By Rabbi Daniel A. Kripper
Beth Israel - Aruba.
Robert Dilts, one of the great investigators of Neurolinguistics Programming, affirms that beliefs are a very powerful force in our behavior. It has been empirically proven that if someone believes he can do something, he will. And if he thinks it is impossible to do so, nothing in the world will convince him he can. We all have beliefs that serve us as resources and others that condition and limit us. Like Stephen Covey said, “The way in which we see things is the origin of the way in which we think.”
A revealing chapter in the Torah dealing with the crucial consequences of the belief system is the known episode of the spies (Numbers, Chapter 13). The children of Israel were in the desert, slowly approaching the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. In the midst of all the uncertainty and the fear of the future, Moses ordered a mission of reconnaissance made up of twelve conspicuous representatives of the tribes.