Author: Temple Sinai

You know you must sound like ‘a broken record’ to your kids when you yourself have grown tired of repeating the same mantra to them!

My little one has been attending a summer day-camp all week, and all week long he only deigns to speak with me to complain about how bad everything is: what is lacking or dysfunctional or boring or disliked; what is not tasty or too much of or not enough of or which is somehow else dissatisfying; what is wrong, outdated, or not-as-good-as….or (it feels like) he grants a vast silence if he can’t find anything negative to say. In assessing how something was, I’ve learned that a shrug can feel like a resounding endorsement when compared to silence or bitter condemnation! Who knew?!

Focus on the positive, I tell him again and again, not the negative.

In last week’s Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, we saw the disastrous results of the spies’ focus on the negative rather than on the positive. This week’s Torah portion, Korach, seems to repeat the message, showing us again the consequences of how Korach put a negative spin on everything about the leadership of the Israelites in the desert to foment a rebellion that led nowhere but down.

Perspective can make or break the world.

What is dismissed as small or unimportant, could in fact be crucial.
Where some people see problems, others see not problems but challenges.
Bigger might not always be better, nor is more sophisticated always the most efficacious.
When some see crisis, others see opportunity.
When some fearfully warn, others encourage hope…

In this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach Lecha, spies are sent to scout out the Promised Land. All the spies see the same things. Except for Joshua and Caleb, the spies give a bad report on the Land and express fear and doom if they try to enter it. Joshua and Caleb give a glowing report and express the hope that the Land is there for them to take and inhabit. The people hear the fear and take the warning. As a result, the entire generation of Israelites proves itself unworthy of going to the Promised Land. They wander the desert for another 38 years or so until they all die off in the wilderness. It will fall to a new generation to go up and conquer the Land on which to build the utopian society the Torah prescribes.