A word of Torah:

         In this week’s Torah portion, Shelakh, we read the story of the twelve spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Israel. They come back carrying evidence of the land’s bounty, including grapes so big that a single cluster has to be carried by two people. (You may remember that Carmel Wine used the image in its advertising). They also report that the inhabitants are powerful and live in fortified cities. Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua demurred, quieting the people and expressing faith that the Israelites would be able to overcome the inhabitants. The other spies respond that the land devours its settlers and its people are giants. “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
        This is a story of panic. While the spies begin their report positively: “it does indeed flow with milk and honey…,” they quickly pivot: “But the people who inhabit the country are powerful…” The use of the word “but” here is important. The Hebrew word is efes, which also means “nothing.” This is not simply a report of what they have seen.  The implication is the inhabitants can’t be defeated thereby suggesting that the fertility of the land doesn’t matter. Caleb tries to reassure them that the Israelites can succeed, but the other spies now seek to undercut his words. They slander the land—it is no longer a place flowing with milk and honey but one that devours its inhabitants. They have completely left the realm of facts, denying even what they had just said about the land. The actual evidence before their eyes of the giant fruit is replaced by a description of the giant people.
       Their last words reveal their truth: “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” While in their own eyes it was true that they felt small and helpless, they could not have known how the inhabitants of the land viewed them. That the inhabitants saw them as weak and helpless is a total projection on the spies’ part.  The irony is we find out in the Book of Joshua what the inhabitants actually thought of the Israelites when Joshua, the successor to Moses, once again sends two spies, this time to check out the city of Jericho. The spies are told by a woman that “dread of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants…are quaking before you” (Joshua 2:9).
       The failure of leadership here might be that the spies inaccurately assess the risk, allowing the narrative to be one that denies the assets and elevates the challenges. The spies manipulate the truth to fool the people. They allow their fear of the new and unknown to overwhelm their judgment.
       The road ahead is usually complicated and the challenges we confront always need to be understood in context. What the people needed most is what we also need—leaders who inspire us to do the hard work in order to move ahead. Without that leadership, the result is an aimless wandering for forty years in the desert until all hope dies.

Good leaders do not deny what they see in front of them.
They imagine what can be and how we can move forward.
Remember--
The promised land always lies ahead—it is never behind us.