CBI Blogs

“All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go…”

Well, at least they almost are, but I could not find a song lyric that was more along the lines of, “All my bags will be packed by the end of this weekend assuming everything goes according to plan…” It’s just not as catchy.

Next week’s Torah portion (Parashat Sh’lach) is coincidentally about moving forward and the steps we need to take as we prepare. Moses sends scouts to the land of Canaan to see what the land is like. He gives them very specific instructions:

Go up there into the Negev and on into the hill country, and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land (Numbers 13:17b-20a).

When the twelve scouts return, they say the following:

We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there. Amalekites dwell in the Negeb region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan (Numbers 13:27b-29).

You might notice that the scouts paid attention to some of what Moses said, but not all. Looking at the scouts’ response, they brought back fruit (check); they mentioned powerful people (check) living in large, fortified towns (check); they mentioned specific people who the reader at the time would have known are strong (pretty much a check); they missed how populous the cities were (X); and they ignored the soil quality (X) and whether it was wooded (X). Four out of seven is not really that bad when a leader tells people what to watch out for, even if we would hope for better adherence to the instructions. But at least they got a feel for the land, gave Moses most of the information he needed, and then the whole narrative gets distracted by the interpretive difference of whether the scouts are giving a negative or a positive report.

My year with you at CBI has largely involved giving advice and watching how it is or is not followed. I do think y’all paid attention with more than a four-out-of-seven success rate, and there were even a couple of times when someone said to me something to the effect of, “I should have listened….” Of course I am not going to get into specifics, but I have greatly appreciated the depth of care that the leadership here, both lay and professional, give to this community. CBI is an incredibly special place in a wonderful location, and anyone who knows this is truly blessed. As you prepare for the next stages of your journey with Rabbi Leiken as your senior rabbi, I hope you will continue to lean on his expertise, his perspective and experience in other places, and his wisdom and knowledge.

I look forward to learning what he, Rabbi Levy, and Sarah Avner do over the next few years, and I hope to visit some day and learn incredible things from all of you.

Have a great journey.