In my portion God tells Moses to send scouts to Canaan. Moses, of course, does this and when the scouts come back they tell the whole community what they saw. The scouts tell them that it is a very good land, but there are people living there who are called the Anikites. The Anikites were very strong and would crush the Israelites if they tried to take Canaan.
Only two of the scouts, Calab and Joshua thought that the Israelites could take the land but the community did not agree. The community thought they would be destroyed.
So God gets angry over this because the Israelites are disobeying God. So God punishes them by making them wander in the wilderness for forty years while everyone of that generation dies except Calab and Joshua. Because Caleb and Joshua were loyal. And then after forty years God let the Israelites into the land.
Now there are a couple of things in my Torah portion that I find interesting and even problematic. One, God punishes the Israelites harshly for their lack of faith. But the way I see it God is punishing them because of their fear. They’re afraid that they are going to be destroyed by the Anikites and I don’t blame them.
Although, the portion doesn’t talk about this, I doubt that the Israelites wanted to kill the Anikites or at least I hope they didn’t. Which brings me to my second point.
In Numbers 13:2 God tells Moses to send scouts to Cannan because they are giving the Israelites that land, but God and the Israelites have no rightful ownership of that land. God is talking to Moses like they own Canaan but other people live there and considering that there was a war between them and the Israelites I doubt that the Canaanites approved of this plan. I also find it interesting that God plans to give this land to the Israelites but then forces them to fight for the land.
I don’t think my Torah portion is a very good model for how we should act because in it God forces people to fight for land that other people are inhabiting and I doubt that most of the Israelites want to hurt these people. And when the Israelites don’t obey, God sends them into the wilderness. Moses tells God to be forgiving which in my opinion is a much better model for how we should be. But God still sends them into the wilderness. I think that this portion is trying to teach about trust and faith but it does it in a very violent way that I don’t approve of.
Now I have a question for you: if someone is telling you to do something that you think is wrong, what do you do and how do you respond? I want you to take a moment to reflect on this and perhaps share your thoughts with your neighbor at the lunch after services.
Now I would like to thank a couple people for getting me where I am today. First, I would like to thank my parents for supporting me and helping me through this. I also would like to thank our Rabbi for helping me with my D’var Torah, the prayers, and countless other things. And thank you to Deborah Fisch for putting the supplement together. And last but not least, I would like to thank Deb who has helped me with a lot of stuff, Including my portions and my halftorah. I would like to thank all these people because without them I would not be here today doing this.
