In this episode of The Vocies of Emanu El, Rabbi Pam Silk weaves together summer camp send-offs and the Torah portion Sh’lach L'cha, where twelve scouts survey the Promised Land and declare, “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes.” Their report is factually accurate, but their fearful interpretation keeps a generation wandering for forty years.
Through the lens of Caleb and Joshua’s ruach acheret, a “different spirit,” we look at the thresholds that define our lives: children heading to camp, endings of relationships, retirement, empty nests, and grief. Rabbi Silk explores how to notice the “maybe not me, maybe not now” voice and instead tell a new, braver story about ourselves and the future that awaits us.
