About this piece:

Originally written for my Bat-Mitzvah, this D’var Torah on Parashat Sh’lach L’cha has since been revised and reimagined. I hope its reflections on fear and faith feel both timely and timeless.

---

Shabbat Shalom.

— ✦ —

Thank you to my family, friends, and teachers—especially Alison Morse, my Bat Mitzvah tutor.

This week’s parashah, Sh’lach L’cha, opens with Moses sending scouts to survey the land of Canaan. Most return with a discouraging report that terrifies the people, while only Joshua and Caleb speak with courage and trust.

“All the people we saw there are of great size… we looked like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we must have looked to them.”

Their fear shrinks them. They decide they are small and assume everyone else sees them that way too.

But maybe the Canaanites weren’t giants. Maybe fear magnified them. As the writer Eugenia Collier says of abstract art: it shows things not as they are, but as they feel. Fear can do that to our vision.

I think the Israelites were already ambivalent about entering the land—even before the scouts returned. After centuries of slavery, they were still learning how to be free under God’s cloud in the wilderness. Freedom is wonderful, but it is also demanding. Would God still protect and provide for them in a new place? Could they handle responsibility without constant reminders—without the cloud hovering nearby?

Their question is ours: How do we avoid feeling like “grasshoppers” when freedom and responsibility seem larger than we are?

• By checking our perspective. Fear is a persuasive storyteller, but not always a truthful one.
• By remembering we’re not alone. The same God who led our ancestors through the wilderness accompanies us as we face new tasks, choices, and identities.
• By practicing courage in small steps—like Joshua and Caleb—so our hearts learn that faith can be larger than fear.

May we see ourselves not as tiny in the eyes of others, but as people created b’tzelem Elohim—in God’s image—capable of wise freedom, steady responsibility, and hopeful vision.

Shabbat Shalom.

— ✦ —

This reflection shows one side of me. For a lighter glimpse, visit my [Personal & Fun Facts] page.

Explore other reflective essays: Illness & Agency or Mourning & Monotheism.