Parashat Shlaj-English

Learning from Bad Experiences

Numbers 13-15

We all know the Minyan institution, which we usually translate as “quorum”. A minyan is a group of ten Jewish adults necessary to the reading of certain prayers, such as the Kaddish, Kedushah, Barchu, and the Torah reading. The Minyan is one of the most extraordinary institutions of Jewish tradition. It encourages Jews to struggle towards getting together; people who pray every day must meet at least twice a day, in order to say the entire prayers, and even those who do not pray often, must gather together in times of distress to be able to recite the Kaddish. The minyan was, and still is, a steadfast concern to the Jews scattered around the world, and has always been one of the reasons of their living in community. The minyan stands against the individualistic and selfish trends that rule modern societies.

More than referring to the minyan, my purpose today is to show you the biblical source from which the sages learned the conformation of the minyan as a group of ten, since it does not appear explicitly in the Torah. The source is found precisely in this week’s parashah.

We are told, in Parashat Shelach Lecha, about the famous scout incident. Still in the wilderness, Moses sends twelve men to explore the land of Israel and its inhabitants. On their return, two of the scouts bring excellent comments concerning the land, but the other ten give a hopeless report and encourage the people to abandon the idea of conquering it. God gets angry and, referring to these ten men, he exclaims, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation…” (Bemidbar 14:27). The Talmudic sages infer that, given that God refers to a group of ten people as congregation, hence we learn that we can speak of an assembly just when ten people get together (Babli Sanhedrin 2b).

What I find most interesting about this teaching is not the deduction itself, but the text from which it arises. From one of the most tragic events told by the Torah, punished with forty years of wandering through the wilderness, the sages deduce one of the most famous and beautiful institutions in Judaism. From the wretched, from that which we don’t want to remember, we learn something beautiful and sublime. From the story of the great division of the people, we learn a law that allows us to unite and live in community.

I believe that, from this story, we can learn a lesson that goes beyond scouts and minyan. Life is full of joyful and sad situations, both usually out of our hands. However, our ability to be better people, to be happier, to be part of a healthier and stronger nation, is far beyond those circumstances. We can learn the most sublime from the most heinous. The will and capacity of human beings to learn and improve is far beyond the life they were destined to live. To prove my point, the millenary history of our people, so full of hate and death.

We should value the opportunities to learn and improve that life offers us. Even those filled with woe and the bitterness. We have in ourselves the capacity to improve, to relinquish the hate, jealousy and selfishness we experience every day, and which does not allow us to be happy. Like our sages, may we be able to learn… from our bad and good experiences.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky

B´nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica