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Some thoughts on this weeks Torah portion: Sh’lach L’cha.

20 And the Lord said, “I pardon, as you have asked. 21 Nevertheless, as I live and as the Lord’s Presence fills the whole world, 22 none of the men who have seen My Presence and the signs that I have performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tried Me these many times and have disobeyed Me, 23 shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers; none of those who spurn Me shall see it.

The Eitz Chaim commentary for 14: 22-23 :
“Why does God, who forgave Israel for the golden calf and other acts of faithlessness, condemn to death an entire generation for this offense? God is prepared to forgive such slights against Heaven, but not sins against the idea of the Jewish people as the people of God. (Spektor)”

God, while not striking down the Israelites immediately still punishes them, perhaps in an even harsher manner than strictly obvious–He makes them wander in the desert for 40 years with the knowledge that entire time that the promised land is right there and that it is, as Caleb and Joshua said, exceedingly good. This is a very harsh punishment, indeed. And why do they wander for this and not the golden calf? As stated above, the Eitz Chaim commentary says it is because this was a sin against the idea of the Jewish people (and I would argue, against the Jewish people themselves). I would take it further: the golden calf was a sin committed before they had received the law and were still entrenched in the ways and customs of the idolatrous Egyptians. But now, they have received many laws and promises specifically tied to the promised land and inhabiting it. The Israelites are, in effect, choosing exile over redemption and following the commandments. The commentary on the previous portion said that the reason the Israelites yearned for the old days in Egypt when they had so much to eat was because now they had to live a moral life; how much more so would this be in the promised land!

Immediately following the story of the spies we read about more laws pertaining to sacrifice in the promised land. Why? Perhaps to reinforce the fact that one day there will be Israelites entering the land; the 40 years of wandering is but a brief hitch along the way and even whiny Hebrews aren’t going to keep God from keeping His promise. That said, why did God at first tell Moses that he would “strike them with pestilence and disown them?” Was God really going to wipe out the Israelites? Or was He giving Moses a chance to argue on their behalf? Interestingly enough, Moses doesn’t really argue on behalf of the Israelites; his concern is with how the other people will view God now. Perhaps this is here to demonstrate just how poorly the scouts had acted in regards to their people.

Was God simply going through the motions with this; not that He was insincere in his outrage, but maybe by this point He had already decided that the Israelites were not ready to enter the promised land, that they need to shed the generation that had known slavery and had to truly become a people dedicated to God and His laws BEFORE they reached their freedom. Rashi believed that the spies had formulated the plan to lie about the land long before they actually explored, going all the way back to the golden calf; in reference to why the 40 years included the 2 years previous he says: “The first year was included although it preceded the sending of the spies, because from the time that they made the golden calf, the plan for this decree was formulated, but He waited until their measure was fulfilled” (14:33). Previously, Rashi had a problem with the fact that 40 days was not nearly enough time to travel to and explore the land: “But as it was revealed before the Holy One, Blessed is He, that He would sentence them with a day for a year, He shortened the time before them” (13:25). Basically, Rashi is saying that God knew from the time of the golden calf that the Israelites would want to explore the land to see for themselves what was there and that they would, in fact, lie about what they found. It could then be extrapolated that the wandering in the desert was partially because of the sin of the golden calf and that the punishment was just delayed, thus answering the Eitz Chaim question quoted at the beginning of this post.

And so I come to tzitzit. Why does this commandment come in the same portion as the spies? Rashi compares the spies to needing to wear tzitzit: “The heart and eye are the body’s spies, bringing it sins. The eye sees, the heart lusts, and the body sins” (15:39). If the Israelites have something tangible to look on to remind them of the commandments and the law they are supposed to follow (and the faith they are to have in God and God’s promises), perhaps they will refrain from another sin that causes them to wander for 40 more years. This, again, can be related back to the golden calf, an episode in which the Israelites needed something tangible to worship. While God eventually provides them with the Ark and the Tabernacle in which to offer sacrifice and as a place where He will reside, the people still need something that they can individually look upon to remind them to act in a way that will not harm the community. Because when it comes down to it, the 10 chieftains who explored the land and came back telling slander against it (as Rashi characterizes it) have harmed the community. The commentary in Eitz Chaim states that “although each of the scouts was supposed to be a leader in his own tribe, they did not anticipate the consequences of their words. They did not realize that by speaking their minds and giving voice to their own doubts, they would provoke panic among the people.” This, I believe, is one of the greatest lessons: that words have power. In the United States we place a high value on freedom of speech, sometimes to the point where we believe it is our right to spew rhetoric that is hateful and harmful to others. And, perhaps it is our right. But the value of speech is not just the freedom to say what we want, it is the wisdom to sometimes not say what we want, to hold our tongues and to consider the consequences of our words. Silence can be just as powerful and important as speech.