TORAH SPARKS
Parashat Sh lach
June 5, 2021, 25 Sivvan 5781
Torah: Numbers 13:1-15:41; Triennial 14:8-15:7
Haftorah: Joshua 2:1-2:24
The Sotah and the Spies
Ilana Kurshan
Our parashah contains an account of the spies sent by Moshe to scout out the land of Israel before the Israelites enter to conquer it. Instead of simply reporting on the land, the spies issue a referendum on whether the Israelites will succeed in their conquest a matter that was never really subject to question, since God had already promised repeatedly that He would lead the people to the land of milk and honey and drive out its inhabitants. The Talmudic rabbis read the incident with the spies as a story about trust and doubt, offering us insight into what it means to navigate the world with faith and confidence in spite of our fears.
The Talmud offers an extended exegetical analysis of the episode with the spies in tractate Sotah, which deals with the laws governing a woman whose husband suspects her of adultery. The immediate context of this discussion is the Mishnah s statement that certain texts may be recited in any language, whereas others like the oath that the priest requires the Sotah to take must be recited only in Hebrew. Likewise, the blessings and curses that the Israelites are to proclaim after they enter and conquer the land of Israel must be recited in Hebrew. This mention of the conquest of the land leads the rabbis to a discussion of those who doubted whether the land could be conquered at all, namely the ten spies. However, the placement of this Talmudic discussion of the spies in tractate Sotah may also reflect a deeper thematic connection between the Sotah and the spies, both of whom are beset by problems of doubt.
Like the Sotah, whose husband suspects but cannot be sure that his wife has betrayed him, the people suspect but cannot be sure that God will fail to deliver on the divine promise to bring them into the land. Already in last week s parashah, they took to complaining bitterly against the Lord (11:1), insisting that the food was better in Egypt and that they never should have left. The people are in need of proof that they will be able to settle safely and securely in Canaan, which is why they must send out spies. God s promise alone is not enough for them. Like the husband who feels he can t trust in his wife s fidelity anymore, the people exhausted and worn down by their desert wanderings feel they can no longer trust in God. And so the mission of the spies becomes a sort of trial-by-ordeal in which the people put God to the test, ostensibly spying out the land but really wrestling with their own doubt about the divine promise.
The Talmud makes it clear that the negative report of the ten spies was primarily about their lack of trust in God. The rabbis imagine Caleb trying to restore the people s faith by reminding them of how much God s chosen leader, Moshe, has done for them: He took us out of Egypt, and split the sea for us, and fed us the manna. If he says to us, Build us ladders and climb to the heavens, should we not listen to him? We shall go up at once and possess it (Sotah 35b). Caleb thinks the people should trust in God and Moshe even if they were told to build ladders up to the heavens, let alone to conquer a land down here on earth. But the people have no use for imaginary ladders or for a God they cannot see, and they resolve to pelt Caleb and Joshua with stones. The Talmud offers a creative reading of the biblical text so that it is not these two spies, but rather God, who is the object of the people s fury. The verse states, But the congregation threatened to pelt them with stones, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting (14:10). Rabbi Hiya bar Abba explains that the juxtaposition of the two halves of this verse one about stoning, and one about God s glory serves to teach that they took stones and hurled them upward. Fearful and faithless, they futilely hurl stones at God.
Ultimately the people s lack of faith becomes the source of their undoing. When they hear the negative report of the spies, they stay up all night weeping and wishing for their own deaths: If only we might die in this wilderness! (14:2). And indeed, that is what happens to them. The very next day, God tells Moshe that all of that generation except Caleb and Joshua shall die in the wilderness, exactly as they wished: None of the men who have seen My Presence and have disobeyed Me shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers (14:23). The people who were convinced that they would never be able to conquer the land will indeed never be able to conquer it. The forty years of wandering is thus not a punishment, but a wish fulfillment.
Whether we are traveling through the biblical wilderness or the thickets of our own lives, it is difficult to move forward without faith. None of us can know with certainty what the future will hold. But if we are guided by our fears, we are more likely to be led headlong into those fears. As the Talmud s treatment of the incident of the spies in tractate Sotah reminds us, spouses cannot keep tabs on each other at all times; a marriage must be built on trust. Likewise, our relationship with God, whom we cannot see and whose presence we can only intuit, must be also built on trust. If we believe that God is leading us to a land of milk and honey, we are more likely to find ourselves there. If we believe we will succeed in conquering our fears, it is far more likely that indeed we will. Optimism need not be born of foolishness, but of faith in the future and in the God Who leads us there.
