SERMON
SEDRA SH'LACH L'CHA
NUMBERS 13:1-15:41
HAFTARAH JOSHUA 2:1-24
23 JUNE 2006
BAR MITZVAH OF BENJAMIN PARKER

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "No one or no thing is ever useless because he, she, or it can always serve as a horrible example." The Torah is filled with narratives about people who make bad choices and then suffer the consequences of those bad choices, especially after being instructed in what the right or good choices might be. This week's portion is a really good case in point. Knowing that after wandering around the wilderness for a while the Hebrews are already starting to complain about their situation and condition, and knowing that they were not all that far from the borders of the land they would eventually inherit, Moses sends representatives of the twelve tribes to check out the land and its inhabitants so that they can see for themselves what they are about to confront.

By the way, you should note that some translations of the text say that the people who were sent to scope out the land were scouts, while other translations call them spies. This ever-so-slight variation in translation should give you a good idea of how much difference it makes when you call these folks one thing as opposed to another. Scouts do reconnaissance; spies use hidden tactics and try not to be discovered. Scouts and spies often have similar missions but use very different methods to obtain the information they seek. In many countries there are youth movements called scouts, and they are honored for their training programs aimed at instilling good values in children. How peculiar then, that the text here should be various translated as either scouts or spies.

As it happens in this story, regardless of what you call the people who were sent to reconnoiter, they return and say that although the land is excellent, they believe that they are not going to be capable of gaining dominion over it because its current inhabitants are giants who will crush them if they try to gain control. This is clearly the opposite of what Moses intended, and it is also the opposite of what God had in mind. Instead of building on their new-found freedom and taking advantage of the opportunity that God has presented to them, including the divine promise of protection and victory, the Israelite Hebrews demonstrate their lack of faith, their lack of maturity, and their lack of understanding.

All of these things are understandable, given the context in which these people were operating. One miracle from a very powerful God - crossing the Sea of Reeds - doesn't necessarily make for well-founded faith in an omnipotent God whose omnipotence they weren't sure was dependable or necessarily always going to be on their side, although it could have. Being independent and on their own for just a few months after several centuries of slavery doesn't necessarily provide for either the skills or the confidence necessary to go it alone against locally entrenched inhabitants, although there have certainly been people over the centuries who have acted forcefully even without the kind of social seasoning that the Israelites seemed to need. And they were not the first to want to have a better understanding of what their options, strategies, and plans might be before undertaking such an important enterprise, although there have been innumerable occasions throughout history where it was f
ound necessary to take action even though adequate and sufficient training and preparation were lacking.

What we see here is an immature people, a frightened people, with no sense of confidence, no feeling of being supported, no real experience of trying to make it in the real world, especially against odds that they feared were definitely not in their favor. Balance this against what God wants for them and you have a recipe for disaster, and that is exactly what happens: as Ben will point out tomorrow, as a result of their choice, the Israelites are condemned to wander in the wilderness for two full generations before they are once again given the chance to enter the Promised Land.

On the surface the message seems clear enough, simple enough: either listen to and obey God or suffer the consequences. But if we compare that situation to the way parents relate to their children, especially today, we know that situations are often much more complicated than that. Here is God, acting like a parent, and here are Israelites, Hebrews, acting like pre-adolescent children who want to have all the privileges of adulthood, but who are not willing or able to shoulder the responsibilities that go along with those privileges. And the way the Israelites are behaving, they may be signaling that they are simply not yet ready to behave like adults, not ready to carry the obligations and responsibilities of a people governing themselves. While it is true that they made a poor choice, in the long run it might have been better to give them the time they needed to grow in maturity and capability.

Over the course of the past few weeks I have served on the faculty of a conference called "Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom" where college students from across the country came together in Washington DC to be mentored by national leaders in the pro-choice movement, and I have attended the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. In both settings what I have witnessed and learned is that 1) we never stop learning, 2) we can learn as much from our students as we can from our teachers, 3) we have as much to learn as we have to teach, and 4) even if we think we know something, we ought to be open to hearing the opinions of those with whom we might disagree, no matter how unpleasant that might be.

What I also learned - or better, what I was reminded of - was that the world we are creating and leaving to our children is a world every bit as terrifying as the world that the Israelites thought they were encountering. Yes, it is true that the Israelites reported that the land was fertile and beautiful. But that same land was inhabited by people who they thought would make it impossible for them to live there themselves, to inherit what they were told that God had promised to them. Imagine the frustration of being told that God had promised them a land that they could see but could not really inherit!

My friends, I'm afraid that we are doing very much the same thing to our children, and I think there may be no greater sin than this. We inherited a world from those who went before us, a world that had the capacity to sustain life for untold generations to come. It was a beautiful world, a world of limitless possibilities. It was a world with many flaws and faults to be sure, but it was a world that could sustain us both materially and spiritually, one that my parent's generation had fought valiantly to defend against enemies both foreign and domestic in World War II and Korea. During the period of stewardship of my parent's generation and into our own, we have both witnessed and participated in some of the most rapid degradation of the planet in its history in terms of biology. What is more upsetting is that we have also witnessed and participated in some of the most unbelievable and unforgivable destruction of the social structure of society since the creation of society aeons a
go.

The wars we have fought over resources that could have been shared, the wanton destruction of life, both human and otherwise, the dehumanization of whole societies by other societies in an age where we all knew much better, and the blatant, wilful, arrogant and greedy destruction of our environment have left us on the brink of self-destruction in ways we are only beginning to understand and imagine. And then there are our children.

