Shabbat Parashat Shelah Le'kha - 18 Sivan 5768 - From Grasshoppers to Giants

June 21, 2008 / 18 Sivan 5768

By: Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, Associate Dean Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Torah Reading: Numbers 13:1-15:41

Haftarah Reading: Joshua 2:1-24
As a young child attending day camp at the local JCC, I had a counsellor who used
to spend hours entertaining us with her ability to catch grasshoppers mid-jump. She
would scoop them up by two of their legs and hold them up, showing off their
stomachs. Hands quick enough to catch the hoppers were certainly noteworthy, but
what fascinated me even more was the long springboard-like bounce of the jumping
grasshoppers whose ability to keep jumping would certainly have surpassed the
commercial energizer bunny. And of course, growing up in Texas, the
overwhelming number of grasshoppers made this a daily summer activity.
As I think about that experience and of the bit of thrill and fear (the latter being
much easier to admit now than it was so many years ago), I remember thinking that
the grasshoppers were so powerful, so much bigger because of their ability to leap
into the air and reach heights that no other creature its size could do. And, I also
remember the annoying sense that no matter what we did to try to get rid of them -
there were often dozens - and sometimes even hundreds - of hoppers jumping in the
yard and occasionally even in the house.
As I think of this today, I am reminded of a brief exchange from It's a Bug's Life,
the Disney blockbuster movie in which a misfit ant, looking for warriors to save his
colony from grasshoppers, recruits a group of bugs that turn out to be an inept circus
troupe. In an exchange between two of the characters, Hopper says to Molt: "It's a
bug-eat-bug world out there, princess. One of those Circle of Life kind of things.
This is the way things are supposed to work: The sun grows the food, the ants pick
the food, the grasshoppers eat the food ..."
Mort then responds: "And the birds eat the grasshoppers. Like the time that bird
who almost ate you, remember?"
So, why is all this on my mind this week?
In this week's Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, Moses sends twelve spies to scout out
the land of Israel in advance of the rest of the people's arrival. After exploring for
forty days, they returned with epic reports of a land filled with people of great
fertility and size, a land abundant in the fruit, indicating that the inhabitants of the
land were powerful and invincible. There is but one conclusion, they inferred. One
must be a giant in order to live in the Holy Land. We were like grasshoppers in our
eyes, and so we were in their eyes, they reported and there is no place for us, little
grasshoppers, in a land that demands stature and nobility. Better that we stay in the
wilderness living our quiet, secure lives as small grasshoppers than ever aspire to
reach greater physical or moral heights.
In other words - "We saw ourselves as being nothing ... and that is how they
perceived us." It is human nature to fear the unknown, yet the report of the spies
contains a very simple yet powerful psychological insight.
Our self-image and self-confidence - or lack of - does affect the way others perceive
us and we are influenced by what others perceive us to be. If we exude confidence,
others perceive us a 'somebody', a force to be reckoned with. If we see ourselves as
tiny and insignificant, as mere grasshoppers, can we blame another person for
seeing us the same way? The ten spies had no real way of knowing the inhabitants
of land or what those inhabitants may have thought. In fact, in looking elsewhere in
the Torah, it seems that there were other peoples who, in fact, feared the Israelites
(see Numbers 22 and Joshua 2 for two examples). Yet, because they saw themselves
as weak they assumed that others would see them in the same light.
I don't think that the spies were bad; nor do I believe that their report was a 'sin'.
Rather, I think it was truth - as they saw it in that moment. It was the self-truth and
self-perception that they lived with about themselves and about our people. As the
Spanish commentator, Abraham Ibn Ezra, reminds us as great as the spies may have
been, the years in slavery took their toll on all the people's self- esteem. With that in
mind, it is not so surprising that they did not have the confidence and
self-perception that allowed them to see their own greatness.
The real lesson, then, is in the second half of the psychological insight - each of us
is influenced and, when offered correctly, can be strengthened by what others see in
us. There is a remarkable power we have to help others re-discover truth, to help
them turn insecurity into self-confidence. In the end, no one can change how a
person sees him or herself except that person. But, knowing that people are indeed
influenced by how others see them, positive reinforcement, love, acceptance, and
pointing out the gifts a person brings to the world can all be powerful conduits to
reshaping a person's self-perception, in turning grasshoppers into giants. As the
prophet Samuel reminded King Saul of this when he told him: "Do you perceive
yourself as small, you are the head of the tribes of Israel!" (Samuel I 15:17)
So, as we go into Shabbat, I pray that each of us can see the grasshopper within us
(and within others) grow to be a giant, watching in fascination as we spring to
greater heights and that like Hopper we will see the grasshopper eat from the land.
Shabbat Shalom.