Parashat Shelakh: How Not to Feel Like a Grasshopper

There are different ways of being small. There is insecurity and there is humility and they are not the same thing. The 10 spies who came back from their tour of Israel saying that we will not be able to conquer the land were insecure; “we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes and so we were in their [the local giants’] eyes,” they say. Moshe, on the other hand, is humble, “the humblest man on the face of the earth,” it says right at the end of last week’s parsha, as if begging us to make exactly this contrast to the spies.

“We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes and so we were in their eyes.” I think we know what this feels like, to look at those around us and feel that they are “giants” in comparison to us, to feel our own smallness, to be so intensely aware of all the ways we are lacking to the point that we are sure so it is in others’ eyes as well – that to them, too, we must seem inadequate.

Such is the human condition that we compare ourselves to others and sometimes, perhaps often, find ourselves lacking. How does one avoid such a state? By remembering always that we are a piece of God. And by remembering that as such, each one of us has a certain majesty, a grandeur of our own, our own way of shining forth, not like a grasshopper in contrast to giants, but like a human walking alongside other humans, each with her own way of lighting the road.

The difference between those 10 spies and Yehoshua, at least (Calev, too, but for different reasons), is that Yehoshua carried this knowledge with him – that is the gift that Moshe gave him before he left, changing his name from Hoshea to Yehoshua – the gift of carrying God’s name inside his own, of carrying the knowledge that God is a part of him with every step, bringing dignity and a long range perspective to the task at hand. Yes, at this particular moment I feel really small in relation to those who live here; I am new, a stranger; that’s what it feels like to not know the lay of the land – yes, that’s how I feel at this moment, but I can also keep with me the knowledge that God is a part of me, and this knowledge keeps me steady and balanced, keeps a person from falling into the “I am nothing but a grasshopper” trap.

The end of the parsha offers the same solution to the problem of the spies. It tells us that in order not to let our eyes “scout around” (taturu, like the spies), we should wear tzitzit in order to remember the God who made us and in order to remember the mitzvot – to remember that we have a divine job to do. There is no time to look around and make comparisons and feel like grasshoppers. We have a job to do on this earth, and it is a divine appointed job no matter how inadequate we feel to fulfill it.

That is Moshe’s humility. He doesn’t wallow in grasshopper-ness to the point of avoiding his mission. At a certain point, insecurity stops leaders like the spies from doing their job. If anything, Moshe’s humility fuels his mission, because it reminds him that its purpose is not his own greatness, but being part of something larger. His awareness of his own smallness – in relation to God, not other humans --- keeps him steady and on course in fulfilling his job.