Parshat Shelach: Human Effort vs. Faith - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

we're still going forward with Mosers rebuked to the people before his death so the next thing that he brings up is the episode of the spies so here's what we have to discuss today we have to talk about what actually happened and why he's talking about this especially before they enter before they enter Israel so what was the spy episode where they were standing the day all of this was set was stated is actually where they were standing 38 years earlier at that point they were about to enter the land and they especially to send spies you know the whole story okay I'm getting ok well sorta a lot of patty-cake so there are two reasons that they could have sent spies one was good potentially one was bad the good reason would be to think about a good strategy for conquering the lands you have to know what the terrain is like where the cities are the other is to decide if they should try to enter the land you understand the difference so Moshe senseless because the way they approached him everything about their manner their hostility their crowding their routing a show that they they were afraid because people yell when they think they're not heard and they act aggressive when they were afraid that's a basic law in human nature so he realized that telling them not to send spies would be worse than sending them why wouldn't why would saying don't send spies be even worse it would be it'll be fine just trust me you don't have to look for yourself okay that would have been deadly she said okay we're gonna send spies he chose twelve individuals who were known for their nobility of spirit very high people but they were afraid now the question is what were they afraid of the ordinary people were afraid of the physical obstacles are not in entering the land these people had another fear as well so the only thing I could say it's analysis to pretend you were pretend you were in Nevada three months and pretend in three months he went through some pretty radical changes could that happen hopefully not but it could how could it not yeah yeah I can't and you believe in will you become if this is what you want to be let's say that's the case and you're afraid to go home what are you afraid I'll put it into words yeah you're afraid of you're afraid of failure okay clear so the Jews were in the desert they were eating maan that fell from heaven every day they were taught by Moshe I mean as much as I like them to be teachers well okay they were taught by Moshe they like everything was miraculous and now they're going to be going into ordinary life and they were afraid okay so we have two kinds of fear now spiritual and physical threat of fear okay so they entered the land they saw the land was enormous ly fertile the people who lived there were healthy strong large they had fortified cities okay they also had open cities up which is scarier by the way fortified cities or open city's open cities that means that they're not afraid of anything okay clear okay so they drew some conclusions but before I tell you what their conclusions were I want to tell you the two spot about the two spies who didn't draw those conclusions two of the spies stayed on track one was Yeshua the other was a man called khaliv who is your host schewe so the story Fiona show it takes us all the way back to when Moshe first went to Egypt to liberate the Jews after seeing God and the in the burning bush episode so God had told him assemble the elders of Israel and go with them collectively to pyro he wanted to include all of the people who are who have had influence over the communities okay yeah so they initially went with him but as they approached Hera's palace they started slipping away okay until he was left alone there was a child okay a little boy 12 I think he was supposed to have been who said I'll go with you motion of course said no you won't you wait right here but that was your short he stayed with motive since 13 he became much as chief disciple so before Marshall chose him as one of the spies but before sending him he changed his name his original name was Hosea and Moshe added one of the letters of God's name the yard and she entered to yahushua but the office boy who worked out okay car leave didn't have any special relationship to moshe he chose his way into being different which is a huge which is a huge feat they transfer the land there all sorts of maps which i find interesting but if you don't like maps the boring thing about what their route was so they would do their was exacted to get a whole picture of the land how they've left them at one point he said i'm leaving you you can go where you want i'm going to have road where is Kevin by the way have you been to Heffron it's on the west bank we're sorted how far is it from usual I am politically is on the west bank actually it's on the side three-quarters of an hour south from usual I am it's not far okay Watson have run the terms of the patriarchs and matriarchs that's what's in heaven so if you go there which you should because if you go now when are you gonna go right okay so there were buses that go there and they don't cost hardly anything okay so you see this like huge Palace like structure do you remember this do you know how old it is and who built it to Herod 2,000 years old hard enough falling apart and it's thirty years old make me like you have like this huge here Odeon stones there and under deep deep in the ground to the tombs from the matriarch some patriarchs and colored said I'm leaving go and go to heaven why did he say that what do you think he saw himself slipping he was falling into their trap he was beginning to believe them he said I need the merit of the patriarchs and matriarchs so Kali put himself in danger he was right in his instance because had he not gone to heaven he certainly would have failed he knew himself they get back to Israel Moshe asks them a battery of questions why did it look like is it big as it's law this is fortified this is not one of the people look like they answered honestly they didn't lie this is an important part of the story they didn't lie they didn't exaggerate but but their conclusion was after they finished describing it it's uncomfortable we can't do it it can't be done so notice they're saying two things one is we can't do it and the others it can't be done what's wrong with the second one we can't do it maybe what what about God