Bad news. Mission impossible. Abort immediately.
This is the negative report that the spies brought back after scouting out the land of Canaan. Tales of giants roaming the streets, cities fortified with walls, unfriendly territory. In fact, they brought back massive fruit (8 spies were needed to carry a single bushel of grapes) to demonstrate how huge and mighty the inhabitants were.
After the Jewish nation collectively freaked out, they earned themselves 40 years of desert travel. If they only had a bit of faith, they would have realized that, with G-d on their side, the giants didn't even pose a threat.
In our 20/20 hindsight, we cannot fathom how the very same group who saw miracle after miracle lost faith so quickly. Ten plagues, splitting of the sea, manna falling from the heaven, the list goes on and on. A simple task li
ke conquering a country should be within Hashem's miracle-performing comfort zone. Why the hysteria?
The answer is that even with all the miracles, we are still human, and live in a world that operates on a natural plane. So the supernatural remains unnatural and counter-intuitive. No matter how many miracles you've experienced, when a lion is roaring right at you, it frightens the living daylights out of you. When hearing that they were up against 31 kings, and seeing the sheer size of the produce, they couldn't help but be paralyzed by fear.
It actually required a superhuman effort for Joshua and Caleb, two out of the twelve spies, to remain undaunted and optimistic.
But that's the goal. And why we spent 40 years in the desert. To become more comfortable with the extraordinary. To realize that nature itself is Hashem's creation, and therefore cannot obstruct us from accomplishing our divine mission. True we live in nature, but we are also given the power to rise above it.
We can be a Caleb. We can be a Jewish superhero.
Only 10 days left until "Camp Aleph Superheroes" begins!
Join the 30 campers already signed up at CampAleph.com or sponsor a "campership" and be a child's superhero.
ב"ה