God spoke to Moses and said, “Send out, for yourself, people to scout out the land, … one person from each tribe, each of them a chieftain among them.” [Numbers 13:1-2] This week, MWJDS is sending out some people, representatives of the various components that make us who we are as a school. As new graduates, they will scout out the land beyond our walls. It seems fitting that the eighth grade, after their graduation but before they leave us for the long haul, will spend the last week of the school year on a field trip, exploring the world on the other side of this milestone. They will return to us briefly, giving them the opportunity to report back, to inspire their younger peers, and perhaps pass on a few words of wisdom.
In the Torah this week, we read about the scouts that B’nai Yisrael sent into the land that would become Israel, before attempting to conquer it. Moses chooses one leader of each tribe to go, to see what the land is like, what grows there, and who else is there to contend with. The scouts come back with conflicting reports. They agree that it is, as promised, a land flowing with milk and honey, with wonderful fruit. But ten of the scouts get caught up in worry about the people who are living in the land. Joshua and Caleb, the two remaining scouts, try to calm the people, assuring them that even though the land is inhabited that they can surely conquer it, as God told them. But the ten other scouts shout them down. No, they say, we can’t beat these people. The land devours people and the inhabitants are giants who make us look like grasshoppers. The people hearing the report are thrown into a panic, certain that they will never be able to conquer the promised land, and begin demanding to return to Egypt. In the end God decides they aren’t ready, and that the next generation will be the one to enter Israel.
Midrash Rabbah on the book of Bamidbar (Numbers) explains that the word l’cha, for yourself, that God includes in the instruction to Moses to send these scouts, indicates that the scouting mission is not for God’s sake. God already knows that the land is good and that the people can conquer it. When this incident is recounted later in the Torah in Devarim, Deuteronomy, it is explicitly stated that the people asked to send scouts ahead. And, even knowing the risk involved, God agrees to let them go check it out for themselves. We can hardly blame them for coming back scared. It’s been barely a year since they were slaves in Egypt, and now they are being asked not only to create a free, God-fearing society, but to conquer the land they are going to establish it in. The task overwhelms them, and so, the consequence of spending the next forty years in the desert while the next generation grows up is as much a reprieve as it is a punishment.
This week, overhearing some nervous kvetching from MWJDS’s own children-of-Israel, I thought of the scouts in the Torah. Anyone who has seen the pictures of our students playing soccer against Willow Hill will remember that they have experienced seeming like grasshoppers in comparison to their competition. I light-heartedly suggested to a group of middle schoolers that the lesson of this parsha is that when faced with a seemingly insurmountable task like finishing the year’s schoolwork, the key to success is an attitude of confidence and trust, and that they needed only to draw on the example of Joshua and Caleb.
I know our eighth graders, more than any of the students, have been immersed in the task of finishing final projects and preparing for graduation. Like our ancestors in the desert, they have each had their moments of wondering if it is really possible, and if the reward on the other side is all it is promised to be. I imagine each of them as a chieftain of their tribe, a leader that some of our younger students identify with and look up to. We know that all of them can do it, and that they are ready for what comes next. Luckily for them, this graduating class is not the first set of scouts we have sent out. They can look to the example of those who came before them, who, like Joshua and Caleb, have come back with positive reports of success and happiness beyond the walls of MWJDS.
This week, we have the privilege of watching these leaders set off to scout out the land beyond. Next week they will be back with their initial reports on who they are as individual graduates and as a class of alumni. And we look forward to receiving their ongoing reports as they continue to scout things out for the students who continue with us at school next year and into the future.
Yeshar Koach to all the graduates – may you go from strength to strength.
Shabbat Shalom