Sermon given June 13, 2026.

There’s the classic case of four blindfolded people being led into a room, given the exact same mystery object, and told to describe it.

The first one says— it’s so giant, so solid! I tried to knock it over with my whole body but could not.

The second one said— it was like a rope with a broom on the end, long, thin, and swishing around.

The third one says— it was large and flappy and floppy like a pancake.

The final one says— it was like a tube, but the end was two big holes!

Now remember, all of these people had been presented with the exact same object, and yet, their experiences were wildly different. What had they been presented with?

…. an elephant. Something that is incredibly solid and strong, has a swishy tail, has floppy ears, and a trunk with two big holes on the end that sniff you all at the same time! Each person’s reaction to the elephant was 100% correct, and also 100% different— it’s just a question of what part of the elephant they were focused on. 

In this week’s parashah, we read about the infamous spies who were sent forth out of the desert and into the Promised Land to investigate and report back on what they found there. Now, they weren’t wearing blindfolds—at least, not as far as we know— but they were, in effect, entering into a space of mystery, a space of the unknown, just like our friends who met the elephant. They didn’t know what they were going to find. 

And so, they all went into the new land together, a man from each tribe. Our Torah says that

כֻּלָּ֣ם אֲנָשִׁ֔ים רָאשֵׁ֥י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל הֵֽמָּה

They were all leaders, men of distinction within B’nai Yisrael. 

And as a group, these men scoped out vineyards, fields, cities, and villages. Ostensibly, they saw all of the same things, the good and the bad, and then they returned, as a unit, to report to the children of Israel on their impressions of the promised land. 

But what happened when they opened their mouths? Did they all report the same thing, even though, in theory, they had experienced comparable situations? No. Just like with the elephant, their testimonies didn’t sync up with one another. 

As the spies begin to describe the impressive Promised Land, our commentators describe how B’nai Yisrael murmur worriedly. In Numbers Chapter 13: 30 we hear from Caleb:

 “Caleb (one of the spies) silenced the people, and he said, "We can surely go up and take possession of it, for we can indeed overcome it." 

However, Caleb’s silencing of B’nai Yisrael does not calm them, especially because a few verses later, we read:

“But the other men who went up with him said, "We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” They spread a report about the land which they had scouted, telling the children of Israel, "The land we passed through to explore is a land that consumes its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of stature. There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, descended from the giants. In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”

As a result of this testimony, the children of Israel panic. Which makes some sense, right? I mean, let’s put ourselves in their shoes for a second. They escape slavery to the desert, but they themselves haven’t seen the promised land. Men they know and trust leave to scout out the land and come back with differing accounts of what they saw. Some are describing a pretty scary situation, while another two are trying to reassure everyone that it’ll be OK, and telling them to silence their concerns. 

But we can understand being worried, especially after all that they’ve been through, and also because their leaders aren’t agreeing on what the correct path forward is. 

We know how this ends in our Torah-- God decrees that all of B’nai Yisrael, except for Caleb and Joshua, will not live to see the Promised Land. 

Now traditionally, when we tell this story, we say that Caleb and his compatriot Joshua were brave, and told the truth, while the other spies were reporting “fake news”, as it were.  Often, God’s decision that the generation that left Egypt would live out the rest of their lives in the desert is seen as a pure punishment, either for lying or for lack of faith. This is underscored by God’s deadly rage at the leaders who did not agree with Caleb and Joshua. 

It can feel neat and tidy to just blame all those leaders as not having faith, or as being liars, or as being evil-- But that isn’t exactly how being human works. That isn’t how trauma works, and we KNOW that each and every member of B’nai Yisrael has been through deep and traumatic experiences before coming to the events of this week’s parashah. The plagues that God invokes were miraculous, yes, but they were also terrifying and deadly. Leaving the only home the Israelites knew, racing ahead of a menacing army, being attacked by the Amalekites, the list goes on any on-- and that means that all of B’nai Yisrael, including the spies who were sent to scout the Promised Land, were not operating from a place of mental and spiritual health. They were in a place of fight or flight, and the various spies fell neatly into these two camps, both of which are legitimate human responses.

Trauma specialist Dr. Judith Herman writes that trauma “is, really, all about losing control. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to prioritize reclaiming and increasing a [person]’s sense of control ”

And perhaps this is exactly what is happening to the spies in this week’s parashah. Perhaps, every single one of the spies was processing their shared trauma in their own way, and choosing a different way forward to deal with that trauma and regain control. Their methods of reclaiming their control simply didn’t match because each one had their own personal experience of their trauma. Some of them chose to hold onto the relative safety of the status quo, and others wanted to move forward. Just as our four blindfolded heroes focused on different parts of the same elephant, the spies focused on different parts of the same promised land, and drew different conclusions. Some of them saw its very real beauty, and some of them saw its very real danger.   

