Shlach Lecha
Can we imagine an open future full of possibilities?
Reflection by Or HaLev Teacher Avigail Beeri-Harel:
"We are in days of extreme uncertainty. The land of Israel trembles under missiles, and no one can ignore the big questions that remain open: When will this all end? How? And what will come next? In a sense, this is the human condition in general – we never truly know what will be. This existential insecurity can pull us like a magnet to the past; the past might not have been good, but at least it existed. The future, in contrast, is open and clean, like a blank page, full of possibilities but also fears.
This exact mechanism is what we see in Parshat Shlach Lecha. After the Children of Israel receive the report that the land `devours its inhabitants` (Numbers 13:32), we witness a formative moment of collective despair: `Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night` (14:1).
But this moment does not last long. The Children of Israel immediately continue into a detailed fantasy about their seemingly good past, and in their words, they return three times to Egypt: first as a safe place to die, `If only we had died in the land of Egypt,` then as a better alternative to their current situation, `Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?` and finally, as a recalculation of their journey's path, `Let us appoint a head and return to Egypt` (14:2-4).
This moment is almost absurd. We were all there when the Torah described the suffering of the Children of Israel in Egypt. We know how bad it was there, so why do they keep returning there, and why are they rewriting the story to idealize those times? The Children of Israel who leave Egypt are revealed as still carrying slavery within them. Such a state of prolonged suffering did not prepare them to imagine an open future full of possibilities. It prepared them to escape the present into the familiar, even if it means creating a complete fantasy. When God sees and understands this dynamic, He decides that they must wait. This generation must die in the desert, and the new generation, born into a life of freedom, will truly be able to open themselves to the new life in the Holy Land.
And here lies the essential question of spiritual practice: What more can be done when it's simply difficult to 'be' with the current uncertainty, especially when it includes significant suffering and pain? Clinging to the past, to memories, to familiar ways – this mechanism often protects us. It may be a childish mechanism, developed within us as children, when we had strong emotions, too strong, and there was no one to help us cope with them.
One of the skills in meditation is to gently remind ourselves that we are grown-ups. As adults, difficult emotions, however deep, will not kill us. We learn to stay for another small moment with the difficult emotion, as it is, without being swept away by interpretations. When we allow ourselves to feel anxiety, grief, and anger without escaping to past mythologies or dreams of the future, the pain begins to transform – like a wave that rises, peaks, and gently recedes. As wise parents to ourselves, we accompany it and allow it to reintegrate as a natural part of our experience. From this presence, a delicate hope for an open future emerges. We discover a `new generation` within us – a part that knows how to be with uncertainty. This is the gift of meditation: to discover that we have the strength not only to survive pain, but to grow from it towards a genuine openness to life."