WE'RE (STILL) NOT WORTHY

WE'RE (STILL) NOT WORTHY

Our Torah follows a cycle of reading for the year. While we are currently in the book of Bamidbar or Numbers, we are shortly approaching the weekly parasha of Sh’lach Lecha. It’s not this week’s parasha, but the one following. We are at an interesting crossroads in the Torah; it’s the second point where the people of Israel are punished by G-d for their flagrant lack of faith. The first point occurred in the desert with the incident of the Golden Calf. Personally, this parasha is a touchstone for me because it was the portion that I taught to my first Bar Mitzvah student many years ago.

The story begins as G-d speaks to Moses telling him to send men to scout the land of Canaan. G-d states “I am giving to the Israelite people; (the land of Canaan) send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them”. Moses follows G-d’s command. The men are sent out and listed by their name and the name of their tribes. It is noted that Moses changes Joshua’s name from Hoshea to Y’hoshea (G-d will save) with the addition of the letter Yud, which stands for the name of G-d. Moses instructs the scouts to go into the land of Canaan and see what kind of country it is. They are to report if the people are strong or weak, few or many, whether the country is good or bad? If the towns are open or fortified, if the soil is rich or poor, wooded or not. Finally, they are instructed to bring back some of the fruit of the land.

The scouts return to the camp 40 days later. They go directly to Moses and Aaron and the community, make their report and show them the fruit of the land. They say that this is indeed the land of milk and honey. But, they also say that “the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large”. Caleb attempts to quiet the scouts before Moses from their negative reporting of the land and the many different tribes currently inhabiting it. But the other scouts say, “We cannot attack that people for it is stronger than we.” Further, they say that the people they saw was so gigantic, that they must have looked like grasshoppers there.

This is the crux of the problem with the scouts. Coming from slavery, the scouts (and by extension the Israelite community) were people who did not believe in themselves. They were afflicted with the mentality of a slave; one who had no self worth, options or any opinions. If you were a slave, you did your job without any choices until you died. You were not a powerful man. How could they believe that they had the power to defeat the groups currently living in Canaan? If they viewed themselves as weak and small (grasshoppers) how could they imagine the residents of the land might think differently or even be afraid of them?

The people of Israel wept and cried their grief to Moses and Aaron “If only we had died in the land of Egypt. Or if only we might die in this wilderness” “Let us head back to Egypt.” Moses and Aaron fell to their knees before the community. Joshua and Caleb are the only scouts who were convinced that the land of Canaan was the place that G-d has promised them. They told the Israelite community “the land we scouted is a good land. If the Lord is pleased with you, He will bring us back into the land, a land that flows with mink and honey, and give it to us”.

G-d’s response to Moses is anger that the Israelites still do not understand his might and protection. He says “how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? I will strike them down with pestilence and disown them” This is the same reaction that G-d had at the incident with the Golden Calf. Moses pleads with G-d for the lives of the people once again. G-d declares that “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, shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers; none of those who spurn Me shall see it”. With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, the Israelites seal their fate as a generation to die in the wilderness.

The scouts were so afraid of the future and did not have faith in G-d. They had been sent into the land of Canaan by G-d. This should be enough for them to be sure that they would have G-d’s protection. But they cannot comprehend this, so instead return with wild exaggerations that scare the community into chaos. The people had seen G-d’s wonders time and again; shouldn’t that be enough for them to believe? They crossed the Red Sea, watched Pharaoh and his chariots drown, received manna as food in the desert, saw G-d appear in a cloud of fire and watch over them on their journey. Even after building the Golden Calf and behaving with impurity, Moses is able to persuade G-d to forgive them and they continue to build the Mishkan and to receive the Ten Commandments, they are still skeptics. These cannot be the people that G-d allows to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land.

My first Bar Mitzvah student is graduating college this year. I wonder if he remembers this parasha like I do.

Shabbat Shalom
Cantor Toby Schwartz