To get an international flavor in Western New York, just take a trip up the I-190 to Niagara Falls. There you will hear languages spoken from all over the world, including Hebrew. It is amazing to see how far people travel to see something right in our own back yard.
They want to feel the rush of water down the Horse Shoe Falls, to experience the awe and wonder of the natural world. They do not come here to feel safe. Tourism is about traveling to a place that is new and different. And, when done right, it is not usually relaxing.
If only the first tourists on record had realized what they were getting into. In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, we are introduced to the twelve spies who have been commissioned by God to scout out the land of Israel.
The Hebrew word used for their activity – LaTor – does not having anything to do with reconnaissance. It is actually the linguistic antecedent of the Old English turian, meaning to travel to a place with the intention of return.
While, I always imagined these twelve individuals moving stealthily through the land, they actually seemed have done their activity quite out in the open, cutting off large clusters of grapes, and other native fruits, and inspecting the surroundings from up close. For ten of them, the experience was anything but fun.
They feared the height of the walls on the various cities and the size of the inhabitants. They felt like grasshoppers among the giants living in Canaan. Only Joshua and Caleb realized that was the way the experience was supposed to feel. They were tourists in the truest sense of the word, marveling at this place of “milk and honey,” a place of both danger and of endless possibility.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex