INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA

 

*********************************************************

The VBM is happy to announce a new book
by alumnus and VBM author Rav Michael Hattin

Passages: Text and Transformation in the Parsha

 

Inspired by many years of shiurim written for this series!

Congratulations Rav Hattin!

*********************************************************

 

PARASHAT SHELACH

 

OBJECTIVE TRUTH?

 

by Rav Alex Israel

 

 

The dramatic story that this parasha tells is another story of crisis, rebellion and devastating failure. We hear of a national delegation of twelve tribal leaders - representatives of all twelve tribes of Israel - who enter the Promised Land.[1] Over a forty day period, they are to tour the length and breadth of the land and return with a comprehensive report of its people, agriculture and fortifications. The delegation report back to Moses and the nation, but their words sow the seeds of panic in the camp of Israel. They proclaim,

 

"We cannot conquer this nation for they are stronger than us.... The entire community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt... why is the Lord taking us to that Land to fall by the sword?" (13:31-14:4)

 

Two of the delegation - Caleb and Joshua - insisted that it can be done:

 

"The Land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land, if the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into that land..." (14:7-8)

 

But to no avail. The rebellion has already gained momentum, and God’s punishment arrives swiftly. God decrees that the entire generation die in the wilderness and that only their children - the next generation - would enter the Promised Land. For forty years the Jews would wait to enter the Land, a year for each day of the mission of the twelve "spies".

 

SLANDER

 

A frequent question raised by the classic Torah commentators relates to positioning of passages. The great commentator Rashi asks why this account of the rebellion by leaders and nation against the Land follows on directly from the story of Miriam’s slander against her brother Moses. The final passage of last week’s parasha tells of a negative comment made by Miriam in reference to her brother. Miriam is immediately summoned by God Himself, accused of improper talk regarding Moses - the leader and prophet - and emerges from her encounter with God plagued with Leprosy, the traditional punishment for slander - Lashon Hara. What connection may be found between that story and this? Rashi (13:2) opens his commentary to this epic story of the "spies" with the following comment.

 

"Why is the story of the spies juxtaposed with the passage about Miriam? Because she (Miriam) was stricken on account of the slander that she spoke regarding her brother. These evil men (the spies - the delegation to Canaan) witnessed it all but did not learn the lesson."

 

Rashi then feels that the sin of these national representatives that he calls "spies." was an act of slander against the Promised Land. Apparently, they blackened its name and maligned its reputation. The result was that the people of Israel turned their backs on that Land.

 

But can we really speak of slander when it comes to a Land, to earth, rocks, mountains and rivers? We can slander a person. He gets offended, he blushes and is embarrassed, he cannot show his face in public. That is slander. But how can one slander a land? Can one slander a building? a valley? a town? Does the Land squirm and turn red? Does the building suffer pain?

 

FORGIVENESS

 

The above question was posed by the revered head of the Mir Yeshiva, Rav Chaim Smulevitz zt"l, but he adds a second question which is more troubling. It is well recorded how God punished Israel after this episode by barring them from entering the land for an entire generation. This is as severe a punishment as one might imagine. It would appear that God is furious with his "stiff-necked", obstinate rebellious nation, and short of destroying them completely, he selects a punishment of extreme proportions.

 

Yet the way the punishment is phrased is strange and puzzling indeed. Immediately preceding the proclamation of this devastating punishment, we read a statement of divine forgiveness. :

 

"And the Lord said ‘I pardon, as you have asked’." (14:20)

 

In the first tense filled moments of Yom Kippur, at the start of the Kol Nidrei service, the community takes this verse and chants it three times. We take hold of this verse, this statement - of God’s complete forgiveness of Israel, of God’s wiping the slate clean of our past wrongdoing - and ask God to repeat his act of the past once again. This verse, a mantra of supreme forgiveness originates here, as God tells Moses how he "pardons" the nation.

 

But do the nation gain their pardon? Sforno (on 14:20) comments:

 

"I have forgiven you to the extent that I will not destroy you (v.12).... I will not annihilate the nation at once; however I will kill you off in stages, year by year, and not one person will enter the Land."

 

So are the people forgiven or are they not? Why would God tell us that we have been pardoned, let off the hook, when the next verse explicitly issues a punishment:

 

"Nevertheless, as I live and as the Lord’s presence fills the whole world, none of the men... shall see the Land that I promised on oath to their fathers, none of those who spurn Me shall see it..." (14:21-23).

 

So we have two questions. The first relates to the nature of slander. Can we slander a land? The second: If the nation was forgiven, then why are they not allowed to enter the Promised Land?

