Hello and welcome back to Torah Thoughts from Adas Israel the Jewish Congregation of Northern Iowa, based in Mason City. Glad you are with us again today. This week we read from Parsha Shlach (Num. 13- 15). Shlach in Hebrew means "send forth": "Hashem spoke to Moses, saying, 'Send forth men, if you please, and let them spy out the Land of Canaan that I give to the Children of Israel; one man from his father's tribe shall you send, everyone a leader among them."
It Was the Issue of Spies
We all know what happened and in a moment I'll share the why with you. But, note that G-d says "if you please". In other words this was not a commandment but a suggestion. Moses could have decided not to send in the spies however the people were fearful. That, my friends says more about their faith than we can imagine. G-d was there to protect them, yet...they were fearful. How contemporary that is today.
Moses knew that the Almighty's promise to give the Land included a guarantee to conquer it. However, one of the principles of life, which we learn from this portion, is: the Almighty allows each of us the free will to go in the direction we choose. Even though one man and the Almighty is a majority, Moses – by Divine decree – sent out the princes of the tribes (men of the highest caliber) to spy out the land.
So Why? What Happened?
I'm going to borrow this from a mentor Rabbi Yitzchak Zweig who writes for Aish an Orthodox center based in Jerusalem that I attended several years ago. He writes:
"I will end this column by pointing out that in this week’s Torah reading we have the story of the 12 spies who explored the Land of Israel before the Jewish people entered the land.
What really makes the story relevant to our discussion (the recent conflict in Gaza) is that 10 of the 12 spies had an agenda. According to the sages, they were concerned that the nation, upon entering the Land of Israel, would appoint a king and they would lose their prestige and power. So they plotted to dissuade the Jewish people from wanting to enter the land. They lied and misconstrued what they had seen during their exploration to make it both unpalatable and very frightening to the people.
Unfortunately, the nation bought into their lies and they began to doubt G-d and His plan for them to enter the Land of Israel. They demanded to return to Egypt. G-d got very angry and decreed that they would never enter the Land of Israel and punished the nation by causing them to wander for 40 years until they all died. (Fascinatingly, according to our sages, this decree was only on the men aged 20 and up. The women were permitted to enter the land at the end of the 40 years because they “loved the land” and had never bought into the lies about the Land of Israel.)"
And, when did this all take place? The rabbis tell us that the decree to wander came on the 9th of Av. For those of you who know our history that has been a dreaded date for many, many reasons.
The message here is that we should not doubt and we if we do let not that doubt have been based on an agenda. An agenda that in some way lifts us up...while tearing others down.
Shul News
A reminder that we'll be holding services on Friday the 25th of June at 7:00PM and our Midrash on Shabbat the 26th of June at 10:00AM back in the Shul! How exciting!
Shabbat Shalom!
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