Perception of Power

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Power is the perception of power.

That’s what we say sometime in our social justice work in the Interfaith Council and in PACT, People Acting in Community Together. If others see us as important or believe that we represent a large group of people, then our voices are heard in more significant ways. That is why we often begin by introducing ourselves, explaining who we are and how many congregations and individuals we represent. That’s why it is important to get a good turnout at certain events or to get good press coverage: perception is an important part of power.

I thought of that this week in relationship to our Torah and Haftarah portions.

Separated by one generation, by the 40 years of the desert wanderings, the Torah and Haftarah portions present two totally different perceptions of the Israelites power. Yet the Torah goes out of its way, by presenting census figures on the Israelites at the beginning and end of their journey, to remind us that there was little difference in the number of Israelites in both time periods.

In our Torah portion, which takes place towards the beginning of the Israelites wandering in the desert, the people see themselves as without power. “We cannot attack,” they complain to Moses. “ The residents of the land are like giants”. “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves,” they say, “and so we must have looked to them.”

40 years later, as Joshua prepares to cross the Israelites into the Promised Land, things look very different. “A dread of you has fallen upon us,” Rahab says. “All the inhabitants of the land are quaking before you.” Why is this? Because they heard about the miracles God had performed for the Israelites as they crossed the Sea of Reeds, and therefore “we lost heart and no man had any more fighting spirit left.”

The Israelites in Joshua’s time are empowered by the perception of their strength, and are able to accomplish all that their parent’s generation was unable to do, though it was the parent’s generation that actually experience the deliverance from Egypt.

The perception of power is an important part of contemporary Middle Eastern politics in ways that are obvious and also less so. Part of the modern state of Israel’s defensive strategy, is to insure that the perception of her ability to defend herself is high. That is the motivation for military exercises such as those carried out this week. The perception of power is considered a determent to attack. That was also the source of worry after the withdrawal from Lebanon and from Gaza – that a perception of lack of power would be an invitation to attack.

Perception of power also influences Israel’s willingness to make compromises for peace. Leaders who see Israel as basically strong and secure like Yitzchak Rabin are more willing to make compromises that those who are of the “grasshopper” persuasion, who see Israel primarily in the light of the Holocaust, as a potential victim of the much larger Arab world. In this regard it is interesting to note that the ancient King who “traded land for peace,” as we would say in modern terms, was King Solomon who from a position of a great strength gave Hiram of Tyre, contemporary Lebanon, twenty towns in the region of the Galilee.

Bringing the message of our Torah and Haftarah portion a little closer to our day to day lives, we are reminded that our own personal perception of our own power influences our behavior in important ways. A major study of those who helped Jews during the Holocaust, found that what they had in common was a sense of their own efficacy, a sense of personal power. Being able to say as Caleb did, “yachol nuchal lo”, we shall surely overcome it, or as we say at rallies locally – si si pueda – we can do it, makes a big difference in our lives.

When confronting challenges in our own lives, or when we come up against injustices that need to be addressed in the life of our communities, we need to see ourselves not as grasshoppers but as powerful human beings, who can and will make a difference.

Gaby & Lana, I hope that this experience of preparing for your Bat Mitzvah was an empowering one. Being able to achieve a greater and deeper learning than either of you anticipated when we began this process, is a symbol also of other things you can achieve as you move forward into your teenage and adult lives. May you go forth mikoach leakoach, from strength to strength.