June 16, 2023 / 27 Sivan 5783
Send for yourself people that they may scout out the land of Canaan…
So begins Parashat Sh’lach L’cha. Moses dispatches a dozen scouts, one from each of Israel’s tribe, to travel the land, and to report on its qualities. He assigns the scouts a list of questions – is there water? are the cities fortified? are the people strong? – which on the surface have a practical purpose; things we need to know when we enter this land.
The same questions, it seems to me, also aim at something deeper. What am I, what are you, looking for in the course of a life journey. What should we be seeking? What might we be open to finding?
Hasidic tradition reads the journey of the scouts as a search for holy sparks embedded in the concrete, material world. The main role of humanity, in the Hasidic/Kabbalistic view, is to raise up these holy sparks and returning them to their source.
All of that is fancy language for finding holiness in the course of the everyday. That’s the essential work to which we’re each called: to venture forth, beyond our zones of comfort, in search of kedushah. Safe travels!
Shabbat Shalom!
