Shelach

שלח לך אנשים ויתרו את ארץ כנען אשר אני נתן לבני ישראל וגו'. וישלח אתם משה

(יג, ב-ג) על פי ה'

PDF Version

Dispatch for yourself men and they shall spy out the land of Canaan which I am giving to the Children of Israel… Moshe dispatched them by the order of Hashem.

One creative reading of the first verse is based on the talmudic teaching that if one wishes to correct the faults of others he should first correct his own*. Thus, שלח לך אנשים, first search yourself, engage in introspection, ויתרו את ארץ כנען, then you can turn your critical eye outwards.

What’s more: once you have engaged in personal reflection to the point that you have identified your own failings, you will have accomplished half the task of correcting others, for, typically, human errors are common, and your failings are the same as others. 

Moving on, one anomaly to focus on is the discrepancy between שלח לך – לדעתך, that the decision whether or not to send the spies was left to Moshe’s discretion, and על פי ה', that they were sent by Divine order.

Another part of the parshah to consider is Chazal’s interpretation of the following**: ויאמרו כל העדה לרגום אתם באבנים וגו' ויאמר ה' אל משה עד אנה ינאצני העם הזה ועד אנה לא יאמינו בי וגו', and all of the Assembly declared that they would pelt them with stones… and Hashem said to Moshe, “Until when will this nation scorn Me and until when will they not have confidence in Me.” To this the Midrash *** relates: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said, “I shouted twice before them [with the aforementioned Until when’s]; [as a consequence] they are destined to cry out four times [with the same expression] due to the subjugation of the Nations: עד אנה ה' תשכחני נצח, Until when, O Hashem, will You eternally forget me? עד אנה תסתיר את פניך ממני, until when will You hide Your face from me? עד אנה אשית עצות בנפשי, Until when will I need to develop stratagems? עד אנה ירום איבי עלי, until when will my enemy exalt himself over me?****

The Alshich poses a number of questions about this passage: Where is the justice? How can two improper cries be punished with four? And why does עד אנה ינאצני העם הזה precede עד אנה לא יאמינו בי – first the people demonstrated their lack of confidence by dispatching the Spies, then they scorned Hashem by refusing to enter the land - ? Finally, why isn’t לא יאמינו sufficient; what does the בי add?

In order to resolve these matters, let us begin with the famous quandary of the Rambam.***** How is it, he asks, that the Egyptians deserved to be punished for their subjugation of the Jews, did not Hashem decree as such during the Bris Bein ha-Besarim? Shouldn’t that Divine fiat have deprived them of their free will – and hence, their culpability – in this matter? Rambam’s resolution is that while the nation as a whole was compelled to act as such, which individuals would carry it out was left to the determination of each Egyptian. The difficulty with this answer is that Tehillim states הפך לבם לשנוא עמו, He turned [the Egyptians’] hearts to hate His nation,****** indicating that they lost their free will.

The Mechilta******* asks about the verse ויאמינו בה' ובמשה עבדו, and they trusted in Hashem and in His servant Moshe********: If they trusted in Moshe, is it not all the more so that they trusted in Hashem? Why then does it need to say that they trusted in Moshe? Now, seemingly the natural conclusion to this question should have been “why does it need to say that they trusted in Hashem?” What’s going on here?*********

The answer comes from an interpretation that I offered to the famous credo that Moshe first announced – מי לה' אלי, Whoever is for Hashem should join with me! and its responseויאספו אליו כל בני לוי, and all of the sons of Levi gathered unto him.********** The ultimate goal in living a Torah life is to achieve deveikus, cleaving, with Hashem. For the masses that is achieved through association with a Torah scholar. Hence, Moshe stated, מי לה', Who wants to cling to Hashem? אלי, They should cling to me in order to do so. And who responded to that call? The tribe of Levi, those who already had a connection to Hashem, it was they who could elevate it through their connection to Moshe.

Here, as well, ויאמינו בה' ובמשה עבדו, those that were already clinging to Hashem through their emunah could now connect with Moshe, which would in turn bring them to greater closeness with Hashem. Hence, the Torah needs to mention both steps, and in this particular order.

