Shelach
The Torah portion tells us about the Maapilim—a group of people who tried to enter the land of Canaan even after being told not to go. Even though they died, they captured the imagination of early Zionists and also some Chassidic thinkers who admired their courage to dream.
Peter Thiel in his book, Zero to One: Notes on Start-Ups, Or How to Build the Future, laments the fact that bold and dynamic dreams for the future are hard to find. In this context he writes how as recently as the 1950s it was different.
Bold plans were not reserved just for political leaders or government scientists. In the late 1940’s a Californian named John Reber set out to reinvent the physical geography of the whole San Francisco Bay Area. Reber was a schoolteacher, an amateur theater producer, and a self-taught engineer. Undaunted by his lack of credentials, he publicly proposed to build two huge dams in the Bay, construct massive freshwater lakes for drinking water and irrigation, and reclaim 20,000 acres of land for redevelopment. Even though he had no personal authority, people took the Reber plan seriously. It was endorsed by newspaper boards across California. The US Congress held hearings on its feasibility. The Army Corps of Engineers even constructed a 1.5-acre scale model of the Bay in a cavernous Sausalito warehouse to simulate it. The tests revealed technical shortcomings, so the plan wasn’t executed.
But would anybody today take such a vision seriously in the first place? In the 1950s, people welcomed big plans, and asked whether they would work. Today a grand plan coming from a school teacher would be dismissed as crankery, and a long-range vision coming from anyone more powerful would be derided as hubris. You can still visit the Bay Model in that Sausalito warehouse, but today it’s just a tourist attraction: big plans for the future have become archaic curiosities (Thiel, 66).
In the Haftorah (Joshua, chapter 2), Rachav was instructed to tie a crimson thread and hang it outside her window:
In the daf yomi, we also learn about a crimson thread:
The Sages taught: At first they would tie this strip of crimson to the opening of the Entrance Hall of the Temple on the outside. If the strip turned white they would rejoice, as this indicated that their sins had been atoned for. If it did not turn white they would be sad and ashamed. When the Sages saw that people were overly distressed on Yom Kippur, they established that they should tie the strip of crimson to the opening of the Entrance Hall on the inside, since only a few could actually go in to see it. And they would still peek and see: If it turned white, they would rejoice, and if it did not turn white they would be sad. Therefore, the Sages established that they should tie half of the strip to the rock and half of it between the goat’s horns, so that the people would not know what happened to the strip until after the conclusion of Yom Kippur (Yoma, 67a).
Shlach Lecha
Background:
Parashat Shlach tells the story of the meraglim, or the scouts, and their mission to go survey the land of Israel. Though the mission itself is successful, when they return they start to panic because they worry that they won’t be able to defeat the people who currently live in the land. And so they report that the land is good but that the people are way too strong from them to defeat. The Israelites start to cry, and the situation clearly spirals into disaster. Hashem gets so angry at everyone that their punishment is that they will all die in the desert before they reach the land, which is why the journey takes 38 years longer than it was supposed to.
The mission begins with Hashem speaking to Moshe in Chapter 13:2. Hashem says:
שְׁלַח־לְךָ֣ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְיָתֻ֙רוּ֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן אֲשֶׁר־אֲנִ֥י נֹתֵ֖ן לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אִ֣ישׁ אֶחָד֩ אִ֨ישׁ אֶחָ֜ד לְמַטֵּ֤ה אֲבֹתָיו֙
תִּשְׁלָ֔חוּ כֹּ֖ל נָשִׂ֥יא בָהֶֽם׃
“Send for yourself men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people; send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them.”
As the commentaries note, the language of “shlach lecha,” or “send for yourself,” is strange. If Hashem is commanding Moshe to do it then, then why does Hashem say “send for yourself?” Shouldn’t Hashem say “send for Me” or “send for the people?”
Here are 3 possible explanations:
Ibn Ezra: Hashem says “shlach lecha” to teach us that Hashem was ready for the Israelites to go straight to the land, but they responded that they first wanted to send people to check it out.
Rashi: Hashem says “shlach lecha” to convey that Hashem wasn’t commanding it, but it was a choice that Moshe could make if he wanted to send them. Moshe ended up sending the scouts because the people asked for it, even though Moshe already knew from Hashem that the land was good. He sent them to allow the Israelites to make their own mistakes, even if it meant that they wouldn’t inherit the land themselves as a result.
Shadal: Hashem says “shlach lecha” to convey that it was for Moshe’s benefit, so that they would know what the land was like before they arrived.
Questions:
- These three explanations understand the words “shlach lecha” to all convey different attitudes. Pretend that you are Hashem speaking to Moshe - in what tone of voice would you say “shlach lecha” according to each opinion?
- According to each of the 3 opinions, at what point in the mission did things go wrong? Who was to blame for it, and why were they punished?
- Have you ever wanted to do something that your parents didn’t want you to do because they thought it was a bad idea? Did you do it anyway? What were the results?
Download a printable version here
"Gone sleuthing" - the theme of the torah portion this week is sending spies to check out the land of Israel, and we'll do a spy activity tomorrow :)
Yoni Friedman.
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