Rabbi Abraham Heschel said that “One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words,” our collective choice to looks words are tools, things that simply drive conversation. Instead, Heschel argues that “words are a repository of the spirit,” that within each there is the potential to sanctify or de-sanctify our lives by how we use words, and thus we must learn how “repair the vessels” of ordinary language. I thought about this teaching from Heschel as I read this week’s parasha, where how words are used caused a practical reconnaissance mission to lead the Israelites to a spiritual crisis with the potential to destroy the covenant.
Parashat Shelakh Lekha contains the extended drama of the Moses, the spies sent to survey the land of Canaan, the Israelite nation, and God, where a report from the majority of spies that the land of Canaan was unconquerable placed the entire covenantal relationship between the Israelites and God in danger. For our commentators, the sin of the spies is difficult to identify precisely, leading our commentators to argue that some some kind of falsity must be contained in the report itself. Rashi alludes to this idea in his commentary on the spies statement that the land of Canaan “is an emitter of milk and sweetness,” for while this comment may appear positive about Canaan, Rashi states that, “Any lie that does not begin with a little truth is not upheld (viz. does not acquire credibility)” (Rashi on Bemidbar 13:27). Our later commentators from the medieval period through the present will be left to determine what precisely was the “lie” in the spies’ report.
For the Ramban, the sin of the spies is implicitly understood through a close-reading of the parasha, for the statement that the spies “produced” a report tells the reader all they need to know about the crime implicit in the report. The Ramban states:
“Note that one who ‘produces a report’ is a liar who gives false facts, whereas one who tells the truth is referred to as one who ‘brings a report’- compare ‘Joseph brought a detrimental report about them to their father’ (Genesis 37:2). It was for this that the spies were punished with death (in a plague), as explained in 14:37: ‘The men who had produced a detrimental report on the land died in a plague before God’” (Ramban on Bemidbar 13:32).
According to the Ramban, the Torah telling us that the spies “produced a report” means that the report itself was not an objective analysis of Canaan, but rather a tale that the spies wanted to tell Moses and the Israelites. As a result, the sin of the spies was that they lied in their report, painting a picture that might be a description of the land as they understood, but not the land as it was.
However, given the fact that the spies who were punished offered a similar report to Joshua and Caleb, we can question the accuracy of the Ramban’s interpretation, for how is it possible that all spies “produced” a report, and it was only the opinion of two of them that made their report “true” and the other report “false.” Taking a different approach, Rabbi Isaac Arama, author of the Akedat Yitzhak, argues that while nothing that the spies said was technically false, the fact that the spies offered an opinion at all was their sin. He writes:
“They exceed their terms of reference as spies and appointed themselves as advisors. This recalls the case of a man who sent his representative to visit a clothing shop and look at a particular garment they had for sale. ‘Examine the quality of the material, its length and width, and its appearance, and give me a report, because I want to buy it.’ On his return the representative reported ‘I have seen it, the material is good, it is long and wide, but it is greenish (or reddish) and it is very expensive, about a thousand gold coins.’ He thereby exceeded his terms of reference as a reporter and turned himself into an advisor” (Akedat Yitzhak on Bemidbar 13:27).
According to the Akedat Yizhak, the spies were asked to describe the land of Canaan; no more, no less. However, when the spies returned with their report, the mixed their report with an evaluation of prospects of taking the land. By exceeding the bounds of their mandate from Moses, the spies caused havoc to ensue amongst the Israelites, thereby making the spies complicit in a societal breakdown that only occurred because they did not follow the directions given to them.
Taking a look at the implications of our parasha, Rabbi Moses Hirsch Segal wrote that the even if the spies had genuine doubts about the ability of the Israelites to conquer the land of Canaan, the spies should have realized that any obstacles to conquest would be overcome because of God’s covenant. However, the spies’ report completely ignored God’s role in taking the Israelites to the promised land, and Segal that this is why God’s punishment was so harsh. Segal writes (emphasis mine):
"The sin of the nation in the matter of the spies was, like the sin of the golden calf, an enormous act that changed the whole course of the history of that generation. For just as the sin of the golden calf involved a breach of the covenant... so the sin involving the spies was a breach of the covenant and a rejection of God's promise that the land of Canaan would be an inheritance for Israel... Therefore we find that only in the case of these two sins did God desire to punish the nation with complete annihilation, and to establish a new generation from the seed of Moshe... (Bamidbar 14:12; Shemot 32:10). Likewise, only in relation to these two sins did Moshe claim in his prayer... that this (the destruction of the nation) would involve a desecration of God's name…” (Moses Hirsch Segal, Masort U-Bikoret, 90, translation from Yeshivat Har Etzion).
Rabbi Segal’s commentary introduces the notion that faith plays a larger role in our parasha that any of us might realize from a first-reading. Yes, an objective report of the land of Canaan would lead anyone to conclude that human conquest would be a difficult proposition, yet it should have been understood that Canaan would not need to be conquered by human effort alone, but rather through the covenantal partnership between the Israelites and God. In fact, the reason that Joshua is rewarded for his report about Canaan is because he does not deny the difficulties of conquest, but states that, “If the Lord desires us, He will bring us to this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Bemidbar 14:8), a simultaneously recognition of the challenges and covenant. According to Segal, since the spies and that Israelite generation forgot what it means to be in relationship with God, “only the next generation would achieve a renewal of the intimate relationship between God and His nation, Israel, via Moshe, God's servant," a biblical do-over for the Jewish people and God.
I have no doubt that the spies had their reasons for speaking to Moses and the people the way that they did, yet perhaps the above commentaries all reflect the teaching from Heschel that words are not merely tools, but can used in way that ennoble or debase the spirit. As begin to wind down another year at Schechter, our challenge is to ask ourselves how are using words, what power those words hold, and what we can do to ensure that our children will learn from our parasha how to use words in a way that strengthen our entire community.
Shabbat Shalom!
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