Piece
of Cake
Parshas Shlach
It was not a good
scenario. The twelve spies returned from their forty-day sojourn to the Land of
Canaan and ten of them were not happy campers.
They left as an
enthusiastic and united crew, selected by Moshe for what should have been an
easy mission of assurance — confirming what they were already told by their
forebears, as well as the Almighty — Eretz Yisrael is a beautiful land that
flows with milk and honey. Instead, the only two who had anything positive to
say about the land of Israel, were Calev and Yehoshua. The rest of the spies
claimed that the land was not good and that there were dangerous giants living
there who would crush them. And now, in the face of the derogatory,
inflammatory and frightening remarks that disparaged the Promised Land, Calev
and Yehoshua were left to defend it.
It was too late. The ten
evil spies had stirred up the negative passions of a disheartened nation. The
people wanted to return to Egypt. But the two righteous men, Yehoshua and
Calev, tried to persuade them otherwise.
The first and most
difficult task facing them was to get the Children of Israel to listen to them.
The Torah tells us: “They spoke to the entire assembly of the Children of
Israel, saying, “The Land that we passed through, to spy it out — the Land is
very, very good.
If Hashem desires us, He
will bring us to this Land and give it to us, a Land that flows with milk and
honey. But do not rebel against Hashem! You should not fear the people of the
Land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them; Hashem
is with us. Do not fear them!” (Numbers 14:7-9).
What did they mean by
saying that the giants were “our bread”? Did they mean that the children of
Israel will eat them like bread? Why bread of all things?
A story that circulated during the 1930s told of
Yankel, a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine who made his livelihood selling
rolls on a corner in lower Manhattan. He was not an educated man. With poor
eyesight and a hearing problem, he never read a newspaper or listened to the
radio. He would daven, say Tehillim, learn a bit of Chumash, and bake his
rolls. Then he would stand on the side of the road and sell his fresh-baked
delicious smelling rolls.
“Buy a roll, mister?” he
would ask passersby, the majority of them would gladly oblige with a generous
purchase. Despite his simple approach, Yankel did well. He ordered a larger
oven and increased his flour and yeast orders. He brought his son home from college
to help him out. Then something happened. His son asked him, “Pa, haven’t you
heard about the situation with the world markets? There are going to be great
problems soon. We are in the midst of a depression!” The father figured that
his son’s economic forecast was surely right. After all, his son went to
college whereas he himself did not even read the papers. He canceled the order
for the new oven and held s for more flour, took down his signs and waited.
Sure enough with no advertisement and no inventory, his sales fell overnight.
And soon enough Yankel said to his son. “You are right. We are in the middle of
a great depression.”
Bread is the staple of
life, but it also is the parable of faith. Our attitude toward our bread
represent our attitude toward every challenge of faith. If one lives life with
emunah p’shutah, simple faith, then his bread will be sufficient to sustain
him. The customers will come and he will enjoy success. It is when we exaggerate
the bleakness of the situation through the eyes of the economic forecasters,
the political pundits, or the nay sayers who believe in the power of their
predictions and give up hope based on their mortal weaknesses, then one might
as well close shop.
Yehosua and Calev told the
people that these giants are no more of a challenge than the demands of our
daily fare. They are our bread. And as with our daily fare, our situation is
dependent totally on our faith.
If we listen to the predictions of the forecasters
and spies, we lose faith in the Almighty and place our faith in the powerless.
However, by realizing that the seemingly greatest challenges are the same
challenges of our daily fare — our bread — the defeat of even the largest
giants will be a piece of cake.
Good Shabbos
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Parshas Shlach
The bulk of this week’s
Torah portion is devoted to the tragic story of the spies who reconnoitered the
land of Israel in preparation for the nation’s entry into the Promised Land.
The consequences of their damaging report were to be felt for the next 40
years, during which the entire generation was punished, and restricted from
entering the land. Only the youth together with the next generation were able
to realize the nation’s dream.
The Torah portion
concludes with three seemingly unconnected mitzvos that were given to the
Jewish people. The first details the various rituals that were to accompany all
guilt and sin offerings in the Bais Hamikdash. It was necessary to bring a
flour offering and a wine libation with each sacrifice in order for it to be
efficacious. Secondly, the Jewish people were instructed to tithe their dough
each time they make bread, and to gift a portion of the dough to the kohain.
Thirdly, they were instructed with the mitzvah of tzitzis, ensuring that the
four corners of their clothes were adorned with the strings and knots that were
to remind them of their Heavenly connection.
What is the connection
between these three seemingly disparate mitzvos, and why were they given to the
Jewish people immediately following the sin of their heeding the spies’ false
reports concerning the Land of Israel?
The commentaries explain
that the spies were of towering spiritual greatness, but also struggled with a
fundamental weakness-a fear of entering the land and having to trade an openly
miraculous existence for a life governed by natural forces.
In the wilderness, their
every step was guided by an open manifestation of Hashem’s protective “hand.”
They were led with a pillar of fire at night and a cloud of glory during the
day. They ate manna from heaven; their clothing grew along with them, and the
Divine intervention in their daily lives afforded them a unique and intimate
connection with their Creator. They knew all this would drastically change upon
their entry into the land, where they would transition into a material life,
engaging the material elements.
