“Judaism is Hard Work” Rabbi Jacobson’s Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon, 6/20/25
Rabbi Suzie Jacobson
Qabbalat Shabbat, June 20, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston
This week, Jews everywhere read the Torah portion Shelach L’cha. I always find it a bit baffling. Twelve tribal leaders are tasked with scouting the Promised Land. The Torah makes it clear that the land is good—filled with resources and opportunity. The scouts return after 40 days carrying a massive cluster of grapes, a pomegranate, and a fig. To a people recently complaining about the monotony of miraculous manna, this must have seemed like bounty beyond imagination.
And yet, 10 of the 12 spies come back filled with fear. They give a demoralizing and defeatist report – “the people of the land are like giants, we look like grasshoppers in comparison.” Are they just lying? Are they filled with fear? A common read is that after the social isolation of slavery and wandering, the scouts are deeply lacking in self confidence. “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves.”
The Chassidic Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson has an interesting teaching that reads against the grain – He believes that these ten spies were not afraid of failure, they were afraid of success. They saw a land that they could inhabit and understood that it would take hard work. They would have to till the land, they would have to build their homes. They would have to stay put in one place long enough to build their society and it would be hard.
It’s easier in the wilderness – God provides everything for them. They don’t have the stress and responsibility of material self reliance.
Because of these ten, the whole people are forced to wander in the wilderness for 40 years before they can begin to build their home in promised land.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reflects that this was the mistake of “very holy men [who] want to spend their lives in the closest possible proximity to God.” They believed holiness meant separation—monasticism, spiritual retreat. But, the Rebbe taught, true holiness lies in engagement. Judaism is not about having our needs met by God; it’s about drawing God into the world through the work of our hands, minds, and hearts.
The point is not to be cut off from the world, the point is to be deeply engaged.
Our task is to heal the sick, feed the hungry, combat ignorance, fight oppression, and challenge every tyrant who stands in the way of justice.
Rabbi Sacks wrote that God wanted the Israelites “to create a society where human beings were not treated as slaves, where rulers were not worshipped as demigods, where human dignity was respected, where law was impartially administered… where no one was abandoned to isolation, and no realm of life was a morality-free zone.”
That’s the society I long for—and that our world desperately needs.
I’d add to Rabbi Sacks’s list. The scaredy scouts missed three spiritual blessings inherent in the land:
First, the blessing of curiosity and relationship. The scouts saw strangers and reacted with fear and xenophobia instead of curiosity. Our country is in a deep moral identity crisis around immigration. When we hear foreign languages, see different customs—do we respond with suspicion or interest? Is America strengthened by diversity or is something essentially lost through the process of embracing pluralism and change?
Our Torah teaches us to love the stranger. That’s not just a moral imperative—it’s a multi dimensional spiritual practice. First, we must be curious about those unlike us. Then we must build real relationships. Love grows through intentional effort. The scouts couldn’t imagine connection across difference. But we must.
The second lesson is the blessing of land stewardship. The scouts fail to recognize that the land itself is holy, that God is not only in the manna and the cloud and the fire – God is in the soil, the air, the rain. The work it takes to cultivate the land is a spiritual practice.
This morning in my garden, I watered, weeded, and planted more peppers, cantaloupe, bok choi, eggplant, potatoes, sweet potatoes—why not? There was room. Then I noticed something funky among the carrots—some of the leaves looked different. In my chaos gardening, I hadn’t recognized something so familiar: dill. I hadn’t planted it. Maybe it seeded itself from last year’s crop, maybe my organic seeds were mislabeled. I caught it just in time—before the heat made it flower and go to seed.
I said a blessing of gratitude and wonder. In my early morning garden puttering, I had experienced Divinity. God is in the garden, in the noticing, in the realization that I am not the master of my small piece of earth, I am God’s partner. The mysteries of the universe are not only out there, they are right here.
Those scouts took grapes, pomegranates and figs – they did not realize that to love God is to help them grow.
Third: from our parasha we learn the blessing of risk. Spirituality requires courage. Whether afraid of failure or success, we must be willing to risk vulnerability. The world isn’t always safe for Jews, but it’s the arena in which we live out our values of justice, connect with others, and make our Judaism real. We need allies, and that means being bravely, visibly Jewish—reaching out, connecting, and forming lasting bonds with those around us.
The ten scaredy scouts weren’t ready. They couldn’t engage the stranger, or commit to the land, or step into the risk of building society. They were people of the wilderness. But we are not.
We are people of the world. And our Judaism demands malacha—labor—and avodah—sacred service. God’s deepest blessings require effort: in our relationships, in our soil, in our moral clarity, in our bold commitment to live Jewish lives in full view of the world.
These blessings are not only the hardest won—they are what leads us towards true holiness.