But the men (who were sent to spy the land) said: We are not able to go up to the land … because it is inhabited by the Nephilim, giants … and we were as grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so were we in their eyes.
Numbers 13:31–33
Entering this world and being born into it is an extremely frightening experience. This is perhaps the most important reason why we cry once we leave the womb. We enter a world where we are surrounded by Nephilim—giants—who terrify us. And we want to return to the womb, which gave us all the protection we needed for nine months.
This world consists of Goliaths who peer over our cribs, making faces and noises that we do not understand.
So too it must have been to stand at the entrance of the Land of Israel. We were frightened and wanted to return to the desert, where God had miraculously looked after us. We suddenly realized that our complaints in the desert were nothing compared to this great challenge confronting us: the world.
That we see ourselves as grasshoppers in our own eyes may sometimes be a good thing, giving us a sense of humility. But when we convince ourselves that we look like grasshoppers in the eyes of our enemies, allowing them to define us, it means that we will never become who we are meant to be.
That we see ourselves as grasshoppers in our own eyes may sometimes be a good thing, giving us a sense of humility. But when we convince ourselves that we look like grasshoppers in the eyes of our enemies, allowing them to define us, it means that we will never become who we are meant to be. Even in old age, we will still long for the crib of our infancy.
It is sadly true of many people that their epitaph could read: “Expired at age 12. Buried at 90.”
The Education of Grasshoppers
Throughout our educational years, our institutions of learning, including our universities, provide us with blueprints for life and knowledge. But these blueprints do not include anything about the many things that we really should care about—the very things that are of the greatest importance in guiding us to become authentic human beings.
Today, there are nearly no classes on the meaning and purpose of life. We are told to deal with questions of how and what, but not of why. Throughout our educational years, we are shown only those matters that are utilitarian and exist in the concrete. And “if in doubt, leave it out.”
Aristotle taught that “the slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things.”¹
But we do not listen.
Physics, chemistry, and other applied sciences tell us absolutely nothing about life in its essence. They tell us a great deal about the physical makeup of our bodies and surroundings, but nothing about what makes us human. They do not give us insight into how we should conduct our lives.
After all, the acquisition of scientific data causes no internal transformation. It does not make us better, more moral, or more thoughtful human beings. And those qualities are more important than anything else.
Our teachers and parents tell us how to play the game of life, but not the art of living. This “why” is denied us. In fact, it is often deliberately kept from us.
And so we can never really grow up.
The Absence of the Question
But there is something even more tragic. The most serious challenge we face in the modern world is not that we have no answer to the question why. The real problem is the absence of the question.
The question has vanished from the world.
And so, we remain children and allow our teachers and others to decide what we should know and what we should not know. As such, we allow them to decide who we are.
Sadly, life is portrayed as all vagueness behind a veil of enigmas. And the tragedy is that we allow our teachers to get away with it.
And so we remain grasshoppers even while earning a doctorate.
Entering the Land
But if we truly want to enter the “Land of Israel,” we need to fight the complacency of the grasshopper. We need to wake up and stand on our own feet. We must protest that matters of importance are whitewashed away and that we have forgotten the question.
We should stage protests at our universities and other institutions of learning and insist that they stop indoctrinating us. They need to stop denying us the big picture, and instead teach us how to ask the “why” questions; searching for real answers.
The same is true of Jewish Education. There is much too much dogmatization. Religious education should be an event, not just a comfortable lifestyle of contentment. It should be an honest search for God, the meaning of life, and human grandeur.
Life is not to be reduced to a geometrical proposition but to be experienced in all its magnificence, far beyond our ability to grasp. Life is deeper than knowledge. It makes all our limbs quiver and agitates our whole essence.
Only when we embrace the entirety of life—including all what can be known and what will always elude us—will we be able to exit our grasshopper mentality and enter the land.
Anything less would be trivialization.
Notes
¹ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 1, art. 5, citing Aristotle.
Questions for the Shabbat Table
- The spies said, “We were as grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so were we in their eyes.” Have there been times when you assumed that other people saw you as small, incapable, or unimportant? How did that assumption affect your actions?
- The Israelites feared entering the Land because it meant leaving behind the security of the wilderness and taking responsibility for their own future. Why do people sometimes prefer familiar difficulties to unfamiliar opportunities? Can you think of a time when you had to leave a “comfortable desert” behind?
- Rabbi Cardozo argues that one of the great tragedies of modern life is that we no longer ask life’s deepest questions. What are some of the “why” questions that people often avoid asking? Why do you think these questions make us uncomfortable?
Diving Deeper
Rabbi Cardozo suggests that true maturity begins when we refuse to accept other people’s answers without first wrestling with our own questions. In many ways, this reflects a central feature of Jewish learning. The Talmud is built not around certainty but around argument, challenge, and inquiry. The Four Children of the Haggadah are distinguished not by what they know, but by the questions they ask.
Yet there is also a tension here. Judaism places great value on tradition and receiving wisdom from previous generations. At what point does respectful acceptance of tradition become intellectual complacency? And at what point does questioning become rebellion for its own sake?
How can we remain faithful to tradition while still cultivating the courage to ask difficult questions?
