Seeing What’s in Front of Us, Who’s Right & Who’s Wrong, & Shlakh Lekha

Wow, I feel like lately I’m beginning my blogs with, “I just returned from…”

But it’s true again; I just returned from another trip, this time to Los Angeles. It was part vacation, part work. The first objective was work, the vacation an add-on.

I stayed with a friend directly connected with the work and the organization through which I’m leading the trips to the South you’ve read about here previously. I felt very privileged and fortunate to be able to enjoy the time together, experience nature in the way we did and to strengthen our friendship.

I hadn’t been to L.A. since I was a teenager, and this was a completely different experience. It was impossible for, for one thing, for my friend and others not to point out the burnt hills and missing buildings from the fires over a year ago.

The scars they left are still very visible.

But we were lucky; there had been fires over the past couple of weeks and then one near my friend’s house the very morning I was flying across the country. This sent her into a panic about what we’d do if we had to evacuate, but they had all been put out in time for my arrival.

The weather was spectacular, the air quality good. We spent time at the beach, letting the cold water wash over our feet, watching the surfers, climbing sand dunes and cliffs, enjoying the sunshine, eating good food, being with her family up in the hills. I was so grateful for all of it.

Then the work part of the trip began. We went into the city where we learned about the Black community that had been forcibly removed from Santa Monica back in the 1920’s, we had a tour of Chinatown where we learned about its past and present struggles, visited a Jewish organization called Beit T’shuvah that helps people with addiction, went to Homeboy Industries where formerly incarcerated gang members and others in similar situations get direct (and vast) help, went to Liberation Coffee House, associated with Los Angeles’ LGBT Center, and a mission on Skid Row that offers services to the unhoused.

In all of these institutions, but especially Homeboys, we witnessed an immense sense of joy and hope from those working there. Everywhere we turned, when people passed us they made clear their immense gratitude for our interest and presence. “Welcome, welcome,” was the repeated mantra; this place had transformed their lives.

I’m sure part of what struck me was how well-funded all these places were, so shiny and new and modern, offering multiple services, not rundown holes in the wall. They are organizations that have grown over the decades as legitimate centers that offer real help, not just a bandaid, to those who come in need.

Instead of walking away depressed, we all felt excited and hopeful. We saw real people doing real work to change the lives of individuals and hopefully have an impact. And the people who toured us were those whose lives had been transformed. No one spoke for them; they represented themselves.

Of course, we couldn’t have been more aware of the outrageous number of people being left behind. But this was a window into what our society could look like if our government invested in such things, and it didn’t have to be left to religious institutions or individuals with a vision and a faith that does not allow them to give up.

I’m thinking about the spies that are sent out (Shlakh Lekha, the meaning of the title) to scout “the land” in this week’s Torah portion, to see if it’s good land (though God has promised that it is); what its fruits are like, its people, its cities…

Almost all the spies return with negative reports (scary giants, and we are but grasshoppers compared to them), except two.

Who is right? Who is seeing things clearly?

As Rabbi Shai Held points out in his book, The Heart of Torah, (Vol. 2, p.127), though God has redeemed them from slavery, the Israelites have essentially not traveled anywhere at all since leaving Egypt. Instead, God has lead them in a circle because he is afraid that if they see anything negative, they will have a change of heart and return to Egypt.

True enough, they panic and announce their intentions to return to Egypt after all.

Rabbi Held says, “Ultimately, the question posed by the text is whether what we imagine possible is limited to what we see before us, or whether we can discern possibilities not immediately apparent to the eye.”

I ask a similar question regarding what I saw in Los Angeles; how is it that there are some people who see the possibility of transformation in those most of society has cast away, regarding them as irredeemable—and are willing to invest time and money and their entire lives—who never give up on their vision of a more just society, even if they can’t touch the lives of everyone they come across, or even if the rest of society has given up.

Though it feels like we are almost irredeemably far from being able to transform the world we live in, as what we see before our very eyes belies any possibility of turning things around, there is a message of hope here.

Whether it is the possibility that Israel—or the United States—can become The Promised Land to all people who occupy these lands depends on our steadfast commitment to making that happen and our not giving up on that vision.

We may be scarred, but we do not need to allow scars to muddy our vision and a belief in the power of humans to transform ourselves and our environment.

Who’s right and who’s wrong, in the end?

Gut Shabbos, and say Amen.