Shlach Lecha
How do we stand before the giants in our lives?
Reflection on parshat Shlach Lecha, including a short breathwork practice, by Gilad Shavit, graduate of Or HaLev’s Tiferet Teacher Training
“This week's parasha, Shlach Lecha, tells the story of the twelve spies sent to explore the Eretz Muvtahat, the promised land. The word promised, Muvtahat, comes from the same root as bitachon, security.
The land has already been promised or secured. There is already a relationship of trust. And yet even when something is promised, even when it's good, it can still be difficult to enter, like a safe door which is hard to break through if you don't have the key.
The spies return from the promised land and say, we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in theirs.
They saw giants. That describes how they saw themselves. The challenge wasn't only the giants standing before them, it was the perception of their smallness which they carried within.
How often does this happen to us? When we stand at the edge of new opportunity, a difficult conversation, a change in our lives, a deepening of some sort - like the Israelites, standing at the border of the promised land, how often does it happen that we stand at the border of the unknown, and then a voice pops up and says, oh, I'm not ready / you’re not worthy / I'm too small / this is not for me / I can't do this.
In our practice of mindfulness, we again and again come to learn that our thoughts are not facts. Just because a thought appears, that does not mean we have to believe it.
The spies saw giants and became small. But Joshua and Caleb saw the same giants, and they remembered something much deeper. They remembered who they were.
This is very powerful, because we remember not just our thoughts. Perhaps each one of us has our own Eretz Muvtahat, our own promised land. Not only a physical place, but a fuller way of living, loving, serving, knowing.
The question is not whether there are giants in the way or not. The question is whether we meet them from a place of fear or from a place of bitachon, trust, the deep promise we receive from God. With that, I invite you to return to the breath/neshima, to the soul/neshama, where the deep promise lies.
Shabbat Shalom.”