he's not in the picture he's the one who said Goethe go conquer it okay so yes if they were saying depending on me I can't do it that's a reasonable thing to say but saying God can't do it if he told us this is prophetic that's wrong okay clear so they were severely punished what was the punishment that night they've spoke to the people and the people were talking to each other and there was a lot of crying that night so the punishment was that entire generation that didn't want to go into the land didn't go into the land that's why would they were in the desert so many more decades so you learn a principle here material and physically you get whatever God thinks you need to have for you to fulfill your destiny some people need this other people need that everybody has what they need okay spiritually you get what you want you anyone who you want to be spiritually there's no roof that says what you could all leave it get only this side if the people who have wanted to go into the land they could have done it they didn't want to go in the land they could not do it they weren't worthy of it so after this was told to them a small group of people said okay we changed our mind we can do it who did they say could do it we mo shall warn them they said he said don't try but they did what do you think the end result was they died okay clear so that's the spy story so what I want to take you to with this story in terms of its relevance is it really is all about the balance between trust and God trusting yourself and normal human fears so the issue in fancy he was going to quote be called the issue of making human efforts and trust in God okay clear so I'll give you two extremes neither of which is good okay you're in the Nevada inning room as you will be in 15 minutes right okay and yes food okay do you lot isn't food soon you'll be eating and eating is always better than what not eating okay so suppose you have a new girl just came today she's in Makena and she's in the Nevada inning room and she says I'm so hungry and she's like sits down right next to you and you let's say you took a break ahead some salad and you're like you have your fork in and you're and she's like looking in your plate she's saying I'm so hungry what would you tell her to do yeah you look there at the plates they don't have waitresses here you have to serve yourself okay okay you have to serve yourself there you know they're plastic plates right over here like there are the bins they the salads and different bins and here's the hot here's the hot what do you call it in English it's called a hot plate no it's not a hot plate huh whatever if I think the heater for the breakers and just take okay so she comes back to the table here's some salad yes information sits down right next to you and she's still looking at your place says and you're saying I'm so hungry so you say take a fork and put the food in your mouth got it okay it's just okay so what's wrong with this picture so what's wrong with this picture is to get what you want even if it's there you have to make some effort so people will say where is God why don't I have a job why this why there God created the world there is plenty of everything you need in this world do you know by the way that there's enough food in the world did you know this there is you should go online and look at the stats they're horrific it's just that a certain country I won't say which one you can guess uses a third are you ready a third of the gross national product of the entire world so we would say there's a little distribution issue okay yeah okay a little bit of a distribution issue is in the world okay but there's plenty of food and what are your an even worse statistic than that if you're into worse how many of you traveled in India did you ever see India and India when you go there by the big hotels there are like people who have never lived indoors there are beggars they are born in the street they die in the street they cost you for money and they really don't like they're not fakers the beggars here sometimes legit and sometimes they're not in India they're legit they really like you see skeletal children India is a major exporter of rice got this second largest exporter of rice where does all this money go in the hands of a very few people okay Dada and it's tolerated in India because they believe in karma so they think it's the Karma of these starving children to die of starvation while somebody else has everything okay clear so everything is in the world but God created the world in a way which we have to make efforts to get what we need why do you think he did it that way he could have made it that like everything is just there like air you don't have to do anything to get air it's just there excellent one reason it turns us into givers so I want to illustrate this to you did you have a real job before you were in Ave or we use didn't student okay psychotherapist what do you do okay waitress okay yeah okay what's up what is this look into restaurants okay good so let's go through these real jobs these are all real jobs okay a hostess in a restaurant is a giver people come in they don't know where to sit they don't know if they're welcome so you bring them in and you make them feel good so that'll turn like a meal it's like almost an occasion right waiting on tables okay people come out they get the food they want they order what they want you give it to them it's giving okay could you see where this is sir certainly psychotherapy if somebody is has tied themselves in knots you're giving them you're giving them clarity you're giving them a sense of self the same thing with whole troop you said you were a mental assistant I didn't know what a mental assistant a man and I was thinking does that help you does that help people mental facility is what a medical assistant you help people get better all jobs are helping jobs and I want you to hear the clause if you choose to regard it as such so you can be doing a job that people will see us being a helpful job and comfort added as a taker and then turns into something else are there even let's say psychotherapists who are takers sure they only wants the easier patients they want to charge as much money as they can and they aren't invested in their patients recovery there are people like that are the waitresses who were takers yeah they work as little as possible don't care about whether the people who they're serving or getting anything more than they