Sh'lach

Hello,

This week's portion is Sh'lach.

We left off last week as the Jewish nation began to leave Mount Sinai.

The Jews sent 12 representatives to investigate Israel and its inhabitants and to report back to Moshe. The spies did their job and returned with a report which told of a land producing great crops, but with fearsome inhabitants.

The spies opted to emphasize the negative, even to the point of contradicting themselves. Even as they said the land was great, they said that it "consumed its inhabitants," a reference to funerals they witnessed in their travels. Only Yehoshua and Kalev refused to participate in the attempt to frighten the Jews away from entering Israel.

The Jewish men listened to the spies. The women did not go along with the negative report - this is clear when Gd describes His punishment, singling out the men of military age for death; the men, specifically, had followed the spies and declared their intention to return to Egypt, and Gd responded by killing the spies and decreeing that the entire society of Jews would have to spend the next 40 years in the desert, one year for each day the spies spent in Israel, until this generation would perish. The day of this decree was the 9th of Av, Tishah b’Av, a day we commemorate with a fast down to our own times.

After Gd declared that this generation would die, the same minds who had decided to listen to the spies came up with another plan: They would show Gd they had repented. They would demonstrate their new love of Israel by leading a charge toward Israel immediately, regardless of Divine command. Moshe protested, but without success. This renegade army ran headlong into a war and was eradicated.

Following this section, the Torah portion includes a list of Korbanot - offerings and tithes. The list begins with a voluntary offering, and Gd gives the parameters under which a person may volunteer an offering. Perhaps this section is included here as a pointed message regarding the previous segment: Even volunteerism, such as was shown by the post-Spies group who tried to march to Israel singlehandedly, requires rules and boundaries.

The list also includes Challah, the tithe of dough. During the time of the Temple, one who baked more than a certain minimal amount of dough would give a portion of the dough to a Kohen family. Today, in the absence of a Temple, that portion of dough is burned.

The Torah portion then mentions the story of a wood-gatherer, who chopped wood on Shabbat and died for his sin. The Talmud cites a view suggesting that the wood-gatherer actually had noble intentions - he wanted to show people how important and serious Shabbos observance was.

Finally, the portion mentions the mitzvah of Tzitzit, of wearing four doubled strings on each corner of a four-cornered garment, as a constant reminder of our Torah. There are all sorts of mystical overtones to this mitzvah, but on a basic level this mitzvah represents a simple and valuable approach to Judaism - we make sure that Torah and mitzvot are always around us, so that we maintain an awareness of who we are and of our task in this world.

Have a great day,
Mordechai