Torah Big Idea #20 We Can Be Giants or Grasshoppers

B’midbar (Numbers) 

I witnessed something fascinating during jury duty recently. Once in the selection box, the lawyers began questioning potential jurors about our views. Do we have strong opinions about guns? How about minors and crime? What about witness testimony? It didn’t take long to realize a child and a gun were involved in the case.

But the most revealing part wasn’t the questions, it was watching how people responded. Most potential jurors initially said nothing, staying silent. But once someone did speak up, their words seeped over to those  who followed.

When one juror declared, “I don’t think witnesses should get paid for their testimony, it corrupts everything,” the next several jurors nodded and agreed. But then another juror offered a different perspective: “Well, experts get paid for their testimony all the time, and sometimes witnesses need protection or relocation. It’s not automatically corrupt if someone receives something in exchange for their testimony.” Suddenly, the mood shifted. Later jurors began expressing more nuanced views.

I realized I was watching a famous scene from the Book of Numbers in real time.

The twelve spies saw exactly the same thing when they explored the Promised Land. But they came back with two completely different reports. Ten spies said: “The people are strong, the cities are fortified. We looked like grasshoppers to them, and that’s how we looked to ourselves too.” Two spies—Joshua and Caleb—saw identical facts and reached the opposite conclusion: “We can definitely do this.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l identified the most crucial line in the entire narrative: “We looked like grasshoppers to them, and that’s how we looked to ourselves too.” The real problem wasn’t the giants in the land, it was the giants in their minds. Like that first juror who created a narrative of corruption that others automatically adopted, the ten spies created a story of powerlessness that doomed an entire generation.

The genius of Numbers isn’t just diagnosing the problem, it’s providing spiritual tools for creating better narratives. 

As Rabbi Sacks wrote in Studies in Spirituality, we must “exercise the power to pioneer, to do something new, to take the road less travelled, to venture out into the unknown.” 

The Torah gives us specific practices: remember our past, recognize our divine partnership and  distinguish protective wisdom from paralyzing fear.

Every time we catch ourselves thinking “I’m too small for this challenge” or “This problem is too big for me,” we can access these Torah tools. We can remember our own past transformations. We can recognize we’re not facing difficulties alone. We can ask whether our fear is protective wisdom or paralyzing grasshopper thinking.

In that jury selection room, I watched potential jurors wrestle with the same choice the spies faced: accept the first narrative offered, or think independently about what was actually true. The Torah doesn’t promise life will be easy, but it gives us tools to ensure that the giants we fight are real ones, not the ones we create in our own minds.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is refuse to see ourselves as grasshoppers when we’re actually equipped to face whatever challenges stand in our way.