Eden Sadra – Year 11

This week’s parashah is really quite interesting and a little bit childish, if you ask me.

Moshe is asked to send some spies ahead to check out this little piece of land that God has promised them. What’s it like there, and how many people are they going to have to fight to take control of it?

Moshe sends 12 men (1 from each tribe) — including 2 standouts, Yehoshua and Calev — to see what the deal is with this land. After 40 days, the spies return and report that the land truly is amazing: “flowing with milk and honey”. But… it’s also occupied by a whole bunch of other people who seem pretty happy to be living there, who also seem very strong in might and in numbers.

Things are not looking good at this stage. Calev thinks they can “take these guys out” pretty easily but the other spies don’t agree and so they tell everyone that this land is overrun with giant burly men who could 100% take them down in a fight. The Israelites have a bit of a hissy fit at the fact that their promised land may not be as easily attainable as they once thought it would be, and when God hears all the snarky comments they’re making about Him behind His back, He threatens to kill them then and there.

That seems a little harsh, but really my problem with this whole parashah is the fact that it stands for something that we have only recently accepted as wrong. Reconciliation Week asks us, as white Australians, to acknowledge our past wrongs as a people who came in and stole the Aboriginals’ land. To not only acknowledge, but to understand, that before 1788, 100% of the population living on the land we’re sitting on right now was Aboriginal. But now, in what we call one of the most multicultural countries in the world, the original inhabitants of Australia make up just 3% of the entire population.

Because of that, it is interesting to note that in the parashah it says: “And Calev stilled the people and said: ‘We should go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.’” How could our Torah, so full of valuable stories and teachings, completely endorse the idea of taking over another peoples’ land? It is important to consider that our ancestors had just come out of brutal slavery and that our promise of a land by our almighty God may have clouded our judgement in the moment, but still, it seems a bit selfish of us.

What I think we do need to take away from this parashah is the fact that while it is very clear to whom the land of Australia really belongs, it isn’t so simple in the case of the modern State of Israel. Even back in the time of the Torah there were wars that started over the land that now includes our tiny Jewish state. Countless different religions have ties to the land, which you can see if you’ve ever been to Yerushalayim. You witness people from all over the world – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, all coming together in one very holy place.

The Bible records that they were to actually kill all the people living in the land, so I think in that aspect, aside from all the conflict still taking place, today, we as Jews have improved. But, in Australia’s case while we say that we have come a long way, especially with the Apology, do we think that we’ve changed more than we actually have? Or do we just build ourselves up by speaking about our compassion and reconciliation and ignoring all the remaining problems, to convince ourselves that we have?