need to get a tip okay it's hard for me to picture a hostess as a taker but I'm sure you could again go into it like how about how little could I give it how much could I get so it's one of life's major challenges are you going to be a giver or a taker challenge is what life is about okay clear and there's more the way God operates things is that your efforts usually bring some sort of reward otherwise you wouldn't do it right so it's another kind of a challenge so I want to illustrate this kind of challenge okay b5 okay do you remember being five okay okay you don't remember it anymore okay so pretend you're five your mother wants to give you like a little present so she gives you a five-year-old cooking cooking set now what does that mean it means you have something like cornflakes in a tiny little package and like plastic milk don't think about this too much and you know but you're five and like little fake sugar and little spool and you like and you like put this into this and you mix it and you put in the fake sugar and then you feed your dolls right and you could picture yourself time telling your mother would you put this the milk into the cereal look what I made I made I made rice krispies I made rice krispies too you know fugly you ARMA okay you could picture that did she make Rice Krispies no she just took what's already there and gave herself the illusion of making rice truth is look how we talk okay I want you to hear how we talk I like to make challah for Shabbos I make Carla no I take existent flour with existent water existent sugar existent oil and I put it in the mixer with yeast and water and before you know it there's dough and like I just like playing with clay and put it in the oven okay I didn't make anything okay so no I changed its form you had to see what I was saying so you have in secular philosophy this is also regarded as a problem you have the problem it's closed why don't hear the fancy word how you can take easy ideas and turn them into like difficult ideas even though the best is always to take difficult ideas make them easy okay here's how you take an easy idea make it different well that's called the problem of immediate as opposed to eventual causality this is how so here's how this works now I'll make it simple you're at the bus stop it has this electronic device that shows you when the bus is supposed to come you're waiting for the 74th the 74 comes every 20 minutes in theory ok so you looked at the thing it says 10 so great 10 minutes will be a 70 for 10 minutes pass no bus 20 minutes pass no bus 30 minutes pass no bus 40 minutes could this happen in real life you could finally the bus comes in right and by there there are lots of people at the bus stop and it's like crowded could you picture someone yelling at the bus driver but he's the one who came who should you be yelling at the one who didn't come but the way immediate causality is is whatever you see most immediately that's what you would tribute the action to okay this is clear it's like when I come into class that I ask you where's Sabrina that is not a rational thing to do I said yes Sabrina where's Sabrina not you okay thank you for not answering me am I my brother's keeper look like I appreciate that okay so the problem of immediate salva t in terms of your relationship to God works like this in earlier societies that had no technology at all you would pick an apple let's say off an apple tree and eat and you couldn't help but see the tree grew from seed by God and you're eating its fruit so maintaining a certain level of spirituality was relatively easy when you read them in the tone of the foots the food that they had then was so limited like the varieties were so limited they had wheat they had rice they had dates they had maybe five kinds of fruits and vegetables and that's it even whale was all there was only olive oil okay the only drink was either wine or water so the reason I'm telling you this is it was easier for people to see the direct cause the original cause now being five again okay there's ice cream in the freezer so your mommy says you could open the freezer and take out a cop's achill so you take it out as far as you're concerned in your five-year-old head where the popsicles come from the freezer now you may be a little more sophisticated so if your mom would say well how did it get to the freezer the store how did it get to the store the truck for almost all five year-olds is that the end of the story okay so some of them especially if their mothers read them Charlie and the Chocolate Factory know that it came from the factory but they don't know that there are natural ingredients in that they don't have no idea and most adults don't take it as far back as the original cause either for most adults weird if prop sickles come from the store you don't even say you know where'd you get it I got I got it we think like five-year-olds so the reason I'm telling you this is that the fact that we have to make efforts is an enormous challenge both will you be a giver as a taker or will you take things to their original cause and develop a relationship with God or will you irrationally attribute everything to yourself because you used what God provides you understand this okay so that's why you have to make efforts but here's the big however you could drown in your own efforts do you understand what I mean when I say that okay so I'll just give you one example so I won't run you over time there was a sort of mini stock market crash in 1986 and there are a significant number of suicides in Wall Street okay the people were jumping out of the windows where they go to starve to death do you think so why were they jumping out of the windows they lost like they lost their stocks they lost their bonds what made their lives not worth living they're ashamed of failure but that's not that's only part of you are defeated the the issue here is defeat they feel ashamed and defeated because to them victory in life had to do with what had to do with material success so if they reach a point where it looks like they could never succeed again materially then life's not worth living that's the challenge of having to make efforts we attribute our efforts to our own essential selves so we think that who we are is worth living our lives are worth living or not worth living on the basis of our own efforts materially as opposed to who we become it has to do with having as opposed to be it okay clear that's it for today you