Shelach Lecha 5761 Summary
I often feel a sense of agony watching the sedra of Shelach Lecha unfolding. The Israelites were poised to enter the land of Israel. Hashem told Moses to send twelve princes to spy out the land, one from each tribe. This was in response to the people's request - and the result was a disaster.

For forty days the spies toured the land. They brought back substantial amounts of produce and declared the Land to be good, as they had been promised. Then came the 'but'. The most common Hebrew word for 'but' is aval, but the spies used efes, which also means ‘nothing’, or ‘nought’. With a single word, they were in effect saying that all the goodness of the Land is worthless, because the people who live there are very strong and it would therefore be impossible to conquer the Land.

Two of the spies, Calev and Joshua dissented from the majority view. They agreed that the inhabitants of the Land were very strong, but urged the people to have faith in Hashem. Tragically, the spies’ report and the people’s reaction became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The people cried when they heard the majority report, dismissed Calev’s and Joshua’s protestations and decided that a new leader should be appointed who would take them back to Egypt!

Hashem declared to Moses that He would destroy the Israelite Nation, and start again with Moses. What could Moses say? When they had worshipped the golden calf, Moses had defended the people by saying that they had only just come out of Egypt, implying that it was too soon to expect much from them He also ‘reminded’ Hashem that He had promised the Land of Israel to the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now what could he say? They had been out of Egypt for over a year and were poised to enter the Land of Israel, and now they had rejected that very land!

Moses used the only possible argument: If the Israelites were to perish, the Nations of the Land that Hashem, Who performed so many miracles, could not manage to bring the People into the Land, so He killed them in the desert. This would be a grave desecration of Hashem’s Name.

Hashem replied: “I have forgiven them according to your word.” This meant that He would not put to death the Israelites in one go, but over a period of 39 years, thus avoiding the desecration of His Name, but maintaining His insistence that those who had rejected the Land would now suffer the consequences of their rejection.

When the people heard the punishment, they immediately regretted their sin and changed their mind. They offered to go up to the Land immediately. But it was too late. Moses warned them to remain in the camp, but they didn’t listen to Moses, and they were attacked – and beaten – by the Canaanites.

The saga of the spies is followed by two mitzvot which were to apply on the arrival of the Israelites in the Land of Israel. These mitzvot were given at this point to reassure the people that their descendants would possess the land of Israel in the future. One law was that part of the dough should be set aside when baking bread, and given to the Kohain. Today, it is burnt. The part of the dough which is removed, is called ‘challah’. This mitzvah still applies today whenever we bake bread. All bread and matzah which is baked under kashrut supervision has challah separated from it by the bakeries themselves.

The sedra continues with the laws regarding individuals and the community who sin, and the process of atonement. The Torah differentiates between intentional and unintentional sins. As if to underscore this point, we then read of the story of the person who committed a flagrant and public breach of Shabbat, by gathering sticks.

The sedra concludes with the third paragraph of the shema. This contains the mitzvah of tzitzit, which are worn by males. Fulfilment of this mitzvah serves as a constant reminder of the mitzvot in the Torah.

The story in the Haftarah takes place 40 years later. Moshe had died, and Yehoshua had led the younger generation into the Land of Israel. He sent two spies to Yericho, as part of his strategy of taking the city. The spies were spotted, and took cover in a house, where the owner, a lady named Rachav, hid them. In return, they promised that she and her family would be saved when Jericho was attacked. When the spies returned to Yehoshua, they gave a positive report, and the city of Yericho was easily taken.

It seems that there were two main differences between the two groups of spies: the first group had little faith in Hashem or confidence in themselves, while the second group had both.

Points to Ponder

1. Twelve spies were sent, one from each tribe. The Torah says Kulam Anashim - they were all important people. We shouldn’t think that the spies were ordinary people, that had they sent more important people, the result would have been better.
   
2. The spies were told to see if the people were strong or weak, and if the cities were walled and strong, or not. They were also asked to see how fertile the land was, and to pick some of its fruit and bring it back. They were not asked for their opinion on whether the Israelites should go into the land. And they were asked to report back to Moshe directly, rather than to give a public ‘press conference’.
   
3. The spies described themselves as grasshoppers in the eyes of the inhabitants. This provides us with insight into their level of self-esteem!
   
4. The night on which the spies returned and the people cried – was Tisha B’Av, the same date on which both Temples were destroyed, generations later.
   
5. The third paragraph of the shema contains two word associations with the story of the spies. The one is the word ureitem, the other is the word taturoo.
   

From the word associations, it may be that the mitzvah of tzizit is for us to see and concentrate on the mitzvot and not let our hearts wander off into other things. The spies had taken their eyes off the G-d given Land of Israel and allowed other considerations to take over.

Shabbat Shalom