Happy birthday to us!: Hope and Optimism
Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday, dear Kavana! Happy birthday to us!
This coming Monday, July 1st, is Kavana's 18th birthday, the anniversary of the date in 2006 when Kavana formally began its existence as an organization and this community was born. 18 years is a significant number for us, as 18 is the gematria/numeric equivalent of the word "chai" (spelled chet-yod, or 10+8=18), which means "life." This week, it also feels fitting to me that our community is hitting this milestone chai birthday as Jews everywhere read Parashat Shelach.
In this week's Torah portion, Moses sends a dozen spies across the Jordan River to scout out the land of Canaan. As the twelve spies return from this important reconnaissance mission, they divide themselves into two factions. Ten of them present to Moses and the Israelites a fundamentally pessimistic report:
“'We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.' Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, 'The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size... and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.'" (Numbers 13:31–33).
In contrast, just two of the twelve spies (Caleb and Joshua) return with a positive, hopeful report:
"And [they] exhorted the whole Israelite community: 'The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If pleased with us, God will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us... Have no fear....'" (Numbers 14:7–9).
According to the text, all twelve participated in the same mission and experienced the same land together -- Numbers 13:21-24 is explicit that they scouted from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, traveling in the Negev until they came to Hebron, and finding a giant cluster of grapes in the Wadi Eshkol -- so the core issue cannot be that they had completely different inputs. And yet, the two groups of scouts interpret what they have witnessed very differently.
Torah commentators offer a range of views as to why the ten spies versus the two draw such radically different conclusions; most of their answers come down to the issue of underlying attitude and outlook. The ten spies who land on a negative report not only feel fearful themselves, but also manage to induce panic in the rest of the Israelites. (As we know well in the year 2024, it's easy for fear and despair to feel contagious!)
Behind Caleb and Joshua's report, in contrast, readers can feel a healthy dose of optimism, faith, and confidence. About this story, author Michael Eisenberg comments:
"Optimism is foundational to many of the stories in the Torah, and is a critical component of the consciousness of the people of Israel since the dawn of history. Pessimism creates headlines, but optimism creates reality... The optimism the Torah directs us towards is to believe that change is good and that we have an opportunity to change situations, to improve and develop, and above all — to realize our collective vision and responsibility that has been assigned to us."
In other words, the kind of optimism that Caleb and Joshua display is not delusional or pollyannaish; it acknowledges real-world challenges even as it asserts that change is possible. This brand of optimism stands in sharp contrast both to defeatism (the idea that nothing we could do could possibly make a difference) and to false optimism (the idea that the status quo is just fine, and nothing needs to change).
This message of Parashat Shelach rings particularly true to me this week, as it echoes with the history and underlying outlook of our beloved Kavana community on this milestone birthday.
In 2006, Suzi LeVine and I set out to do something very special together. At the time, we had both heard lots of hand-wringing from Jewish leaders across the country who were worried that assimilation and intermarriage were eroding the Jewish future. In the Seattle Jewish community, the conventional wisdom was that because younger Jews (then, members of Gen X) were not affiliating with synagogues, they must necessarily be uninterested in Jewish life; we had also been told that the northwest quadrant of the city wasn't densely Jewish enough to be able to support a Jewish community. Even in the face of this pessimism, we sensed an opportunity: to build a model of Jewish community that didn't yet exist except in our inchoate vision: one that would be pluralistic, open and welcoming; vibrant and dynamic; at once authentic and grounded in tradition and also creative and playful; grassroots-y and cooperative in nature. And, we were seeing innovative new Jewish organizations begin to spring up around the country. Buoyed by Suzi's can-do spirit and an energy that snowballed positively as we begin to shop this vision around, we embarked... recruiting a dynamic launch team, securing support from a handful of "angel investors," and -- starting in July 2006 with our inaugural Shabbat in the Park event -- offering programming and drawing in would-be partners. We were not naieve or unaware of the challenges we might face in launching a new organization, but we were carried by some degree of faith, confidence, and optimism, and it paid off as more and more people began showing up to build robust Jewish life together with us.
Over the past 18 years, we -- and here I mean all of us together: partners, participants, donors, friends and family of the organization (if you're reading, I hope you count yourself in!) -- have built something very special. The optimistic spirit that helped to launch Kavana at the outset is still strong in us. Together, we have deeply touched the lives of thousands, helping to craft meaningful Jewish experiences, empower people to work towards a vision of a more just and loving society, forging a vibrant Jewish future together. As Kavana celebrates its 18th birthday this week, I hope that each of us feels a great sense of pride in being part of this fundamentally hopeful endeavor!
After an 18th year like the one the Kavana community has just lived through -- with October 7th and the war in Gaza, antisemitism on the rise and the threat of autocratic political leaders here in the U.S. and around the world -- there is certainly plenty of fuel for anxiety and fear. However, in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope." He points out that the word "confidence" comes from Latin for "having faith together." Indeed, it is precisely in the together-ness of this community's vision that I find the inspiration to continue moving us forward.
Wishing us all a very happy and life-affirming chai birthday. (We are planning for a celebration and cake to follow, later this year!) To Kavana, I say: "ad meah v'esrim" ("to a hundred and twenty!").
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
P.S. - Enjoy these throw-back photos to our first-ever Shabbat in the Park (we were doing yoga at Gasworks!) and to early board members checking out Kavana's then brand-new-to-us Sefer Torah (we were such babies!).
P.P.S. - Feeling inspired to send Kavana a birthday gift? Your support means the world to us. Click here to make a donation of any amount and help set us up well to continue doing our sacred work into the coming year with an optimistic and hopeful outlook!