We have allowed our world to become a place where "me" has greedily replaced "us," where "might" has easily and thoughtlessly replaced "should," and where lawlessness, amorality, corporate greed and hedonism have replaced community. Thoughts of a better future have been replaced by thoughts of immediate gratification. Social order has been superceded by personal fulfillment. Materialism has replaced the spiritual. And the result is a global cesspool that has begun to back up into our own back yards.

I heard one of my colleagues at the rabbinical convention say that our young people, Benjamin included, are begging for articulated ideals and values, especially those that promote health and healing, communication and caring. Tomorrow morning you will hear Benjamin speaking truths that I hope will make you uncomfortable, asking questions to which you know the answers but will be too embarrassed to admit.

I have gotten used to hearing people tell me that my politics are too far to the left, that I ought not speak about politics from the pulpit, that I should, instead, talk about the religious values of love, caring, and so on. And as each day passes when our legislators from the state level to the Congress of the United States either pass laws that are a total and complete waste of our time and precious resources to laws which further erode our health, our safety, our freedoms, our educational opportunities, and our futures, I find more and more reasons to draw upon the ideals and values of our religious tradition to inform every breath that I take, every move that I make, and every word that I speak. How, I wonder, can we face our children if we are silent in the face of unbelievably galling corporate greed, immorality, governmental lying, cheating and stealing? How can we look them in the eye when we are aware, or become aware, of the duplicity, mendacity, and sheer chutzpah that
drives our military policy, our economic policy, our foreign policy, our domestic policy, and  our inhuman policy?

When friends tell me that they think I am crazy because I am becoming more involved, rather than less involved, in organizations that serve the underserved, the poor, the frail, the elderly, the young, the disadvantaged, the disabled, rather than slowing down and pulling back as my years increase, I can only tell them that my tradition has described a Promised Land for me that is wonderful and beautiful, one that generations of my ancestors never lived to see because they weren't willing to work for it in order to earn the right to enter it. And they almost didn't bequeath it to their children because of their shortsightedness, their cowardice and their laziness, not to mention their unfounded fears. I have read the writings of my tradition and I see some of what they saw. I am still moved to tears both by the writings of our prophets and by the suffering of people in our own time. And I don't have any indication that enough people are doing anywhere near enough for me to step back
 or slow down. I know that I cannot pull everyone else's load or shoulder everyone else's burden. But I also know that my Jewish tradition reminds me that I am always capable of doing at least as much as is expected of me, and under most conditions, much more than that.

What I cannot understand is why everyone in my community is not driving themselves to distraction at the same time, trying to find new and better ways to help repair the ongoing and increasing damage that we ourselves are causing to our own world. In how much more denial can we engage before we can deny no more? How many people have to suffer and die - needlessly - so that we can satisfy our insatiable greedy need for oil, diamonds, gold, and so on. Do we have so little faith, either in God or in ourselves, or that there really is a Promised Land, that we are simply unwilling to do what has to be done to earn the right to enter it? It is not that we are unable; we have always been able. Maybe we needed to learn how to use our abilities better, more efficiently, more maturely. But by now we know how to do that. My friends, we have utterly run out of excuses. We have our children sitting among us, expecting us to demonstrate our adulthood, our maturity, our responsibility, our leader
ship, our capability and capacity. And instead we whine like children, as though we were unable, rather than unwilling, to act.

Make no mistake: I am not castigating anyone who volunteers, anyone who offers of themselves for the betterment of society. I salute you as role models and shining examples. But even you can do better. And I am not exaggerating when I say that our children's lives, their futures, our world's future absolutely depends on it.

We no longer need scouts or spies to tell us what lies out there. We have a government that has finally gone public with telling us that they spend immense amounts of our tax dollars spying on us. We have scientists who can document what we are doing to undo ourselves and our futures, as well as what we can do to reverse it. But at the same time, we have leaders who offer constitutional amendments about same-gender marriage when they could be spending their time addressing issues of poverty, hunger, homelessness, environmental decay, global health, human trafficking - the list goes on. But they are intent on introducing legislation about gay marriage and gay soldiers - in the name of religion yet! It has become an embarrassment for me to admit that I am a member of the clergy, because I get tarred with their shameful brush.

Do you really need to ask why I am busier than I have ever been in trying to be involved in groups, organizations, movements and institutions that try to address some of these seemingly intractable problems? I will not leave this work to someone else until I am simply too far gone to be involved in it myself. My friends, I have seen the Promised Land. I know what it can and should look like. And I hear young people like Ben Parker asking why we have abandoned the ship and left it to those who are too young to save it. I will not go to my grave filled with regret that I could have done something but chose not to. I will not ask someone else to do something that I, myself, would not be willing to do.

If you know one child, anywhere on earth, whose life could be improved by something you might do, and you are not moved to do more than you are already doing, then I want nothing more to do with you. I have no time for excuses, for denials, for plea bargaining. What chutzpah to think that someone else will do what we, ourselves, must absolutely do! Benjamin has reminded me of the critical importance of asking the hard questions and of demanding responsible answers. We simply cannot afford to remain part of the problem by sloughing off the questions and hard work onto someone else. We must, each and every one of us, become part of the solutions. We must be the role models whom our children so very desperately need. We must embody the ideals of our tradition by our everyday actions. And if, for some reason, you don't know or can't articulate those ideals or values, then address that problem by coming here to learn, to study, and then to teach.

We are not here just to pray. You can do that anywhere. We are here to be a community that worships together, learns together, and supports one another. We are here to be role models - that famous dominion of priests and a holy people - whose combined efforts really can make enough of a difference that we eventually do earn the right to enter the Promised Land together. The older I get, the taller I stand when I am working to earn that right. The taller I stand, the better I can see who's walking with me and working with me and who's not. You have children depending on you. For God's sake and for ours, don't let them down.

Amen.