The generation of the Midbar was on the highest spiritual level. The glory of Hashem was visible in them, "their souls rested in their head." In order to enter the Land they would need to descend from these heights to a much lower level and they didn't want to do this. But it wasn't up to them; this is what they were chosen to do, to set themselves aside in order to fulfill Hashem's will by coming down to the level of the Land. Because there is something greater than one's "spiritual level" and that is fulfilling the will of Hashem.
Sh'lach
Reb Shlomo Minyan HarNof
(R. Raphael, email: [email protected])
A Prayer For The Land
"And they went up by the south and he came to Chevron" (BeMidbar 13:22).
"Kalev alone went to prostrate himself on the graves of the patriarchs" (Rashi on the pasuk). "And the (spies) returned from searching the land" (BeMidbar 13:25).
Kalev went to the soul of the land, the burial ground of the Patriarchs. He related to the land in terms of prayer and searching out himself to make sure that he was of pure intention. The others looked at the land from the outside as something strange and other. Because they only looked from a distance they saw through their imagination a land of giants and death. But Kalev, whose words were "k'lev," from a pure heart, saw truly that the land was good. And because the land is holy, only those that are true can live there and this is why Kalev was one of the few to merit to enter the land.
And the question is not, "How did Kalev know what to do? How did he know to pray at the site of the Avot?" The question is, why did the others hold back their natural spirituality? Why was it inaccessible to them? We see the same thing happen repeatedly in the relationship of Moshe to the people. Moshe again and again turns to Hashem after the people have become locked in their own vision of things. Moshe has to cry out to Hashem, and Hashem teaches him the subtleties of prayer. But the calling out comes naturally.
Because prayer is the tikkun of the land. As we see with Adam HaRishon, all the plants were still in the ground until Adam prayed for rain. And we could ask, But how could Adam know to pray for rain? It had never rained before in the creation! But the answer is that Adam simply cried out. There were no great calculations. He just felt the need for the Creator because of the barrenness of where he stood. He let his heart speak through his cry and this is how the creation came to its fixing on that day.
When the spies returned and gave their bad report, the people wept. The rabbis say that it was the 9th of Av - the day of destruction throughout Jewish history. Every year we fast on that day in mourning over the two temples that were lost, and part of mourning is weeping, feeling the pain of the loss. But it's a different kind of weeping from the weeping that the people did when the spies gave their report. All the weeping through the centuries is a clarification of the weeping of confusion in the Midbar. In the Midbar they wept because they could not go back and they could not go forward. But the weeping for the Temple fixes the weeping of confusion. The loss of the Temple helps us understand what real loss is, and when we have wept through the tears of confusion to the tears of real loss we will merit the return.
Seasons Beyond The Sun
Everything has its time and season, but this only applies to those things which are "under the sun." Beyond the sun there is something which is above time. And this was also the level of B'nei Yisrael in the Midbar. Therefore it was within their power to enter the land without regard to considerations of time and nature. But when the spies went to check the land their minds were on the fact that this was not the designated time to enter. And even though there was truth in that nevertheless, there always was the opportunity to focus on the aspect that is above time, touching that place of belief in Hashem that they would be able to enter the land. And this is what Yehoshua and Kalev meant by "the land is very good if Hashem desires to bring us there." Because even though the time wasn't ripe, the Creator, may He be blessed, could have brought B'nei Yisrael into the land, lifting it and raising it above nature and time. (Sefat Emet on the parashah, 92)
A Chosen Generation
When they went behind the curtain they saw people digging graves and dying immediately and coming to life again with holy, luminous bodies. When they lie in the dust the evil taint which they received at first is consumed, and they rise at once renewed and luminous like at Har Sinai (Zohar on the punishment of the generation of the wilderness, BeMidbar 14: 35).
The generation of the wilderness is full of contradictions. The Zohar says there will not be another generation as great until the times of Mashiach. Yet on the other hand the Yalkut Shimoni says they have no part in the world to come.
They emerged from their slavery in Egypt, degraded till the forty-ninth level of impurity, but they merited to receive the Torah on Har Sinai.
They heard Hashem speak directly to them and they built the idol of the golden calf.
They were a generation that saw miracles like no one else, yet they doubted Hashem's power when it was time to enter the Land.
They were a generation that could have entered the Land of Israel in three days' journey from Egypt and stayed there forever, but they ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years, all but a handful buried there.
While the story of the generation of the wilderness appears as a series of failures, the opposite is also true. They had tremendous merit: of all people, for all time, they were on a level that such tests could be meaningful, their experiences recorded in the Torah for all generations to learn the ways of spirituality. For they were the ones who risked their lives in Mitzrayim, openly denigrating the idolatry of the Egyptians. They were the ones who left the known of slavery for the unknown world that Hashem beckoned them to. As it says in Yirmiyahu 2:2, "I remember you. The kindness of your youth. The love you espoused, when you followed Me into the wilderness in a Land not yet prepared to bring forth fruit." "Youth" refers to that early stage of the Jewish nation before it was known what Hashem expected or required, for there was no previous generation of the Midbar to learn from. There was no Torah to refer to.
In short, the generation of the wilderness willingly followed Hashem into the unknown, an act of pure and na?ve faith. And this explains why the place where they started their spiritual journey was a "wilderness." There was no previous place of spiritual habitation for the nation - everything needed to be learned from scratch. They were the ones who were taught how to do teshuvah (the "thirteen middot" given to Moshe Rabbeinu after the sin of the Golden Calf). And they were the ones who went out in their "youth" even though this meant reaping the wrath of Hashem. And still they did teshuvah, not for their own sakes but for the sakes of their children who would inherit the Land.
Mitzvot
According to Sefer HaChinuch there are three commandments in parashat Sh'lach.
At A Glance