Dear Friends,
About a year ago, a wise friend gave me some remarkably good advice.
We were talking about retirement, Aliyah, and all the changes ahead for Raina and me. He told me that while the decision to retire and the decision to move to Israel were entirely ours, as the year unfolded there would inevitably be moments when I would feel sadness and loss. After all, I would be leaving people I love, a congregation I love, and a community that has shaped and sustained my life for more than three decades.
When those feelings came, he said, I should acknowledge rather than deny them or push them away. He continued, “Acknowledge those feelings, but don’t live in them. Instead, consciously choose to shift your focus toward what comes next: the adventure ahead, the opportunity to continue contributing, the privilege of building a new life in Israel, and the chance to play a role in helping ensure that Israel remains both Jewish and democratic. The sadness will come from looking backward. Feel it. Honor it. But don’t live there. Because you and Raina’s future will be shaped by what lies ahead.”
As it turns out, he was right on every count.
There have certainly been moments during this past year when gratitude and sadness have existed side by side. How could they not? After thirty-four years, leaving this congregation is not simply leaving a job. It is saying goodbye to countless relationships, shared memories, sacred moments, and people who have become part of the fabric of my life.
At the same time, I have discovered that whenever I focus on what lies ahead—on the opportunities awaiting Raina and me in Israel, on the adventure, on the possibility of new ways to serve, teach, learn, and contribute—the excitement returns. The sense of possibility returns. The anticipation returns.
What I did not realize at the time was that my friend’s advice comes directly from this week’s Torah portion.
This week’s Torah portion begins with God’s instruction to Moses to send twelve spies into the Promised Land. We know what happens next. The spies return carrying evidence of a land overflowing with possibility. They bring back clusters of grapes so large that they must be carried by two people and confirm that the land is everything God had promised.
And yet ten of the twelve cannot move beyond the obstacles they encounter. They see fortified cities, powerful enemies, and an uncertain future. Faced with all of that, they lose sight of the extraordinary opportunity standing before them.
Joshua and Caleb look at the very same landscape and reach a very different conclusion. They do not deny the challenges. They simply refuse to allow those challenges to define the future.
At its heart, Shelach Lecha is not really a story about spies. It is a story about what happens whenever we stand at the edge of a new chapter. Every new chapter contains both promise and uncertainty. Every significant transition asks us to leave something familiar behind and move toward something we cannot yet fully see.
Perhaps that is why this portion speaks to me so powerfully this year. For the Israelites, the question was whether they were ready to leave the wilderness behind and step into an unknown future. For me and for Raina, in just a few short weeks, that question feels very real.
After forty years of dreaming about it and decades of talking about it, we are preparing to make Aliyah and begin a new life in Israel. There are moments when that feels exhilarating and moments when it feels terrifying. We are leaving behind family, friends, familiar routines, and a community that has shaped our lives in ways too numerous to count. We are moving across an ocean to begin again at an age when most people are trying to make life more predictable rather than less.
And yet whenever I find myself wondering whether we are doing something brave or something slightly crazy, I find myself thinking about Joshua and Caleb—not because they knew exactly what would happen, but because they understood that the absence of certainty is not a reason to stand still. Instead, it is a call to each of us to engage even more deeply in the journey forward.
And perhaps that is the message Shelach Lecha offers not only to Raina and me, but to all of us.
As individuals, as families, and as a congregation, we will all face moments when the future feels uncertain. We will all encounter challenges that seem larger than we expected and opportunities that require more courage than we imagined.
When those moments come, I hope we will all remember the lesson of this week’s portion. Acknowledge and honor what came before and be grateful for the people and experiences that brought us to this moment.
But don’t live there.
Instead, focus on what is yet to be built, and the new possibilities that can be created together.
After all, the Promised Land was never reached by people who spent their lives looking backward.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Cohen