Torah Celebrates Diversity
Shelach Lecha/Do we Embrace Diversity and Cooperation-or Perish in Bewilderment?
This week’s Torah story in the Book of Numbers, B’Midbar , called Shelach Lecha, recounts the tragic experience of the tribal chieftains who cross over into the Promised Land. All but two of them see only threats and their own smallness. All the others see themselves as victims to the other inhabitants and to the Land itself, telling the masses waiting to hear their report “The land will devour us.” The people respond by crying and screaming, let us go back to the safety of enslavement. Torah wants to wake us up from seeing ourselves and others, and the land itself, as threats. Torah says, there is a Promised Land, and we can enter it, but only when we transform our consciousness and the systems of living to reflect that “you and the stranger shall be alike before God. “ This is Torah’s vision of the transformation in us that will lead us out of our wandering through a wilderness, our state of Bewilderment, to realize our human capacity. .
The story unfolds to show this. Humanity is stuck fearing the Promised Land is a land where other tribes are threatening and the land itself will devour us. A representative delegation of tribal chieftains is sent to cross over into the Promised Land.
In Buddhism and Torah this crossing over is the liberation and peace for which all humans long. In Sanskrit, it is the closing chant in the Heart of Understanding Sutra, pronounced “gatey, gatey, para gatey, para sam gatey, bodhi svaha! “ Dare to cross over. See what is possible when you leave your narrow fear-filled concept of who you are. Welcome to the Promised Land.
The story means that we humans need to change our consciousness and narratives so that we thrive through cooperation and diversity. For humanity to see this and live within it, we have to transform fear-based imprints and stories from systems and stories that imprison us. Otherwise, as tragically happens in this story, our entire generation will die and only the children, left wandering in the desert of life until we drop, have the possibility of transformation.
In the US, I hope you see you in the streets on June 14, crying out together for a society that embraces diversity and cooperation.