Shelach Lecha 5774

By Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky
B´nei Israel Congregation
San Jose, Costa Rica

Two Kinds of Tears

This week’s parashah tells the famous story of the spies. Moses sends a representative from each tribe to travel around the land of Israel, to the purpose of getting valuable information for the future conquest of the land. When they return, two of the twelve scouts offer  positive reports, while the other ten give extremely negative reports concerning the people who live on the land, saying that Israel will by no means defeat them.  These words demoralize the entire people, causing a crisis of large dimensions. This is one of the most bitter episodes in the biblical story of the sojourn of the children of Israel through the wilderness.

It is written in the Torah that when the people heard they would not be able to defeat the enemy, they wished they had never left Egypt. One of the ways in which they express their great sorrow is to weep all night (Numbers 14:1).  According to tradition, that day was the 9th of Av, the same day on which both Temples of Jerusalem were destroyed, many hundreds of years later.

A Midrash tells us that when God heard the people crying with ingratitude, He exclaimed: atem bechitem bechiya shel chinam, v’ani koeia lachem bechiya ledorot, that is, “you wept in vain, I will establish it for you as a time of weeping for all generations.”  Rabbi Yochanan, who taught this midrash, explained that God chose the 9th of Av as the day when the Temples would be destroyed, in memory of the day in which the people did not want to enter the land of Israel.  Tears of real pain would replace unjustified tears.

In my opinion, I do not much like the theology underneath this midrash, which suggests that God seeks revenge from the people of Israel in such a harsh way, and even seems to enjoy it.  But beyond that, I find the idea of two kinds of weeping very interesting; tears in vain and “justified” tears, if I may say so.  I believe we can learn something from these two manners of complaining.

We all experience happy and sad times in our lives.  We all laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, at some point.  No one can escape that.   Nevertheless, we often cry without need.  We react disproportionately in the face of simple day-to-day problems; we become enraged, we complain and make a fuss.  In all likelihood, most of the times we do so, we exaggerate our rage.  And in this way, we ruin our day, increase our stress and anxiety, weaken our health, and above all, pass on our discomfort to our family and friends, who have nothing to do with the matter.  And as if this was not enough, the problem that caused our anger in the first place, becomes much more difficult to resolve when our moods are so foul.

Fortunately, God does not decree sadness or tears for us each time we complain without reason… even though sometimes we would actually deserve it!  After just a few hours or days, our rage disappears and life goes on.  On a more personal level, I believe we should learn from this midrash that gratuitous tears are avoidable.  That if we have or develop the ability to contain our anger and rage, and evaluate the actual dimension of the problems we face, we could prevent many of those bad times, for us and for those who love us.  After all, most of the problems we face in life have a solution, whereas what is really important, our loved ones and the wellbeing of those around us, are unique and deserve more respect.  Sometimes, it is worthwhile to count to ten before we react!

According to the midrash, our ancestors wept unjustified tears, which should have never been shed.  Those tears had serious consequences, or at least we could say that they left an indelible scar.  Let us hope we learn to distinguish between the tears worth crying and those, the great majority!, caused by problems that, in truth, shouldn’t be taken so seriously.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky

B´nei Israel Congregation

San Jose, Costa Rica