Parashat Sh'lach L'kha (Numbers 13:1 - 15:41)

by Rabbi Stephen Howard

Why ‘Sh’lach L’kha’? Why does God command Moses to ‘Send for yourself’ people to spy out the land? And why does God command tribal princes instead of military spies?

Rashi, the 11th Century French Bible commentator, writing about ‘Send for yourself,’ portrays God as saying, ‘By your own choice. I am not commanding you. If you want, send.’ This is because Israel had come and said, ‘Let us send men before us.’ (Deuteronomy 1:22)

There seem to be conflicting reasons for sending the men. Moses and God send tribal leaders to look all over the land in much the same way as someone looking at a new house. The tribal leaders were sent, as it were, to check out the rooms and the decor, and to choose their bedrooms. God had promised that Canaan was going to be their new home. Their self-appointed task, in God and Moses’ eyes, was simply to give it the once over, from the far south to the far north, and to view the portions of the land each tribe would inherit, hence sending tribal princes.

On the other hand, the majority of the people, and the majority of the spies, saw their task as assessing the military strength of the enemy. The Israelites were still newly out of Egypt and lacking in self-confidence. The promise that God would be with them was insufficient in itself to give them that confidence.

They were truly, ‘sending for themselves,’ finding out if they were still governed by the timidity that slavery had instilled in them, or had gained the confidence of freedom.

They failed. When ten of the spies bring back an ‘evil report’ of overwhelming enemy strength, they ask, ‘Why has God brought us to this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey?’ As punishment for their lack of faith, in themselves as much as in God and Moses, they condemn themselves to die in the wilderness, while their children live to enter the Promised Land.

How often do we limit our possibilities because of negative, self-fulfilling prophecies? I know of someone who went to a job interview having made no effort to dress well or to give good answers to the questions the interviewer asked. When they were asked why they had behaved in that way, they said, ‘I knew I wasn’t going to get the job, so what was the point?’ Needless to say, they did not get the job.

Our Torah portion gives us the simple challenge: Do we want to wander in the wilderness for forty years, or do we want to enter our Promised Land?

Rabbi Stephen Howard

Southgate Progressive Synagogue