Rabbi’s Message: June 9, 2026
By Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan
This week's Torah portion, Sh'lach, contains one of the most consequential moments in the Torah. Moses sends twelve spies to scout the Land of Israel. They return carrying enormous clusters of grapes and reports of a land flowing with milk and honey. Yet alongside the promise comes fear. As the Torah portion reads: "The people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large." (Numbers 13:28)
The spies are not wrong. The obstacles are real. The challenges are daunting. The danger is not imagined. And yet, ten of the twelve spies make a critical mistake. They allow fear to become the lens through which they see everything. "We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves," they say, "and so we must have looked to them" (Numbers 13:33). Their fear becomes not merely an emotion but an identity. They no longer see the possibility of growth, only the certainty of defeat.
The tragedy of the story is not that the spies were afraid. The tragedy is that they believed their fear completely. But how do we respond when we are afraid? Throughout the Tanakh, we encounter different models for responding to fear.
Abraham faces fear by moving forward anyway. When God calls him to leave his homeland, Abraham receives no map, no guarantees, and no detailed plan. He simply hears, "Go forth" (Lech Lecha). Courage, in Abraham's story, is not the absence of uncertainty. It is taking the next faithful step despite uncertainty.
Moses offers another model. At the burning bush, he is terrified — not only by the fire before him but by the task being asked of him. Again and again he protests: "Who am I?" "What if they don't believe me?" "I am not a man of words." Moses does not overcome fear through confidence. He overcomes fear through relationship. God does not remove his anxiety; God promises accompaniment. "I will be with you." Moses leans on his relationships to manage his fears and move forward.
The prophet Elijah demonstrates a different response. Exhausted, frightened, and fleeing for his life, he retreats into the wilderness. There, God does not appear in the earthquake, the wind, or the fire, but in the kol d'mamah dakah — the still, small voice. The fear caused as these natural phenomena whip around him must have been overwhelming. In this moment, Elijah shows that fear can overtake us. And yet, sometimes, with patience and observation of the situation, clarity arrives not through force but through quiet focus.
The Book of Esther offers yet another model. Esther initially responds to danger with hesitation. Speaking to the king could cost her life. Yet Mordecai reminds her that silence carries risks as well. Fear asks, "What if I act?" Wisdom asks, "What if I don't?" Esther spends time in reflection, consideration, and careful strategy; establishing a well thought out plan and following through on it is her method to manage her fears.
And then there are Joshua and Caleb, the two spies from this week's Torah portion, who see the same giants, the same walls, and the same challenges as everyone else. Their gift is not superior eyesight. It is perspective. They acknowledge the obstacles but refuse to let those obstacles define the future.
This may be one of the Torah's deepest teachings about fear. Fear is information. It tells us something matters. It alerts us to risk. It asks us to pay attention. But fear is a poor prophet.
Fear often predicts catastrophe where possibility exists. Fear narrows our vision until we can only see what threatens us. Fear convinces us that today's challenge determines tomorrow's outcome.
The spies saw giants and concluded that the future was already written. Nonetheless, Joshua and Caleb saw giants and concluded that the story was still unfolding. Every generation faces its own giants. We worry about our families, our communities, our health, our future, our world. The question is not whether we will feel fear. We will.
The question is whether we will allow fear to tell the whole story.
Jewish tradition never asks us to become fearless. It asks us to become wise: to remember that fear is a companion on the journey, but it is not the guide. As we move through all of the world's events this week, may we learn from Abraham to take the next step, from Moses to seek companionship, from Elijah to listen for the still small voice, from Esther to act according to our values, and from Joshua and Caleb to see possibility alongside challenge.
And, most of all, may we remember that we are rarely as small as fear tells us we are.
