This week’s parsha, Parshas Shelach, contains one of the most well-known stories of Bnei Yisrael in the desert – the story of the spies. Actually, I prefer the term scouts, so I will use that henceforth because it is more accurate as to what their initial endeavor was meant to be. They were checking out the land that they were going to conquer…and then it became more of the conceptual idea of spies because from the perception of 10 of the scouts, they were now spying on enemies.
The story of the meraglim covers a large portion of the
parsha and takes most of the attention. Following the scouting and spying,
following the crying of the nation, and following the disastrous decision of a
large group of Israelites to try to enter the promised land after all of that,
the Torah reverts to laws, and in the sixth aliyah there is an interesting set
of pasukim: “If you-all unwittingly fail to observe any one of the commandments
that Hashem has declared to Moshe—anything that Hashem has enjoined upon you-all
through Moshe—from the day that Hashem gave the commandment and on through the
ages. If this was done unwittingly, through the inadvertence of the community,
the whole community shall present …. The whole Israelite community and the
stranger residing among them shall be forgiven, for it happened to the entire
people through error” (Vayikra 15:23-24, 26).
When you realize how close this is to the narrative of the scout
– separated, really, only by the command to separate challah… food of thought
for another time… it makes us look back and think about the significance of
unwitting actions.
Let’s look back at the meraglim. These men were chosen
because of who they were. They were leaders, great men. Surely those men did
not go with the intention of creating problems or rejecting Hashem’s plan, THAT
would have been mentioned in the Torah, one would surmise. They got to the
promised land, panicked, and returned to then publicly mislead Bnei Yisrael
about Eretz Canaan.
They did something that had terrible consequences, but they,
most likely, started off with good intentions. One of the most critical and
fascinating aspects of Jewish life is how significant intention is. Not always,
but often, one’s intention can shape, on a spiritual level, the effectiveness of
one’s actions. This is important
because, if you hadn’t noticed, most of us are pretty darn human. Humans mess
up all the time, make mistakes all the time, but Hashem knows that; He expects
that. Most of the time our mistakes are
harmless, but sometimes they are massive. And, in truth, even when it comes to
mistakes, intention matters.
The mefarshim actually explain these verse, 15:23 on, as
referring to idolatry – when the whole group goes astray on idolatry.
Basically, if you, you know, accidentally start worshiping false gods…which, to
you and me of the 21st century, sounds rather ridiculous. Religious
actions, one would think, should be very intentional thing given that they are
centered on devotion. Let’s go back to the meraglim…
The meraglim were great men. Each man was a leader of his
tribe. They were devout. They wanted to serve Hashem -- And they went wrong.
Should not this idea have applied to them? Did they really expect to infect all
of Bnei Yisrael with doubt? One hopes not, but they also didn’t stop when they
were corrected. And they also weren’t the whole community, since Yehoshua and
Calev were trying, in vain, to defend Eretz Yisrael. They had warning even as
they were leading the klal astray, and they, the 10 leaders, ignored it.
The meraglim were not evil men of ill intent. They set out
with honest goals, then, unwittingly, took the wrong message from everything
they saw and refused to be reminded of the wonders that Hashem does. Had they
listened to Yehoshua and Calev…well, the story would be different then, wouldn’t
it. For now, let us just take this as a reminder that even with the best
intentions one can go astray, but once one goes astray, all is not lost if one
realizes the error of his ways.
Wishing you a beautiful Shabbas… and really hoping I made
sense!
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