In this week's Torah portion, Eikev, Moses continues his farewell address to the Israelites, promising them entry into "a land flowing with milk and honey" (Deuteronomy 11:9). This beautiful phrase has captured Jewish imagination for millennia, yet it reveals something profound about the nature of our assumptions.
When we hear "milk and honey," most of us immediately envision cow's milk and bee's honey. These images feel natural, obvious, even universal. But biblical scholars tell us that the "milk" likely referred to goat's milk, and the "honey" was probably date honey made from the fruit of date palms that flourished in ancient Israel. Our Western context has unconsciously shaped our understanding of these sacred words.
There is a parable of the man who discovers an old map in his attic and becomes convinced he's discovered the route to buried treasure. He follows every marking precisely, certain of his interpretation. Only when he reaches the end does he realize the "map" was actually his child's drawing of their neighborhood. His assumptions, however logical they seemed, led him entirely astray.
We navigate life carrying invisible maps drawn from our experiences, cultures, and contexts. What we "see" feels like absolute truth, while others' perspectives seem misguided or wrong. Yet how often are we the adult with the child's drawing, utterly convinced of our correctness?
This dynamic of assumption and misperception tragically manifests in how Jewish communities are viewed today. Despite comprising only 2% of America's population and 0.2% of the world's population, Jews are somehow perceived as a dominant majority rather than a potentially vulnerable minority. We witness daily stories of Jews being denied services, falsely accused of crimes uncommitted, and openly shunned by groups who claim to champion minority rights.
Every Jewish community across North America now pays a "security tax," the additional resources required to live Jewishly, worship safely, and gather communally. Security guards at synagogues, reinforced buildings, and threat assessments for community events have become normalized expenses that other religious communities rarely face. Without this tax, paid in both dollars and anxiety, we could not gather to celebrate Shabbat, observe holidays, or educate our children in their heritage. Imagine what we could do in our local Jewish community if we invested the dollars we currently spend on security toward Jewish life and learning?
The cruel irony is that groups claiming to fight oppression often cannot see their own role in perpetuating prejudice against Jews. Their assumptive maps tell them that Jews represent power and privilege, not minority and persecution. They see “cow’s milk and bee’s honey” where the reality is something entirely different.
Moses understood that entering the Promised Land required leaving behind the certainties of the wilderness. Similarly, building a just society requires us to examine our assumptive maps that question whether our "obvious" truths might be shaped by limited perspectives.
Perhaps the "land flowing with milk and honey" teaches us that the sweetest places are those where we transcend our assumptions about each other. Where we recognize that the smallest minorities can become the most visible targets, and where we refuse to let prejudice masquerade as justice.
Until we reach that land, we sadly continue paying our security tax while holding fast to hope; hope that one day, we will no longer need guards at our community center doors to taste the sweetness of our tradition.
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