TORAH PORTION
King for a Day
Treat your Dad like Royalty
The Dangers Of The
Grasshopper Complex
RABBI RICHARD HERTZ
Special to The Jewish News
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CONGREGATION B'NAI MOSHE
Presents
ITS "FAREWELL TO OAK PARK"
Saturday, June 23, 1990
Services — 8:45 am.
Installation of Officers
Gala Luncheon and Program — 12:30 p.m.
Corinne Stavish with "Tales of Today and Yesterday"
Plus "Links To The Past" and "Building The Future"
Rita Kirsch — Storyteller for Children
Luncheon contribution: $36 — Adults; $18 — Children 6-12.
For information call
44
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1990
5 48-9000
his week's portion is
one of the best-known
and oldest spy stories.
It tells how Moses, the great
general and tactician, needed
a reconnaissance report
before entering the Promised
Land. He dispatched 12 in-
telligence agents in disguise
to investigate the land of
Israel, cross the Jordan and
go up and down the breadth
of the land and bring back a
report. The 12 scattered to
the four corners of the land
and spent 40 days and 40
nights traversing the land of
Canaan. When they returned,
the spies were united in their
opinion that it was a great
country, "a land flowing with
milk and honey" with "rich
ripe fruits." But they were
divided on the ability of the
weak and troubled Israelites
to conquer so strong a land.
Ten 'of the spies were full of
fear and frustration. "This is
a land inhabited by giants,"
they said. "Compared to them
we are like grasshoppers!'
The report threatened to
demoralize the people.
Only two of the spies,
Joshua and Caleb, dissented.
Caleb faced the people and
said, "We should go up at
once and possess (the land),
for we are well able to possess
it." But the people were full of
fear.
Here was the turning point
in the saga of freedom. The
great question before them
was: shall they go backward
or shall they go forward?
Some yearned for the flesh-
pots of Egypt. They took the
word of the 10 spies and
threatened the two dissenters
with an avalanche of stones.
Only the authority of Moses
and the fear of God restrain-
ed the people's vengeance.
The people were afraid. They
felt themselves unfit for the
tasks of a great nation. They
sold themselves short. They
had a grasshopper complex.
The grasshopper complex,
destroying courage and-
poisoning the human spirit
with fear, did not end in the
time of Moses. We still have it
today.
The latest fear to grip the
mind and hearts of our people
is the fear of communism.
Glasnost and perestroika
allowed us to take advantage
of an cpportunity we never
dreamed of only a few years
Richard Hertz is rabbi
emeritus of Temple Beth El.
ago. Who would have thought
five years ago that the Soviet
Union would ever allow Jews
to emigrate to Israel? The
irony of glasnost is that while
it has greatly improved oppor-
tunities for Soviet Jews, it has
brought anti-Semites out of
the woodwork. Anti-Semitic
organizations in the Soviet
Union have taken advantage
of glasnost to express the kind
of vilification of Jews hidden
under the rug for years.
We realize now that the
men of the Kremlin are no
giants before whom we once
Shabbat Shelach:
Numbers
13:1-15:41,
Joshua 2:1-24.
felt like grasshoppers in our
own eyes.
When John Kennedy was
still a senator from
Massachusetts, he wrote a
remarkable book called Pro-
files in Courage. In this work,
he argued convincingly that
despite public apathy, indif-
ference and fear, American
history can cite examples
where the grasshopper com-
plex in public affairs was
overcome and where conscien-
tious public servants ignored
the pressures, temptations,
false compromises and phony
politics to exhibit a heroic
quality of courage.
What we need today is a
good dose of Caleb's courage,
self confidence, and self
reliance. Remember the state-
ment of faith that Franklin
Roosevelt echoed on his in-
auguration day in the depths
of depression: "There is
nothing to fear but fear
itself?"
We can meet the fears of to-
day's times only if we rid
ourselves of our grasshopper
complex. Too many of us fail
to appreciate our assets. We
see only liabilities. We have
no faith in ourselves. We have
too little faith in man's
capacity to overcome evil and
seek good. We have made on-
ly puny efforts to attack
hunger, racism, bigotry.
Now that we have learned
to fly the skies like birds and
travel beneath the seas like
fish, isn't it about time that
we learn to walk the earth
like men instead of like
grasshoppers?
An ancient folk tale relates
how Pestilence once met a
caravan upon the desert on its
way to Baghdad.
"Why," asked the desert