What could be worse than getting beaten up by a bully? Perhaps being told that you’re not even worth beating up! You may be spared the physical bruises, but the emotional ones can go deeper and last longer.
The Sforno says that the Spies in our parsha found an even lower low. They didn’t even need the bully to say so - they imagined it to be the case - deriding themselves to the point of no return. On the verse, “...We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so too, we were in their eyes,” Sforno elaborates, “Like grasshoppers - or even less significant. Because of this, they didn’t rise against us. They didn’t see any worth in us - it was a waste of effort in their eyes to even do harm to us.”
These were the great men of the generation. As Rashi notes, “Wherever the term אנשים ‘men’, is used, it is a term denoting worthiness.” How could they get their self-perception so wrong - to the point that they condemned themselves and their generation to die out in the desert?
Perhaps it was precisely because they were so great. Could they have been the first recorded cases of the now well-known phenomenon, ‘Imposter Syndrome’? This was coined in 1978 by Clance & Imes to describe highly capable individuals having, “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness". It has also been defined as, “a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds.”
Last November, a study by Atlassian revealed a significant rise in the levels of Imposter Syndrome. Especially with the advent of remote working, it’s risen from 30% to 42%. And, with so much career volatility, it’s no surprise that people changing jobs constantly will fall plague to this too - needing to quickly become an expert at anything and everything.
But why grasshoppers? Most mefarshim say it’s because they are so miniscule - like ants. Two interesting facts about grasshoppers are striking: 1. They can leap 20 times their body length and 2. They are excellent fliers. While the spies focussed on how insignificant grasshoppers are, they missed the point that, with the right motivation, grasshoppers can pack a punch - jumping way above their weight and flying higher than any giant stands.
If the spies had focussed on their innate strengths and believed in their Divine mission, it could have been a very different story. We may be small, but we’re mighty.
Comments