Why would someone suddenly suspect me of things I never did?

Rabbi Landau explains that suspicion with no good reason is often projection. “When someone is doing something wrong, their brain assumes everyone else is doing it too, because that's the normal now.” So suddenly a person is on your back, accusing you of things you never even considered.

He gives the example of a spouse who stops trusting you for no good reason. Not every suspicion is like this; sometimes suspicion is a real observation. But often, he says, pay attention: “the suspicion is a confession, not an observation.”

He shows this in the Torah. The spies came back from the land and said something strange: v'chein hayinu b'eineihem, “and so we were in their eyes.” How did they know how the giants saw them? “They saw themselves as grasshoppers and assumed everyone else saw them the same way.”

“That's projection,” he says. “You don't see reality, you see the inside of your own head painted on everyone else.” So before you accept someone else's assumptions about you, his caption suggests asking: are they seeing me, or are they seeing themselves?

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The way people see others often reveals how they see themselves.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Being accused of things you never even considered, by someone close to you.

What may be behind it

When a person carries something hidden, it becomes “the normal,” and he assumes everyone else is doing it too.

Deepest human truth

What did the spies really reveal?

They could not have known how the giants saw them. In saying “and so we were in their eyes,” they revealed only how they saw themselves.

More questions from this teaching

• What did the spies mean when they said “and so we were in their eyes”?