01:22:13.000 --> 01:22:15.000
He can't be bothered.

01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:18.000
with earthly connection.

01:22:18.000 --> 01:22:22.000
So that's one of our traditions' understandings for why Miriam was so mad at him.

01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:25.000
How could you abandon your wife like that, you schmuck?

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:27.000
Okay, so that's one thing.

01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:33.000
The other thing is, in this passage, this author is clearly

01:22:33.000 --> 01:22:40.000
Taking this as a literal teaching about the literal land,

01:22:40.000 --> 01:22:51.000
And I want to name the fact that this passage is also always about our own journeys to our own land of promise and our own fears that get in the way.

01:22:51.000 --> 01:22:54.000
It both is and isn't just.

01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:58.000
about that land of promise.

01:22:58.000 --> 01:23:02.000
So, I just… I invite us to read it with both of those frames in mind.

01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:12.000
With that, does someone want to read Slow Mo Cats for us?

01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:14.000
I'd like to read it if you don't mind.

01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:16.000
Yes.

01:23:16.000 --> 01:23:18.000
Perhaps

01:23:18.000 --> 01:23:33.000
Okay, perhaps Miriam was so devastated that Moshe left his wife because she knew that if he still had the clarity of the feminine voice in his life, she would understand that he needed to summon the greatest 12 women from the nation

01:23:33.000 --> 01:23:38.000
to scout out the land. And if he had, perhaps everything would have been different.

01:23:38.000 --> 01:23:43.000
When they gazed out at the gorgeous hills and valleys,

01:23:43.000 --> 01:23:45.000
of the land of Israel,

01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:50.000
They would have seen the depth and spiritual beauty of the Holy Land,

01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:59.000
When they walk the dusty deserts and rocky landscapes, they would have felt their roots in the sacred soil between their toes.

01:23:59.000 --> 01:24:01.000
When they breathe the air around them,

01:24:01.000 --> 01:24:08.000
They would have intuited their eternal connection to this otherworldly place.

01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:23.000
When they tasted the fruits of the land, they would graciously internalize the gift that had bestowed

01:24:23.000 --> 01:24:38.000
When the women returned to the nation on a spiritual high, beaming with the glow of the Holy Land, the children of Israel would have spent the night celebrating with gratitude to God and excitement for their future

01:24:38.000 --> 01:24:49.000
Just like it's funny, I was just thinking of this even before I read it. Just like they cross the sea, Miriam would have led the people in joyous singing and dancing.

01:24:49.000 --> 01:25:03.000
They would not have had to wander in the desert for 40 years, and they would not have invited the destructive forces of Tisha Ba'av into our history.

01:25:03.000 --> 01:25:06.000
So this whole piece is a counterfactual, right?

01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:11.000
If only it had been different, then everything would be different now.

01:25:11.000 --> 01:25:15.000
Shlomo Katz is contemporary.

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:21.000
This is, like, in the last 10 years or so.

01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:24.000
I find myself thinking of all of the…

01:25:24.000 --> 01:25:29.000
coexistence and peace initiatives created by women.

01:25:29.000 --> 01:25:35.000
Right? If we put women in charge, maybe we could actually stop

01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:40.000
The endless cycles of violence that we see there, right? Hindsight is 20-20.

01:25:40.000 --> 01:25:42.000
And every war

01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:48.000
Well, the good news, you know, they say the best time to have planted a tree would have been 20 years ago, and the next best time to plant one is now.

01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:49.000
So, what does all of this say to us about…

01:25:49.000 --> 01:25:53.000
Step 3 readers, 3 paragraphs.

01:25:53.000 --> 01:25:56.000
the kind of…

01:25:56.000 --> 01:25:58.000
society, we want to build going forward.

01:25:58.000 --> 01:26:05.000
And I'm not saying, therefore, only women should be in charge.

01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:07.000
the different way of seeing.

01:26:07.000 --> 01:26:10.000
Maybe we can understand it that way today.

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:14.000
Different way of seeing.

01:26:14.000 --> 01:26:16.000
So, bless us with…

01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:19.000
different ways of seeing…

01:26:19.000 --> 01:26:23.000
With our past, without being paralyzed by it.

01:26:23.000 --> 01:26:27.000
It's a Shabbat edition, as it always is.

01:26:27.000 --> 01:26:30.000
administrative announcements.

01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:34.000
The last Soul Spa for this year's cycle.

01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:35.000
Led by us.

01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:37.000
It will be July, led by us.

01:26:37.000 --> 01:26:39.000
will be July 18.

01:26:39.000 --> 01:26:42.000
After that, it's Tish Abba Auv.

01:26:42.000 --> 01:26:47.000
And then the 7-week holiday, one-way series.

01:26:47.000 --> 01:26:50.000
It's at 7 o'clock Eastern.

01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:53.000
It'll be on the spiritual…

01:26:53.000 --> 01:26:57.000
of the classical high holiday literacy.

01:26:57.000 --> 01:26:59.000
What is a volcano trying to…

01:26:59.000 --> 01:27:02.000
Envision for us.

01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:06.000
Tokaf, the shepherd.

01:27:06.000 --> 01:27:08.000
the sheep under the staff.

01:27:08.000 --> 01:27:11.000
What are these images of…

01:27:11.000 --> 01:27:13.000
emotion, inviting us into

01:27:13.000 --> 01:27:16.000
Not just so most of the 7-week runway

01:27:16.000 --> 01:27:22.000
can be full from your experience, but our high holiday experiences themselves can be animated by some of those images.

01:27:22.000 --> 01:27:24.000
You richer.

01:27:24.000 --> 01:27:27.000
It is free for Cheryl Me and CBI members.

01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:31.000
you can register at either synagogue.

01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:35.000
Um, if you are a guest, and we'll keep reminding of this,

01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:40.000
Uh, there are times after July 18 in past years when we've done this.

01:27:40.000 --> 01:27:44.000
that folks have, uh, self…

01:27:44.000 --> 01:27:48.000
We'd be delighted to support if folks want to do that.

01:27:48.000 --> 01:27:50.000
But we're starting to head into summer.

01:27:50.000 --> 01:27:53.000
And so we thought we would just start making those notes.

01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:56.000
for a few weeks.

01:27:56.000 --> 01:27:59.000
Always do the chat box has our…

01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:01.000
document for today. We wish everyone…

01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:05.000
A sweet, sweet Shabbat. We'll see you next week. I will stay home.

01:28:05.000 --> 01:28:07.000
And stop the recording.

01:28:07.000 --> 01:28:09.000
Um, Deanna, it starts right after Tisha B'Av, and I will look up that date, hang on.

01:28:09.000 --> 01:28:15.000
July