So powerful is the connection to the talmid chacham, that it shields one from deserved punishment. As the Chassid Yavetz explains in his commentary to the mishnah המפנה לבו לבטלה הרי זה מתחייב בנפשו, one who turns his mind to idleness deserves to pay with his life,*********** turning away from Torah makes one prone to punishment. As the verse says, על כי אין אלקי בקרבי מצאוני הרעות האלה, it is because my G-d is not in my midst that these misfortunes befell me,************ that is, the vacuum of G-dliness made them susceptible to an accounting for their misdeeds. This, then, is the resolution to our difficulty with the Rambam. When Hashem “turned the Egyptians’ hearts to hate His nation” it was not to generate their persecution of the Jews. The Egyptians were already a sinful people, deserving of punishment. However, had they maintained their connection with Israel, it would have shielded them from that reckoning. To prevent that, Hashem drove a wedge between Egypt and Israel, and the punishment came as a matter of course.

This phenomenon can occur to us as well. At times, talmidei chachamim act in a manner which produces doubts about their integrity, weaking our connection with them – to our detriment. This, to my mind, is the meaning of the ominous warning, ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני מהם, I shall hide My face from them. The “face” is an allusion to the scholars, as the Zohar states in another context.************* Problems come from a situation where a cloud of doubt creates a schism between us and the scholars. Our responsibility in such circumstances is to maintain our faith, as the mishnah says, עשה לך רב והסתלק מן הספק, Make a teacher for yourself and remove yourself from doubt,************** i.e., doubts about the teacher’s integrity.

We can now understand the peculiar order of Hashem’s criticism of the Jews, עד אנה ינאצני העם הזה before עד אנה לא יאמינו בי. The sin of the Spies was the not the first infraction on the nation’s part. Yet until now their trust in Moshe created a rapport with Hashem which shielded them from their deserved punishment. Now, however, they abandoned that connection through their rejection of Moshe’s leadership. As such, they were left exposed to Divine wrath.

Now, exile and redemption are predicated on the absence and presence of Da’as, one of the attributes of the Divine mindset, so to speak. What does this mean? On one level, we know that Da’as is associated with connection. As the famous example goes, וידע אדם את חוה אשתו,*************** the intimacy between Adam and Chavah is described as ידיעה, knowledge. For our purposes, with the loss of Da’as comes the loss of connectivity – to Torah scholars, in particular. As such, the public becomes prone to punishment, often in the form of exile.

This is the meaning of the seemingly unjustified four cries of אנה elicited from the Jewish People in exile. First comes עד אנה ה' תשכחני נצח, the seemingly unending current exile at the hands of Edom. What prompted it? עד אנה תסתיר את פניך ממני, the disconnect from the “face,” the scholars, through the lack of faith in their sometimes questionable ways. This is what Chazal were referring to when they attributed the destruction of the Second Beis ha-Mikdash, and its ensuant exile, to sinas chinum, baseless hatred**************** – the suspicion-driven enmity of the masses towards the scholarly elite.

עד אנה אשית עצות בנפשי, the Jew is gripped with internal conflict over how to relate to these mysterious rabbinic activities – at times he develops suggestions (עצות) with which to justify them, but at other times his suspicions get the better of him and his faith falters. The result is עד אנה ירום אויבי עלי, the exile is drawn out interminably. Hence, the four cries are all of one theme, and they are all a result of the people’s rejection of the original rabbinic leadership of Moshe.

Wherein lies the resolution to this predicament? As Malachi informs us, it will come with the arrival of Eliyahu ha-Navi, whose stated mission is to make peace in the world.***************** Specifically, והשיב לב אבות על בנים, the first step is to restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, i.e., the Torah leadership, to their dependents, the masses. Consequently, ולב בנים אל אבותם, with the positive energy flowing in one direction, it is all the easier to make it reciprocal.

Now, to swing back to our sidra. שלח לך אנשים. As the Sages take it – לדעתך. That is, through Moshe’s involvement, the quality of Da’as, which was particular to him, would proliferate in the world, engendering fraternity amongst mankind. וישלח אתם משה, Moshe dispatched along with them something of that Da’as. This is similar to that which the Arizal****************** explained the words וילכו ויבאו, and they went and they came,******************* as referring to that which the Spies experienced the עיבור, metempsychosis, of the souls of the twelve sons of Yaakov in order to assist them in their ordeal and the departure of those souls upon their decision to sin. They, the souls, went away; and they, the Spies, came back to the nation bereft of them. So too, I conjecture, the Da’as of Moshe departed from the Spies upon their return, remaining only in Yehoshua and Calev.

