Something striking is happening in Israel right now. Many young Israelis have started wearing tzitzit, the ritual fringes traditionally attached to the corners of a four-cornered garment. Why?
Parshat Shelach begins with twelve spies standing at the border of the land of Israel, sent to scout the land before the Jewish people enter it after leaving Egypt. It ends with the commandment of tzitzit.
The rabbis already noticed the connection between the two. The same verb, “to scout,” appears throughout the spies’ story and once more in the tzitzit passage: “Do not scout after your hearts and your eyes.” Why? The heart and eyes, Rashi says, are the spies of the body. In other words, the way we see shapes the way we live.
So the parsha is bookended by a question: how should we see?
Ten of the spies return from their mission terrified. They describe giant enemies and impossible odds, convincing the Jewish people that they cannot enter the land after all.
Their failure reflects a deeper assumption about themselves: “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes.” The spies could not imagine the possibility of transformation. All they could perceive were strong people, fortified cities, and their own weakness.
But Joshua and Caleb responded differently. Caleb insisted: “We will surely go up and possess it, for we are surely able.” He is not saying that the people are already strong enough. He is saying they can rise to the occasion.
The giants are the same giants. What changed was not the land itself, but the way Joshua and Caleb saw it. What we believe about ourselves changes the world we inhabit.
Tzitzit reflect the same idea. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reads the techelet, the royal blue thread woven into the tzitzit, as the antidote. Tzitzit, he writes, remind us: “Do not be afraid. God is with you. And do not give way to your emotions, because you are royalty: you are children of the King.”
Perhaps that is why so many Israelis are reaching for tzitzit right now. Much of life here takes place between what we know and do not know, between the impulse to flee and the courage to face our fears.
Something in this moment is reaching for a reminder: you are not a grasshopper. You are a child of God.
The mission was never merely to tour the land, but to tour the self, to remember who we are and who we can become. Ten of the spies forgot. The tzitzit are there so that we will not.
Dr. Tanya White writes, teaches and lectures on Tanach and Jewish Philosophy in Israel and abroad. She is a senior lecturer at the Matan Women's Institute for Torah Studies and LSJS and a lecturer in Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