A Good Evil Report
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Context: This is the second report delivered by the delegation ( spies ) that toured the land.
Text: Bamidbar 13:32-33
32And they put out an evil report [dibbah] of the land which they had toured to the children of Israel, saying: The land, through which we passed to tour it, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. 33And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.
● What do you think was the incentive of the group that spread the negative report found in these verses? Why did they not deliver this report together with their initial report about the land (13:27-29)?
● We are told that this is an evil report. What is evil about it?
● The spies describe the land as eats its inhabitants yet the inhabitants are described as being of great size. How are we to understand these ideas?
Commentary: Ibn Ezra Bamidbar 13:32
And they put out an evil report [dibbah] of the land – means: they spread a lie. This is not the meaning of and Joseph brought evil report of them (Gen. 37:2), for brought is the reverse of put out .
● Ibn Ezra is sensitive to the nuances of the language. While dibbah means an evil report , he suggests that not all evil reports are equal. How does the use here differ from the use in the story of Joseph s evil report about his brothers?
● Why do you think that the Torah uses the verb to bring when the report is true, but the verb to put out when the report is false?
● Which is worse, in your opinion: delivering evil reports that are true or spreading evil reports that are false? What might the incentive be in each case?
Commentary: Seforno Bamidbar 13:32
A land that eats up its inhabitants – even though the people living there are strong, this is not a compliment to the land; rather it means that it is only due to their exceptionally hardy constitution that they were able to survive in that land. Ordinary people would die there because the climate is so hard to take.
● What apparent contradiction does Seforno see in the report? How does he suggest it should be understood?
● Why do you think that the group that toured the land chose to deliver an evil report that might sound positive?
God s Messy Plans
Bex Stern Rosenblatt
It s happened! After forty years of wandering through the desert, after watching an entire generation die off, after listening to Moses talk and talk for the entire Book of Deuteronomy, we ve finally entered the promised land! Well, sort of. We re about to, anyway. We ve just got one more quick digression. And this time, this will actually be the very last thing that happens before the nation of Israel crosses the Jordan into the land of Israel. Joshua, the God-approved successor to Moses, has had each tribe prepare to come over into Israel. And then, our haftarah portion interrupts. In the second chapter of Joshua, we follow two spies, sent by Joshua to go see the land before the nation of Israel enters it. Why this last delay? What purpose do the spies serve? What is their story that it should steal the show from Moses s death as the last thing that happens before we enter the land?
The story of these two spies is complex. Joshua tells two spies to go see the land and Jericho. We do not know these spies’ identities. We do not know what it is they are supposed to be looking out for. We do know that they immediately went and came to the house of a woman, a prostitute, and her name was Rahab, and they lay there. We do know that somehow the King of Jericho is told that these two Israelites have come to explore the land and that he seems to know they are at Rahab s house. They must not have been very good spies! When the King sends men to take the Israelites, Rahab hides them and lies to the King s men, sending them off on a wild goose chase to buy her time to help the spies escape. She seems to do it out of yirat haShem, awe and fear of God. She and her city have heard of the Israelites military prowess and she knows that Jericho does not stand a chance against God. Rahab helps the spies escape after extracting from them a promise to save her family from death when the Israelites conquer the city. When the spies return to Joshua, they conclude that God has indeed given the land to them because all the inhabitants of the land are so scared.
There are many more gaps in the story than there are answers. Joshua, once sent to spy out the land by Moses, now begins to fill Moses s shoes by repeating the actions of Moses. Rather than send ten bad spies and two good ones, he sends just two. Later, he will part the Jordan just as Moses parted the Red Sea. But why sending the spies is necessary is unclear. We do not know what he hoped to learn from them that he did not already know. Likewise, it is hard to know what to make of Rahab. The interpretative possibilities are endless. She has been read as everything from a repeat of the Exodus, this time for gentiles, to a heroic first convert and a foil for the faithless Israelites, to a damning portrayal of an opportunistic and scheming woman.
So what is this story doing here? Why insert such confusion into the end of the grand narrative of Moses and the beginning of the story of the Israelites in the land of Israel? Once again, we have more questions than answers. But I would posit that our Tanakh purposely turns away from clean narratives with simple characters and all the loose threads tied up in the end. There was something entirely too stable about the transition from Moses to Joshua. There was something too beautiful about the nation of Israel about to enter the land of Israel armed with the laws of the God of Israel. The story of Rahab and the spies brings us back to earth. Even with the God-appointed leader and all the instruction and backup we could possibly need, the nation of Israel still cannot help but bumble and fumble its way into the land, leaving us confusion and the chance to interpret.