In the Torah, Moses sent spies to investigate the Holy Land. These spies were supposed to evaluate the feasibility of invading what was then known as Canaan. This area was the homeland that God promised to the Children of Israel.
They returned to report negatively upon the land. They saw the inhabitants as unbeatable giants. They saw themselves small and insignificant as grasshoppers. Thus, they reasoned that their enemies also viewed them as grasshoppers. This negativity is the proximal cause of the people being required to wander in the desert for 40 years.
God wants us to recognize our spiritual natures and integrate it into our lives. This is how we make life complete. Pursuing the effort to achieve this goal, we repair ourselves and the world. It is not necessary to fully complete the path. God wants us to work at it. That is what life is about.
The spies focused on the material, which always includes some negativity. They disregarded the power of the heavenly gift of the soul. This spiritual endowment is what we share with God. This power allows us to see the wholeness of our lives.
Rejecting this wonder is refusing to believe in God and our own potential holiness.
They did not understand that marrying the created material world into a bond with the eternal spiritual is the purpose of life. Such a lofty task inspires God, the Torah, and all of creation. It is our opportunity to reveal Truth. The spies missed it. They were too distracted.
Life is enriched when the soul is activated and nourished. The spirit then interacts with the material, building a symbiotic support system to enhance all of life. The earthly and the heavenly fuse and interact to complete each other.
This melding of these worlds gives us the strength and insight to avoid and overcome negativity. Self-esteem is enhanced. Fear and anxiety are lessened. Hatred and jealousy are avoided.
The spies did not have this advantage. They did not try to invite the spiritual guest. They did not believe in God. Thus, they could not believe in themselves. They failed.
Knowing that God wants us to be spiritually oriented and focused, we can best understand the message of the Spies. We learn that wedding our earthly and heavenly selves completes us as human beings. This fullness gives us the strength to preclude harmful influences in our lives. These distractions lessen our mastery of our minds and our emotions.
By thwarting these annoyances, we become empowered to develop faith in life and in ourselves. Thus, we are more able to use enhanced self-esteem to pursue truly meaningful and worthwhile goals in our lives. Through this process, we gain comfort and clarity.
By assuming this burden, we are not confounded by a false self-image that disturbs us into fear and retreat. This lessen teaches us that our self-appraisal will define us to others. Without reasonable self-esteem, one faces a barrier in relationships which is stifling.
Life’s goals and potentials are best realized when we believe in ourselves. This faith is fueled by our bond to the spiritual world. We possess that heavenly power as part of our makeup. To build this connection, we must recognize it. That acceptance begins with the faith that it is there. This is what believing in God is all about. God it the ultimate spiritual Being. We do have a heavenly component. Ours is tied to the source.
Our mission is to bring together the earthly and heavenly powers within us. The spies, in focusing on the material only, were unable to open the door. They were stuck in their poor self-esteem mode. By entering this passage, we progress along the road of enlightened combining of the two worlds.
God cannot do this. God is 100% spiritual. Combining in any way with the physical would make God something other than this single harmonious attribute. God would cease to exist as God. Any god with a material component is less able to operate on the purely spiritual plane. But God can appreciate our experience. The wonder of heavenly expansiveness does mold and help to overcome earthly limitations.
The nature of God precludes boundaries or restrictions. The material world is defined and confined by its circumscriptions. That is the source of much of our misery in life. By accepting and joining with God (the spiritual), we can negate so much of this misery. The spies missed the opportunity to appreciate the revelation that this is the path to follow.
The spies saw themselves as weak and incompetent. Their self-perception amounted to being grasshoppers. Naturally, others do not view someone with such personal negativity as greater than they comprehend themselves. Fear is born and nurtured by such cynicism and pessimism. It is impossible to imagine yourself as a grasshopper and still succeed as a human.
That attitude doomed the Children of Israel to wander in the desert until those who could not overcome their limitations grew old and expired. They brought this handicap with them after hundreds of years as slaves to a mentality of alienation from spiritual glory. Material concerns remained prominent in the tribal consciousness. Redemption and revelation only began the awakening to life’s potentials.
Even with God in the lead, it still takes a long time to discover the road to life’s fulfillment. God will not persuade those who reject the heavenly powers. God is a facilitator, not a dictator. We have to put our own effort to attain results. Each person recognizes the truth in this from their own successes in life. No matter what one sets out to do in life, there remains an element of wonder surrounding the success.
It is clear that nothing replaces experience. Even though we may be seeking to bring spirituality into our lives, it is always a work in progress. Our early insights as children and young adults need to be developed and modified before we really embrace them.
Thus, the hesitation of the spies to accept God fully doomed the enterprise. Two of the spies succeeded. They, and we, should learn to pursue spiritual fulfillment. The task requires focus. There are many distractions along the way. Our assignment is to keep trying.
Health and Spirit by Dr. Jack Zoldan 