Shelach
Do we believe our thoughts?
Reflection by OHL teacher Mira Neshama Weil:
"One of the things I love the most in the chumash is how, as the Hassidic master says, it really is a mirror of the human soul.
In parashat Shelach, when Moshe sends meraglim, spies, to scout the promised land, before Israel launches their conquest, they come back saying that although the land is beautiful:
`We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.’
לֹ֥א נוּכַ֖ל לַֽעֲל֣וֹת אֶל־הָעָ֑ם כִּֽי־חָזָ֥ק ה֖וּא מִמֶּֽנּוּ
(Bamidbar numbers 13.31)
I like to think of the promised land as the land of my dreams, the things I want to achieve in life and the place I want to find myself in. I can easily read the reaction of the spies as my own fear of success, or what some psychologists have called the `Jonah syndrome`.
Commenting on this episode, the Midrash Rabbah reports that God’s punishment to the spies is not based on their fear. It is based on them projecting their own thoughts on others.
`How did you know what I made you in their eyes? Who would say that you were not like angels in their eyes?`
יוֹדְעִים הֱיִיתֶם מֶה עָשִׂיתִי אֶתְכֶם לְעֵינֵיהֶם, מִי יֹאמַר שֶׁלֹא הֱיִיתֶם בְּעֵינֵיהֶם כְּמַלְאָכִים
One of the most powerful things I learned in mindfulness practice is to not believe my thoughts.
It took me a while to understand even the concept.
But meditation after meditation, retreat after retreat, I learned to bring more awareness to how much my encounter with reality tended to be mediated, if not blinded by my own thoughts.
Not that I wasn’t sincere; but I was meeting events and people through the deforming screen of preconceptions, biases and projections which reflected my own conditioning, prejudices, hurts or fears.
Unveiling this screen still is, and always will be, an ongoing process in my spiritual practice.
Reading the parasha today again was a wonderful mindfulness reminder:
What if instead of taking our assessments of reality for granted, we simply put a question mark? What if we gave a little less credit to our fears? And a little more attention to Emunah (trust), as we pave the way towards the lands of our dreams?"