 

SPEAKING AND LISTENING

 

Let us begin by examining a statement from Maimonides in his code of Law - Mishne Torah - where he outlines the laws of slander and evil talk (Lashon Hara). There he states:

 

"The Rabbis state, evil talk kills three: the speaker, the listener (lit. the receiver) and the object of their slander; the listener more than he who speaks." (De’ot 7:3)

 

This is a strange comment. We can well imagine that the person who spreads gossip is culpable and at the same time, the object of the slander is maligned. A person’s life can be ruined by rumor and slander, and the perpetrator of that gossip is guilty. But what of the listener? Why does Maimonides include the person who hears the slander as someone who is "killed" by the information he hears?

 

We might suggest that in fact, the person most affected by slander IS the listener. When one hears something negative about a person, ones perception of that person changes. The way one relates to the object of gossip is transformed the moment that one receives that information. After this moment, the relationship is going to be different for ever. Has this ever happened to you? You hear a piece of information about someone. The next time you meet that person, you can’t look them in the face without this item floating to the surface. When you meet, you view that individual strangely; "Did he really do that? Did that really happen to her? How could he?". Now, we can only see that person through the prism of our newfound information. Maimonides is accurate in his choice of language. It is not so much the listening to gossip that affects us. It is more than that. It penetrates deep, it seeps in. The gossip is received by the listener and it never leaves him.

 

ALTERED PERCEPTIONS

 

Can we talk of slander about a land? We most definitely can. We can have slander of a school, a synagogue, a community, anything!  How so? Whenever we hear some information which affects our image of something, our mind has been poisoned, we have become a victim of slander. If we hear something bad about a particular school, a scandal that took place in a certain community, we will look differently at them from this moment forth. With a school, a child will now not be able to learn as he did before, with a synagogue, we will be unable to receive the spiritual power, the opportunity for prayer and religious growth that we might have found before that moment when we heard that gossip. Our perceptions and our consciousness are altered forever.

 

The Land of Israel was to offer the Jewish nation a unique opportunity. It was to become the place where they would live out a dream. It would be a place where they could fulfill the values of ethical monotheism, the legacy of God’s law. The question is, whether the people are receptive to the land. Are they open to that which the land can offer? Is the Promised Land seen as a land of promise?

 

Until this episode, the Land seemed good, it lay "flowing with milk and honey" in the collective consciousness. Until that auspicious day when the delegation returned from the land with the first eyewitness reports of the territory that this fledgling nation would have to conquer. The people knew that they were going to war but they trusted the fact that God would not send them on a mission impossible. But then, the "spies" returned. The respected leaders came back with talk of giants and Amalek.

 

"They spread slander among the Israelites about the land they had toured saying, ‘The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size.... we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them." (13:31-33)

 

The people heard this and panicked They cried all night long; "Why is the Lord taking us to that Land to fall by the sword?" (14:4). They are gripped by terror and an image of a land which means imminent death for all who enter its borders. The shouts of Caleb and Joshua fall on closed ears. Ten spies return with a negative report, who will listen to the two who are for God’s plan. The people rally against God and His plan. They refuse to enter the Land, they propose a return to Egypt.

 

After this event, after Moses has prayed and the crisis is over, and God has pardoned them, what remains? The indelible mark of this episode still casts its stain over the public in their perception of the Land. A nation who have cried all night will never be able to relate to this land as a positive land offering them opportunity and promise. They will always have an image, lurking in the shadows, of this land as a land of death, an image which will readily surface at the first sign of defeat, at the first setback.

 

Have the people been forgiven? Yes. Can they enter the Land? They cannot enter. If they did, the entire enterprise would be doomed to failure from the opening step. The first war, the first crisis, the first defeat would have everyone crying again. Like the wounds of a trauma victim, the psychological wounds of this traumatic incident will not be easily removed from the national subconscious.

 

CONCLUSION

 

So the slander did not affect the object. It affected the listener. In the words of Maimonides, the listener, the one who received the information into his heart and mind, was affected in the most extreme way. The Children of Israel, impressionable just like children (aren’t we all?) could not erase their negative perceptions of the land from their minds and hearts.

 

Their not entering the land was not a punishment. Rather, it was a direct outgrowth of the incident. Yes they had been forgiven, but only the next generation, free of the haunting images of the land "which consumes its settlers", would go into the Promised Land. They would be able to take the land for what it was. They would not have the Emotional scars of a night of tears.

 

Even today, we frequently speak disparagingly about Israel. Let us be reminded and cautioned. Let us not spoil what Israel might offer us by our careless words. Let us ensure that the Holy Land remain in a position that it can offer us spirituality, national promise, a sense of collective identity. Let us be careful lest our words destroy the opportunity, for us, our children communities and associates, to receive the promise from the Promised Land, even today.

 

Shabbat Shalom