Originating from Greek mythology, the idea that in primeval days great battles were fought against Titans and Giants is common to both Classical and Norse myth - but it also occurs in the Biblical tradition.
The Bible has a three-fold tension with giants, recurring at three key moments in the history of Israel - Gen 6 that discusses the Prediluvian Giants (pre-flood and another of my favourite words), Numbers - Deuteronomy, that deals with the giants of the land, and the story of King David and his followers in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, that show his great warriors slaying the last of these foes.
But there is a key difference between our wars with the giants and those of other mythologies. The Greek Titans were defeated by Zeus, the Frost Giants were constantly fought by Thor and Odin. Yet in our stories, the giants are fought by normal human beings.
Or were they also giants?
The Talmud, in masechet Baba Batra 73a-74b Rabba bar bar Hana, tells a variety of tall tales of his journeys, one of which is especially relevant to our parasha this week of shelach lecha:
“Rabbah bar Bar Hana related: We were once travelling in a desert and there joined us an Arab merchant...
He said to me: ‘Come and I will show you the Dead of the Wilderness.’ I went and saw them; and they looked as if in a state of exhilaration. They slept on their backs; and the knee of one of them was raised, and the Arab merchant passed under the knee, riding on a camel with spear erect and did not touch it.
I cut off one corner of the purple-blue shawl of one of them; and we could not move away. He said unto me: ‘[If] you have, perhaps, taken something from them, return it; for we have a tradition that he who takes anything from them cannot move away.’ I went and returned it; and then we were able to move away.
When I came before the Rabbis they said unto me: Every Abba is an ass and every Bar Bar Hana is a fool. For what purpose did you do that? Was it in order to ascertain whether the rule is in accordance with the Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel? You should have counted the threads and counted the knots!”
This story of Rabba bar bar Hana’s, seems to deal precisely with our torah reading. All the major elements are there - giants, the Israelites who are doomed to die in the wilderness - even the tzitzit which are mentioned right at the end of the parasha. But what is he getting at?
One of the most striking things about this story, is that Rabba bar bar Hanna seems to have got it the wrong way around. Surely the spies reported that it was the inhabitants of the land who were giants and that they felt like ‘grasshoppers’ in their sight. Why does he describe the Israelites, the 'dead of the wilderness' in his story, as if they themselves were giants? And what is so important about their tzitzit that they couldn’t be removed from their bodies?
It seems to me that in casting the Israelites as giants, Rabba is saying that the Israelites were more than equal to the task of conquering the land. They may have felt like nothing more than grasshoppers but in reality they were also mighty men, powerful enough to defeat the giants that stood between them and the promised land.
All too often, we do not attempt a task because it seems too big, too monstrous. We feel tiny and insignificant in the face of it - Rabba is telling us that self-knowledge is the first step in overcoming adversity. Before we blow our problems out of all proportion, we need to remember that we ourselves have great potential and huge amounts of power to change the world.
But the appearance of the tzitzit in the story suggests that Rabba bar bar Hana is making an even bigger point. Meant to remind us of the commandments, we may wonder how this is supposed to work? Why do these tassels, with their blue threads, help us remember?
In the Talmud, this time in Menachot 43b, Rabbi Meir gives us an answer.
“It was taught: Rabbi Meir used to say, Why is blue specified from all the other colours? Because blue resembles the colour of the sea, and the sea resembles the colour of the sky, and the sky resembles the colour of a sapphire, and a sapphire resembles the colour of the Throne of Glory, as it is said, And there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone (Ex 24:10), and it is also written, The likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone (Ez 1:26).”
So the blue reminds us of the sea, which reminds us of the sky, which calls to mind a sapphire, which reminds us of God’s sapphire throne which then presumably reminds us of God Himself, and it is the thought of God’s power which will prevent us from following our eyes.
The Israelites were giants not just through their own might but because of God who was with them. Their ultimate source of power lay not in physical strength but in obedience to God’s words. When they saw the power of the inhabitants of the land, the spies panicked - they followed their eyes to their own downfall. The people who listened to the majority and were swayed into thinking they could never succeed - they were following their hearts, which in the context of the Bible meant the mind and the intellect.
It is as a correction, a tikkun, for this behaviour that the Israelites are given the commandment of tzitzit, a constant reminder, for all generations, not to be follow one’s eyes and one’s heart to do what is wrong but to remember God’s commandments.
But note that Rabbi Meir does not simply say that the techelet is meant to remind you of God’s glory but he goes through many steps - from sea, to sky, to the sapphire to the throne itself. Here is another message for the generation of the spies - something worth doing is worth putting time into. Some goals take a long time to achieve and there might be many hurdles to overcome along the way. The spies saw one difficulty and gave up - only Joshua and Caleb had the bigger picture and realised that with enough time and effort, they could overcome their enemies and enter the promised land.
This is why Rabba bar bar Hanna could not remove the tzitzit from the bodies of the Israelites. They needed them as a tikkun for what they had done wrong. To teach that the idea of the thread of techelet is what overcomes the sin of the spies.
We too need to hold on to this lesson. That great projects, like building a relationship or growing a community, take time and effort. Even with God’s help there can be many long and difficult steps to take along the way. Our difficulties may be enormous, our own gigantomachy, but we must remember that we ourselves are not grasshoppers but giants.
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