They were going to have to
till the soil with the trust that the earth would yield forth its produce. They
would have to leave their homes each festival to ascend to Jerusalem, trusting
that no external enemy would seize the opportunity to capitalize on the
country’s vulnerable borders.
The spies were afraid that
the nation was not up to the task. So they portrayed the land in material
terms, amplifying the daunting challenge of engaging the material hurdles that
lay ahead. They wanted to remain in the secure spiritual incubator that
surrounded them in the wilderness. The nation paid dearly for not standing up
to the tough challenges of life.
In truth, our essential
life’s challenge is just that: to be engaged in a material world and to harness
it to the physical, while not fearing constant failure. There is always the
opportunity of a sin offering with which to repair ourselves when we have
erred. We are instructed to reengage the most physical and material elements,
wine and food, symbolized by the rituals accompanying the sacrifices, and
sublimate them to the service of the Divine.
We are instructed to make
proper use of our clothing, symbolized by the laws of tzitzis, that portray
material success and represent the image of status and beauty. Our clothes
protect us from the elements. Yet we understand that their deeper purpose is to
connect the dots and recognize that all the gifts and bounty in life flow from
the Divine source. We are not to fear failure for even if we slip, we can
always return home.
A student of the saintly Yesod Ha’avodah
complained bitterly to his teacher, “Rebbe, I keep slipping and succumbing to
temptation and desire. It all seems so futile, I don’t have the strength or
courage to rise above my life’s challenges.”
The Yesod Ha’avodah
responded, “I once saw a professional jockey riding his magnificent stallion. I
asked him, “Does the horse ever throw you off?” ” Of course,” he replied, “even
the most experienced horse rider is going to be thrown.”
“So what do you do when
the horse throws you?” I asked him. “I jump back on as fast as I can!” he
responded. “If not, the horse will run away and I’ll be left with nothing.”
The message of the portion
is clear. Like the spies of the wilderness, we are all sent to the wilderness
represented by the material world, where we are to spy out the presence of G-d
amidst the distractions, temptations and moral pitfalls of our material
environment. Our job is to stay on cue with our mission and seek out our
Creator in creation, by overcoming the challenges that confront us. The stakes
are extremely high. Success guarantees our entry into the Promised Land.
Aborting our mission, on the other hand, may force us to take a long,
circuitous route home.
May we take a lesson from the failure of the
long-ago spies and arm ourselves with the necessary spiritual tools to achieve
our goals.
Wishing you a wonderful
Shabbos.
Rabbi Naftali Reich Text
Copyright © 2012 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.
Rabbi Reich is on the
faculty of the
Ohr Somayach Tanenbaum Education Center.
Errors
Parshas Shlach
Posted on June 13, 2014 (5774) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi
Wein | Level: Beginner
The fundamental issue
raised in this week’s parsha is how could so many wise and ostensibly pious leaders
of Israel make such a fundamental error in vision and judgment and thereby
condemn them and their constituents to death and ignominy? All of the
commentators to Torah from the Talmud and Midrash forward in history have
attempted to unravel this mystery for us.
Various theories, each one
correct in its own view, have been advanced to deal with this difficult issue.
Yet, as is the case so many times in trying to analyze human behavior and
thought, after all of the answers are considered and accepted, the question
still remains to trouble us. And that in itself is perhaps one of the main
lessons of this sad narrative of the Torah.
Human beings are prone to
error, even great and noble human beings. Man proposes but only G-d disposes.
Rashi, based on Midrash, comments that even Moshe misunderstood the situation
and sent the leaders of the tribes to spy out the land even though the Lord had
never specifically told him to do so and left the final decision to do so to
his judgment.
Life is usually not so
much a comedy of errors as it is a tragedy of errors. And many times in history
we can easily note that great people are also prone to make great errors of
judgment and policy. So was it in First Temple times with the kings of Judah
and Israel and so was it certainly in Second Temple times even with the
descendants of the righteous Hasmoneans. And the story of our people in exile
is strewn with erroneous messianism and bad policy decisions. Such is life and
human folly.
We cannot live without
leadership and direction, opinion and advice. But we should always be aware
that human beings by definition are not omniscient and all knowing. The gift of
prophecy no longer resides with our community. Because of this, caution is
always advisable in matters of trust of others. The Psalmist cautions us not to
trust the great, generous, noble and mighty blindly for they too are only
mortal and subject to the decay of dust.
Another important lesson
that appears here in the parsha is that the majority opinion is not always the
correct one. Calev and Yehoshua dissented from their colleagues. The Jewish
people disregarded their words and followed the overwhelming majority verdict
regarding the Land of Israel.
The strength of the
survival of the Jewish people throughout the ages has been its ability to
dissent from majority opinions and ruling cultures. Cultures change and
opinions shift with time and circumstances. But G-dly truth never wavers and
changes. Democracy may represent the will of the majority. But even democracy
is never infallibly right on major crucial issues.
The Torah serves as a brake against the tyranny of
the majority. It provides a standard by which events and opinions can be judged
and measured. Calev and Yehoshua will survive and lead the Jewish people into the
Land of Israel. The other nobles and leaders, the wise men and naysayers, the
majority and the politically correct will fade away and die in the desert.
Shabat shalom
Rabbi Berel Wein
