Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Blind sight

The Talmud relates that when Rabbi Yochanan’s study partner died, his fellow Rabbis presented him with another colleague with whom to study. Before long, Yochanan complained that while his former partner challenged him on his every teaching, this new companion confirmed all he would say. Pining for his partner that pushed him to explore further, Yochanan descended into a deep sadness and died.

In our world of filter bubbles or algorithmic filtering, wherein we encounter only that which will confirm our present thinking, Rabbi Yochanan would be seen as a “digital nudger”, one who seeks to expose us to new perspectives lest we die from lack of new growth.

With the Promised Land before them, this week’s parashah speaks of the Israelites who were sent to scout out this new frontier. The true exploration, however, was to be of themselves, it was a mission to ascertain if this was a generation of vision. They are told to “explore” (LaTur) the land and to “see” what it presents.

But, we quickly learn that they come to see what they want to see. They and the people with whom they share their “findings” reveal themselves to be confirmatory rather than exploratory thinkers. Though the two scouts, Yehoshu’a and Calev, seek to “nudge” them from their pre-existing fears and biases, the entrenched people could not be moved from their self-confirming bubble. The land could hold no promise for those who saw no possibility and only Joshua and Caleb, together with a new generation, would enter Canaan.

The two Hebrew words LaTur and Lir’ot (to see), that begin and are found throughout this Torah portion, fittingly end this parashah, as well. The Israelites are commanded to make for themselves fringes (the basis for our present day Tallit) so that “you see it…and are not led astray (taturu) by your heart and your eyes”. The Hebrew root word for being led astray is the same as that for exploring (tur).

The heart in biblical literature denotes one’s thinking capacity. As the wise Solomon, purported author of Ecclesiastes, says: “I applied my heart to know and to explore (LaTur)”.  

When one is limited to one’s own established thinking, the realm of true exploration is replaced by that of a distorting self-confirmation. The commandment of seeing these fringes concludes with the statement that we are a people liberated from the confines of mitsrayim – “The Narrow Place”- Egypt. Our Jewish tradition and history continuously remind us that our heart must enable us to see beyond our present if we are to be a people of promise.