Shelach: Seeing is Believing
Shelach: Seeing is Believing
At the beginning of the parsha, שְׁלַח לְךָ אֲנָשִׁים וְיָתֻרוּ אֶת אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי נֹתֵן לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
The men are sent to explore (tour) the land that ...has been given to Israel.
The parsha concludes with a paragraph that is liturgically repeated several time daily. That paragraph contains: וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר-אַתֶּם זֹנִים, אַחֲרֵיהֶם. You shall not explore (tour) after your hearts nor after your eyes...
A great deal of the human brain is dedicated to vision. The actual perception of quanta of (what we call ) light [electromagnetism within a certain small spectrum] is the least complicated part. The brainpower goes into interpreting the images. This involves a process called feature recognition, fitting the array of light impulses into a category, what we call an object: a face, a hand. a wall, etc. The basics of many objects are preprogrammed in the brain There is an element of believing that precedes seeing. The range of visual stimuli that a person ( or animal) can understand is predetermined. There is a strong biologically defined force that limits and guides the human perception of the world
"When it comes to moral judgments we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.” Johnathan Haidt (OnBeing)
is interesting to contrast Moshe's spies with Joshua's. Moshe asked the spies for details about the land, its geograpy, fruit , people, fortifications. Joshua's spies are sent in (textual) silence and return with a simple (but most relevant) statement: 'Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; and moreover all the inhabitants of the land do melt away before us.' Perhaps the detailed questions are Moshe's and Israel's transgression.
In all this, what are we saying when we utter this most unAmerican statement: "do not follow your hearts and eyes." Perhaps we are simply recognizing how unreliable our senses and (certainly) opinions are.
Our innermost core is biological, the most universal and provincial of concepts. Leap before you look, we all believe before we see.
The parsha concludes with a paragraph that is liturgically repeated several time daily. That paragraph contains: וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר-אַתֶּם זֹנִים, אַחֲרֵיהֶם. You shall not explore (tour) after your hearts nor after your eyes...
A great deal of the human brain is dedicated to vision. The actual perception of quanta of (what we call ) light [electromagnetism within a certain small spectrum] is the least complicated part. The brainpower goes into interpreting the images. This involves a process called feature recognition, fitting the array of light impulses into a category, what we call an object: a face, a hand. a wall, etc. The basics of many objects are preprogrammed in the brain There is an element of believing that precedes seeing. The range of visual stimuli that a person ( or animal) can understand is predetermined. There is a strong biologically defined force that limits and guides the human perception of the world
"When it comes to moral judgments we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.” Johnathan Haidt (OnBeing)
is interesting to contrast Moshe's spies with Joshua's. Moshe asked the spies for details about the land, its geograpy, fruit , people, fortifications. Joshua's spies are sent in (textual) silence and return with a simple (but most relevant) statement: 'Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; and moreover all the inhabitants of the land do melt away before us.' Perhaps the detailed questions are Moshe's and Israel's transgression.
In all this, what are we saying when we utter this most unAmerican statement: "do not follow your hearts and eyes." Perhaps we are simply recognizing how unreliable our senses and (certainly) opinions are.
Our innermost core is biological, the most universal and provincial of concepts. Leap before you look, we all believe before we see.
posted by Sheldon Goldberg at 11:05 AM
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