This means we can try believing and valuing both Caleb and Joshua, who looked at the promised land through a more optimistic lens, and ALSO, believing and valuing the spies who reacted to a new world with skepticism, fear, caution, and the urge to protect their families and the lives they know. It also means not taking a page from Caleb’s book and silencing those who are worried, but rather, listening to those who react with more concern and restraint instead of being gung-ho.   

We can easily imagine Caleb thinking “whoa, the people here are so healthy looking-- the produce and game here must be wonderful!” and another spy looking at the same people and thinking “whoa, the people here are so healthy-looking, but we’ve been wandering around eating manna-- what if they fight us? How will we survive?”

Neither of those sound stupid or malicious or faithless to me. Both of those reactions just sound…. human.

Which brings me to our second point-- WE are all human, too. And life, at least in my experience, isn’t all lived in Egypt, or in the wilderness, or in the promised land. In the last few years, we have experienced several sweeping traumas as a society, everything from a worldwide pandemic, to October 7th and the ensuing war, to rising antisemitism, to ICE surges and threats to our democracy at home. And that’s before we even get to our personal health challenges, family challenges, and community challenges, each of which has affected us deeply.   

And politically, as Mainers and as Americans and as Jews, we know what it’s like to have different leaders among us have different visions of how to move forward in the face of traumatic realities-- and we know what it’s like to have each of us react in different ways because of the real traumas we have been through. We know what it’s like to have the same people, committed to public service, look at the same messy landscape and have widely different visions of how to move forward. This is precisely why we have elections-- this is why in a democracy, we hear from different leaders and then we choose for which person’s vision, and version, of events best lines up with bringing us towards a future we can embrace. To go back to our elephant metaphor, each of these leaders focuses on a different part of the elephant, but all are connected by the same animal of politics in this country. 

Last week, we examined what wisdom the week’s parashah could give us before the primary. And this week, we can similarly find guidance for the complex social pill we all now have to swallow. 

Because no matter whom we supported in the first round of elections, we now have to decide what our relationship will be to the entire proverbial elephant in the room, that is to say, towards the entire, zoomed out landscape of our state, and our nation. 

We have to decide how we will act towards both the people we agree with and the people we don’t agree with, towards the path we may have hoped we would have forward versus the one we have been given.

Some of us may react like Caleb and Joshua-- we may say, yes, there are real issues, and there are very real challenges ahead of us, but we will move forward and we will vanquish them one way or another, and the good will outweigh the bad.

And some of us will react like the other spies-- we may say, yes, there are very real challenges ahead of us, but with the cards we have been dealt, and with the leaders we currently have, we don’t think we can vanquish them, not realistically, not now. We need to regroup and plan. 

And I want you to know that I have heard both of these sentiments expressed strongly by members of our TBE community.

Regardless of which camp resonates most with you in this moment, there is one thing we must never do to ourselves and each other.  What we must not do, in this case, is reach the conclusion in our parashah-- the conclusion that those who urge caution are worthy of disregard or death, as happens to the spies who are not optimistic, or the conclusion that for the traumatized Israelites, not entering Eretz Yisrael is the worst possible outcome.   

Because no matter where we fall on the political spectrum, disagreeing is not a crime, and for those in this community who do not feel optimistic in this moment, and who are still searching for a leader who speaks to you, the wilderness is not a punishment. 

Life in the wilderness is only a punishment if we choose to see it that way. The wilderness can be a deeply spiritual place, primed for growth. Being in the wilderness does not mean taking a back seat. The wilderness is where Moses sees his burning bush, where the commandments are given, where Miriam breaks out her tambourine. The wilderness is a place of refuge and safety and unity, where the tribes had space to recover from the wounds of slavery and learn who they were on the other side of everything they had been through. Staying in the wilderness can also be a realistic and compassionate response to a traumatized people who know that they are living in a space of caution, fear, and distrust. 

For those Mainers who are similarly feeling caution, fear, and distrust politically, I bless you with self-compassion and patience, and the many wonderful opportunities for reflection and growth that come with being in the wilderness. At the same time, I hope you will try to understand the complex and real roots of the optimism driving others, and not give up hope.   

And for those Mainers who look ahead at what is coming with excitement and optimism, I bless you with the joy and camaraderie that come with successful teamwork and organizing, and with continued dreaming and visioning. At the same time, I encourage you to also honor the very legitimate concerns of those who do not share your enthusiasm, and who have very real, very grounded worries as we move forward as a state. 

If there is one thing I hope we can all take away from this week’s parashah, it is that there is not one right way to react when faced with an unknown future, especially after years of upheaval and challenge. We must be kind to ourselves, and kind to each other. Nobody is perfect, and healing is not linear. Our job, especially in times of political disagreement about the path forward, is to learn from the mistakes of B’nai Yisrael in this week’s parashah. Instead of condemning those we disagree with, we must make the effort to hear each other, to trust each other’s needs, and to learn from each other instead of either blindly ploughing ahead or choosing to sit out the process entirely.

This Wilderness is not a punishment. Not if we are open to its blessings, and to the lessons it has to teach us. 

Shabbat shalom.