Looking Through The Correct Lens
One of the interesting sidelights in this week's parsha is the connection between the scouts and the mitzvah of tzitzit. When Moshe sends the delegation into the Land of Israel, the Torah uses the word latur—to tour or scout out the land. In modern Hebrew, the same root gives us the word for a tourist.
At the end of the parsha, however, we encounter the mitzvah of tzitzit. There the Torah tells us: "Do not follow after your heart and after your eyes."
What is the connection?
Joshua and Caleb saw exactly the same land as the other ten scouts. They saw the same cities, the same fortifications, and the same giants. The facts were identical. What differed was the lens through which they viewed those facts.
The ten scouts looked at the obstacles and concluded that success was impossible. "We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes," they said. The challenges seemed insurmountable.
Joshua and Caleb looked at the very same reality and reached a different conclusion. They did not deny the difficulties. They did not claim the conquest would be easy. Rather, they said that God had commanded the Jewish people to enter the land. If God had brought them this far, then they had the ability to succeed. The obstacles were real, but so was God's promise.
That is the lesson of tzitzit. The Torah tells us to look at the tzitzit and remember the mitzvot. It reminds us that what we see is often shaped by the perspective through which we view the world. Two people can look at the same situation and come away with entirely different conclusions.
There is a story told about a group of Chabad women who attended a convention in Chicago. After Shabbat, a snowstorm prevented them from returning to New York. One of them was the wife of one of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's secretaries. When the secretary informed the Rebbe that his wife was "stuck" in Chicago, the Rebbe replied, "Stuck? No Jew is ever stuck. If they are there, then God has a purpose for them being there."
The women took that message to heart. Since they could not leave, they spent their extra time distributing Shabbat candles and candleholders to Jewish women in Chicago. Years later, one of them returned and discovered that some of those women were still lighting Shabbat candles because of that encounter.
One person sees a snowstorm and says, "I'm stuck." Another sees the same snowstorm and asks, "What opportunity has God placed before me?"
That is the difference between the ten scouts and Joshua and Caleb. It is also the lesson of tzitzit. The Torah teaches us that there is no such thing as mere coincidence. We are challenged to look beyond the surface and ask what purpose and responsibility God is placing before us.
The facts may be the same. The question is: through what lens are we looking at them?
Something to think about.
