Shabbat Greetings
This week we read Sh’lach L’cha (Numbers 13:1-15:41) the story of the twelve scouts sent to explore the Land of Israel. Ten return with a report shaped by fear. They see obstacles, dangers, and limitations. Two, Joshua and Caleb, look at the very same landscape and see possibility.
The Torah is strikingly honest here. The scouts are not arguing about facts. They all saw the same land. The difference lies in how they interpreted what they saw. Were they viewing the future through a lens of fear or through a lens of faith? Their words reveal something profound. The fearful scouts say, “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we appeared to them.” Before anyone else diminishes them, they diminish themselves. Their vision is constrained by their assumptions about who they are and what is possible.
Joshua and Caleb offer another way. They do not deny the challenges. They simply refuse to let fear define reality. They insist that God’s promise, human courage, and communal commitment can carry the people forward.
As we celebrate our congregant and new rabbinic colleague, this message feels especially timely. Every new beginning requires a community to imagine possibility. Rabbi Miryam Margo Wolfson arrives not simply to fill a role but to join the Jewish community in envisioning what we all can become together. The question before us is not whether there will be challenges, every community faces them. The question is whether we will approach the future with the spirit of the ten scouts or with the spirit of Joshua and Caleb.
Can we see abundance where others see scarcity? Can we see opportunity where others see risk? Can we see the divine image in one another and build a community expansive enough to honor the fullness of every person’s humanity?
As it happens, we also celebrate Pride Month this week. Pride Month invites us to consider the power of being truly seen and the courage required to see ourselves honestly. For generations, many LGBTQ+ Jews were told, explicitly or implicitly, that there was no place for them in Jewish life. Too often, communities looked at them through lenses of fear, discomfort, or limitation. Pride asks us to choose a different vision. It asks us to see what God sees: human beings created b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image. It asks us to celebrate authenticity rather than fear it, and to recognize that our communities are stronger, richer, and more holy when everyone can bring their full selves into the covenant.
The challenge of Sh’lach L’cha is ultimately a challenge about vision. What do we choose to see? Do we focus on what separates us, or on the possibility of what we can build together? Do we see grasshoppers, or do we see God’s partners in creating a more just and loving world?
As we celebrate with Rabbi Wolfson and honor Pride Month, may we inherit the courage of Joshua and Caleb. May we be a community that chooses hope over fear, possibility over limitation, and belonging over exclusion. And may we always strive to see one another, as God does, with dignity, blessing, and love.
SHABBAT SHALOM