Rav Chaim Lifshitz
Parashat Shlach Lecha

Essays and Articles:

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 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

Continuing with the accumulating disappointments being served him by the people of Israel, Moshe acts more cautiously this time, and chooses spies from among the people only from their leaders and princes.  “All were men,” Rashi interprets according to Chazal to mean, “At that moment, they were good and true.”   Apparently Moshe had learned his lesson, and knew now to be wary of the rabble, yet now comes a painful blow that he has not anticipated.

The Spies’ Sin  Re-Examined

On the surface of things, the spies seemed to have fulfilled the mission Moshe assigned them – to perfection.  They were exacting and precise, and supplied accurate information.  The sin lay as usual in the interpretation, which they attached to the information that they brought.  “None of this is relevant, because the nation dwelling in the land is mighty…we will not be capable of rising to that nation because it is stronger than we are.”  “And they slandered the land…saying…It is a land that eats its inhabitants.”

The greater part of his disappointment was unfortunately provided by the people: “And they said: ‘Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.’”  Here again we have the phenomenon of degrading self-defeatism, where the people prefer to regress to Egypt, where defilement and impurity represented solidity and realness.

“And Moshe and Aharon fell upon their faces,” feeling their strength drained and their powers blocked.  The Holy One decides to trade the nation for another.  “I will smite it with disease, and make you into a great nation.”  Moshe prays and pleads for the continuity of this nation’s redemption, but his prayer is only half effective, and the decree upon the spies and upon the nation who has wept a causeless weeping remains as a decree of death in the desert.

The Importance of the Promised Land

Long before, when it was being promised to Avraham, he merited a mark of praise for his belief in the promise.  “And he believed in God, and He considered it a charity on his part.”  For his believing with utter and perfect belief in the private promise that he and his childless spouse would be blessed with children, he received no mark of praise, though this promise touched him more personally, and was more difficult to believe in than an abstract promise about his remote descendants inheriting a promised land.  I find it puzzling…

Apparently the land was not promised to him and to his descendants by virtue of its being a land flowing with milk and honey, in which they would finally arrive at a place of haven and shelter after long wanderings and persecutions.  The Promised Land was not promised in order to fulfill the Zionist dream.  For the simple reason that this land does not excel in any of the features that characterize any normal country.  This land has a unique feature: It offers its inhabitants the expectation of the privilege of a self-actualization that is doubly real and perfect.  This land has the unique ability to make spiritual meaning – physically tangible.  It has a spirituality that is tangibly real.  This land’s nature is miraculous, and its miracles are natural.  This land has no normal or natural processes.  Its earth, its climate, its inhabitants – may find game rules here that are entirely different from any that every other ethnic group has ever grown accustomed to expecting in terms of naturally consolidating its ethnic identity through a particular geographic location.  In this land, someone who is free of openness and sensitivity to miracles will ultimately find it painfully disappointing.  This land promises nothing, yet gives everything…to believers who are the children of believers in the Godly promise.  It is a land that radiates spirituality rather than materiality.  It is a land whose materiality is steeped in and drips spirituality, a land in which walking a distance of four cubits constitutes a mitzvah, and in which mundane walking does not exist.  It is a land whose inhabitants who work the earth are laden with land-related commandments and requirements, and they bring the laws of nature into encounter with the Godly imperative.

The spies’ disappointment came in the wake of this profound meaning.  It was a meaning to which they had never been accustomed, and they harbored severe doubts as to their ability to uphold this meaning; this meaning filled their hearts with dread.  Avraham’s uniqueness was in his profound belief in precisely this meaning that was represented by the Promised Land: That the polar opposites of physical and material could be joined together. 

Moshe knew of this, and changed his faithful servant’s name from Hoshea to Yehoshua, saying that the letter “yud” – which is God’s Name – will accompany you on this contradiction-laden mission, “and you will not fall into the conspiracy of the spies.”  Yehoshua’s partner Calev went to prostrate himself upon the graves of the forefathers of the People of Israel, in Me’arat haMachpelah, in order to reinforce within himself the promise that had been made to them.  He went also to be blessed through them with the power of faith – in a promise that appeared impossible.

The sin of the spies lay in their inability to believe in this actualizing wonder that lay hidden in this extraordinary land.  Only a profound belief in the giluy panim, God’s revealed Presence, the Shechina that rests upon this land more than on any other part of the earth, and only spiritual behavior within this land – can sustain its inhabitants.

It is worthwhile remembering that the character of the Land of Israel has been constant, at all times and for all time.  This land “vomits out” any resident who is not worthy of merging spirituality into it, through its very material nature.  For its air is not really air, and its grape vine and fig tree of the promise, “each man under his grape vine, and each man under his fig tree,” are only a metaphor for the balance that merges the spiritual with the physical.

Unlike other countries, in which a Jew who is faithful to his God can live and study Torah only if he separates from all craving and intention for success in material life, in which material success stands in direct opposition to spiritual success – the dweller in the Holy Land can merge and succeed in both realms at once.

This is the also the meaning of “Torah learned in Eretz Yisrael.”  One who is preoccupied with Torah in this land merits the practical application of it, and senses tangible realness in God’s Torah.  The one preoccupied with Torah here finds a perfect merger between the spiritual element and the physical element in halacha lima’aseh, the Law applied, thanks to a unique siyata dishmaya, a rare form of heavenly assistance offered only in the Holy Land.  Only in the Holy Land do all of the components join together in one embrace: The person learning, the material being learned, the theory and the reality, are joined together by the Shechina in the perfect unity of the Kodesh Kodoshim.