Torah Posting: שלח
As pointed out last parashah, just because the children of Yisrae’el have a long time to wander doesn’t mean it’s actually a long way. God is making them stop and stay put for long periods of time without any explanation, which must just be part of their spiritual training. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have some people run off ahead to scope things out.
God instructs Mosheh to send one leader from each tribe out as scouts to see how things look in the land of Kena’an. The text names them all, including Hoshe’a, son of Nun, Mosheh’s personal assistant, whom he renamed Yehoshu’a, extending the honorific part referring to God’s Name.
Mosheh instructs them to go up through the Negev desert and on into the hill country. Their job is to assess the strength of the people living there and their tactical situation, as well as the agricultural quality of the land. He tells them to bring back some fruit of the land as well, as it happened to be the season of the ripening of the first grapes.
The scouts go up to the land and check out a bunch of places that still have the same names. The text describes those places and their people quite enthusiastically. In contrast to simplistic modern-day narratives about who is or is not “indigenous” to this land, there are many peoples living there when the scouts arrive and cities that are dated here as being older than some in ancient Egypt.
They enter a particular river valley and cut down a branch there with a single cluster of grapes. The text gives this moment as the reason for the naming of that wadi Eshkol (cluster). It also describes this single cluster of grapes as being so huge that it requires two people to carry it upon a wooden frame. They also grab some pomegranates and figs while they’re at it.
After 40 days — Torah standard time — the scouts return and go straight to Mosheh and Aharon to make their report before the whole community. They report that it’s true this land flows with milk and honey, and its bunches of grapes are too big for one person to carry. The problem is, it is already inhabited. The many peoples who inhabit it are strong, and their cities are large and fortified.
Kalev, the scout elected from the tribe of Yehudah, hushes the people and says, “Let’s go anyway. Surely, we’ll beat them.” The other scouts vocally disagree with him, saying the inhabitants are too strong. Those men spread bad rumors about the mission ahead of them amongst the people. That place will devour anyone who settles there. The people there are giants — like the ones who walked the Earth at the dawn of humanity — and we looked like grasshoppers by comparison!
This is just what this cranky people needs. Everybody starts wailing and weeping and once again wishing they had died in Mitzrayim rather than set off on this fool’s errand. At this point, they’re even willing to die here in the desert instead of getting killed and eaten by giants in the so-called ✌️“promised land”✌️. The best course of action, the people conclude, would be to head back to Mitzrayim and turn themselves in.
Clearly, this is a disaster with the potential to scuttle the whole mission. Mosheh and Aharon fall on their faces before the assembly, and Yehoshu’a and Kalev — the only two of the 12 scouts who were not overwhelmed by what they saw — tear their clothes in mourning. Then they exhort the community to reconsider, telling them the land is amazing, and that it can all be theirs as long as they don’t displease God. In response, the people threaten to pelt them with stones, so God steps in. The Presence — probably in the form of that cloud — appears in the Tent of Meeting to all of them.
God turns to Mosheh and says, “How long is this going to go on? I might as well just wipe them out and make a better nation out of your own descendants.”
Mosheh replies cleverly, pointing out that when the Egyptians and the other nations hear that God has slain God’s own people, they will conclude that God was powerless to deliver the people to that land God promised them. Eloquently, Mosheh prays for God to pardon the people and thereby remain great.
God agrees to this, but not without conditions. The text gets a little strange here. It has the markings of stitching two versions of the story together. This response and verdict God gives here is given twice, the second more poetic than the first, but the point is the same: None of those in this generation who have spurned God’s many miracles shall live to see the promised land. Only Kalev (and, in the second version, Yehoshu’a), who remained loyal and spoke up, will enter the land. Great; now it’s going to take way longer than before! In fact, now God makes it explicit: 40 years, one year for each day the scouts scouted the land. This is why covering this short distance takes so long: It’s a punishment for lack of faith.
Nevertheless, God commands them to march toward the land tomorrow. In fact, a fighting force starts to head into the land, telling Mosheh, “We were wrong about not wanting to enter the land. In fact, we’re ready to do this right now.” Mosheh reminds them that God just told them they weren’t allowed in, and since God won’t be with them, the Amalekites and Kena’anites will wipe them out. They go anyway, despite Mosheh and the Ark staying put. Guess what happens: They get wiped out.
Meanwhile, back at camp, God has some more specific sacrifice instructions for Mosheh to download pertaining to how the offerings shall be made once the people are settled in the land. For each kind of offering, libations — oil or wine in precisely specified volumes — are required to be mixed in. Everyone, Israelite or foreigner, is given the same requirements.
Next, God gives Mosheh the commandment of חלה — halah, like the bread. When the people are settled in the land and begin to eat of its bread, they must set aside חלה, a portion of it for God. There’s a lot of tradition and evolution to go between here and modern Jewish practice, but if you’ve ever wondered why the braided bread we eat on Shabbat is called halah, this is why.
Then God makes a legal distinction between unintentional and intentional violations of commandments and what is to be done in both cases. In unintentional cases, there are offerings to make expiation, as we have seen many times. If someone violates a commandment on purpose, that person must be cut off.
Right on time, an incident puts this to the test. One day, on Shabbat, some people find a man gathering wood, which God has already forbidden on Shabbat. They bring him before Mosheh, Aharon, and the chieftains, as they don’t know what his punishment is supposed to be. Mosheh inquires with God about it, and God responds matter-of-factly that the leaders are to take him outside the camp and pelt him with stones until he dies, so they do. This pleasant little anecdote serves to demonstrate that commandments surrounding Shabbat are among the most serious of all.
This parashah ends on a nicer note with the mitzvah of ציצת — tzitzit, fringes the children of Yisra’el must place on the corners of their four-cornered garments, white with one thread of blue. These are to be worn and looked at to remind the people of their commandments and not to be lured away by their appetites. This garment is presented here as if to remedy the waywardness on display throughout the parashah, and it’s telling that tzitzit remain one of the most pervasive and visible Jewish religious observances today.
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