I don't think it's indicative of being in the States, but rather of being outside of the four walls of the Yeshiva. For better or worse, while I'm in Yeshiva I forget (thank God) about things like stress and indecision. But this week, I've lived in the world beyond those walls, and I've seen the beast where it lives.
Many of my friends here are finding themselves in the "transitional phase" of having finished a school year, and are thus looking to find a new job. But as soon as the excitement of finally being free to "do whatever you want" dies down, they're left realizing that it pains them to consider running off to a big city to assume the role of college-graduate-seeking-experience-in-the-real-world-of-office-workers-seeking- real-experience." They just don't wanna go. Well what's wrong with them? A job in the corporate world is obviously working for 75% of college graduates... just buck up, little camper. Not so fast. This is one case where the majority is not right.
In the parsha this week, Moshe sends out spies to bring back a full report on the land of Israel. Kind of a funny proposition, that twelve people could possibly present Am Yisrael with a full picture of what to expect in this new world of "the land of Israel." Really, God is the only one with any kind of view beyond the limits of individual perspective, and God left it up to Moshe to send out these spies. With the murmurings among the people and the brewing skepticism, Moshe decided to let us mount an expedition. WE wanted to see for ourselves what lay beyond the river Jordan. The problem, though, was that we were unable to see anything else. We could only see for ourselves. Only Yehoshua and Calev were able to relate a bigger picture to the people. Instead of specific details of the size of the enemy, and the frightening scale on which food grew there, the two said "...the land is very, very good. If Hashem desires us he will bring us to this land and give it to us." They were grasping at straws, trying to remind the people of the bigger picture, where things are defined not by size and measure, but my ultimate good and bad. God saw Israel as good for us, the place for the entire people of Israel to live as "eesh echad, lev echad," one man, one heart. And the majority opted to return to Egypt.
When we go out there looking for a job we ask ourselves, "What am I good at?" That's a good question. An important question. But it's not going to help us find happiness, or success. "What am I?" That's a better question. "What's the whole picture of me?" AH! Now we're getting somewhere. Just because I'm "good with kids" doesn't mean I should ignore my need for peace and quiet to go work in an inner city school. If I'm at my best in an environment where sharing is sacred, I'll wither if the end product is all that's sought. We're all jumping into the "real world" looking for "experience," but we forget about the 20+ years of experience we've amassed until now. Like a Seurat painting - from an up-close-in-the- moment perspective, our life is an array of unrelated blips of whos, wheres, and whens. But take a step back, and they all fall into place along the landscape of you. Each "blip" that I choose to ignore breaks one of the vital links between who I've been and who I am, and likewise, it keeps us me seeing the role I can play in the big picture of the world.
As usual, the truth (at least as I see it) ain't easy. The truth, after all, is ideal, and the world is constantly telling us to settle for something called reality. But if we could truly sense reality... we'd see it to be totally in line with all of our ideals. Right now, though, we can't know the reality. We have to fight tooth and nail for a glimpse at that big picture. We wandered in the desert for forty years when we gave up that fight the first time. May God bless us all to find a way out of our wandering and a way into the goodness of Israel and her people.