Speaking of Calev, the Torah tells us: ועבדי כלב עקב היתה רוח אחרת עמו וימלא אחרי והביאותיו אל הארץ וגו', And My servant Calev – since there was a different spirit with him and he was completely faithful to Me – I shall bring him to the land…******************** Why isn’t Yehoshua mentioned here? And what does “a different spirit” mean?

It would seem that this can be understood with some comments of the Midrash Shmuel.********************* The mishnah states, כל שרוח הבריות נוחה הימנו רוח המקום נוחה הימנו, someone that people are pleased with, [it can be assumed] that Hashem is pleased with. He explains that at times people express their satisfaction with someone insincerely, due to fear or some other external pressure. They aren’t being true to themselves, to their own רוח, as if they are possessed by the spirit of someone else. If, however, one praises another and his רוח is נוחה, at rest within himself, then the subject must be truly deserving of praise, and even Hashem must be content with him. Alternatively, being that the human spirit is, so to speak, siphoned off of Hashem, if the spirit of people is pleased with an individual, it is indicative just Hashem’s spirit is as well. With that idea he explains the seeming redundancy in the verse ונתתי משכני בתוככם ולא תגעל נפשי אתכם, I shall place My dwelling in your midst and My spirit will not reject you.********************** If the Divine Presence is already present, does that not assume a lack of rejection? Rather, explains the Midrash Shmuel, the spirit in question is the human soul, whose nature is to strive to return to its origin, like any part of a whole. Hashem will suppress the soul, preventing it from abandoning its mortal casing.

My personal resolution to this verse stems from the verse in Hoshea, בקרבך קדוש ואל אבוא בעיר, holy in your midst and I will not enter the city.*********************** Tosafos************************ suggests two possible explanations: I will not enter the city, or, I will not engage in strife. Thus, ונתתי משכני בתוככם is a fulfillment of both explanations: Hashem is in your midst, and, being that He doesn’t engage in strife, His presence must indicate that there is no tension for Him there. Perforce, it must be that the physical has been elevated into the spiritual, evil into good. The upshot is ולא תגעל נפשי אתכם, the human soul is not alienated from that environment.

This leads us to the resolution of another verse: ויהס כלב את העם אל משה, Calev silenced the nation toward Moshe.************************* What is the significance of this?

The answer lies in an idea that I have said over many times from the Maggid Reb Mendel. If one wants to influence the wicked for the better he should attempt to bond his soul with theirs. In the best-case scenario, this linkage will have a positive influence on them. In the worst-case scenario – where they maintain their errant ways – the tzaddik will siphon from them their minor positive qualities. In either case, the tzaddik comes out ahead. 

This was Calev’s stratagem. ויהס כלב, Calev attempted to silence their rebelliousness, את העם, through his merger with the nation, אל משה, and thus elevate them to unite with Moshe. Of course, the plan failed and the mind meld collapsed. What was accomplished was that the people’s positive souls remained tethered to Calev’s, a prize to add to his spiritual cache. Hence, Hashem said, ועבדי כלב עקב היתה רוח אחרת עמו, since Calev had these other souls bound to his, למלאות אחרי, to attempt to bring the people on board with Me, והביאותיו, I shall bring him, especially, to the land of Israel. As described above, it is through the elevation of the mundane into the spiritual that one achieves the entry of the Divine into its earthly dwelling. Thus, Calev would achieve this as well.  

_________________________________________________

* Bava Metzia 107b.
** Bamidbar 14:10-11.
*** Tanchuma, Shelach 12. 

**** Tehillim 13:2-3. 

***** Hilchos Teshuvah 6:5. 

****** 105:25
******* Beshalach, Vayisa 6. 

******** Shemos 14:31. 

********* [This problematic text appears in the Yalkut Shimoni, not the Mechilta.] 

********** Ibid., 32:26. 

*********** Avos 3:4.
************ Devarim 31:17. 

************* 2:38a.
************** Avos 1:16.
*************** Bereishis 4:25. 

****************Yoma 9b.
***************** Malachi 3:24.
****************** Likkutei Torah. 

******************* Bamidbar 13:26. 

******************** Ibid., 14:24.
********************* Avos 3:10. 

********************** Vayikra 26:11.
***********************11:9
************************ Ta’anis 5a.
************************* Bamidbar 13:30.