You shall see what [kind of] land it is,

and the people who dwell upon it;

are they strong or weak? Are there few or many?

(Bamidbar 13:18)

 

And the people who inhabit it - He told them to inspect the state's laws and customs, as that sage said, that when you enter a state you should check its laws, since troubles come upon a state only because of its laws... and when a state's judges are righteous its people are also righteous, but when they are wicked its people are likewise evil, for it is said: A ruler who hearkens to false words-all his servants are wicked (Proverbs 29:12). That is why he said, [the people who] dwell upon it and not who dwell in it, as he said, and what of the cities in which they reside? (13:19). And so he says, [and what of the land] in which it dwells [yoshev]? (13:19). It is written yashav rather than yoshev, to tell us that it is the leaders and judges who bring about settlement in the land; strength comes from laws and morals. Know that this caused them to be in the land and your coming to take it over from them; it was not due to their wickedness but rather to your righteousness. And if they are lax in their laws and customs and everyone does as he pleases, know that because of the wickedness of these nations [the Lord your God drives them out from before you]... not because of your righteousness (9:5,6). Are there few or many, the leaders and judges are sufficient to cause their being man or few.

(R. Mordekhai HaKohen MiTzfat, Siftei Kohen, 16^th century, ad loc)

 

Israel is not to be interested in whether the inhabitants are weak or strong. The conquest is no question of yes or no, so that this question is put, not one or the other but only side by side as only an accidental difference but not in terms of actual contrast. Thereby the whole mission would be given quite a different character to what was originally intended by its proposers. Not for the purpose of the conquest, but for a permanent important teaching for all future time is the knowledge of the land in its present conditions to be obtained. The tradition of the disadvantages which the land and people show at present will be handed down in future in comparison with the flourishing happy conditions under the protection and blessing of God; what it has to show now in abundance and riches will give some idea of the height of happiness and blessing it will blossom up into under a development directed by God; but, above all what it shows in strength and might and greatness in its Canaanite present could transmit to all succeeding generations of the Jewish future, the lesson of how all power and greatness, however gigantic it may be, cannot protect a nation from ruin if it neglects to render homage with everything and in everything in the first place to God's laws of morality.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch 13:18, Levi translation)

 

 

Send out for yourself or Let us send people?

Netanel Warschawski

 

Send out for yourself... Rashi's interpretation of this verse follows Bamidbar Rabbah: "According to your own understanding. I am not commanding you, but if you wish, you may send. Since the Israelites had come [to Moses] and said, Let us send men ahead of us... Moses took counsel with the Shekhinah. He [God] said, "I told them that it is good... By their lives! Now I will give them the opportunity to err... so that they will not inherit it" (Judaica Press translation).

The story of the spies is described several times in the Torah. The two most detailed descriptions appear in our parasha and in the beginning of Devarim (1:24-46). In contrast to our parasha, in which God curtly commands Moses Send out for yourself, Devarim describes at length the request the Israelites made of Moses: And all of you approached me and said, "Let us send men ahead of us so that they will search out the land for us... And the matter pleased me; so I took twelve men from you..." The midrash quoted above relates negatively to the Israelite request to send spies, while the description of the events in Devarim does not offer any criticism of the request; quite to the contrary - Moses accepts and even praises the idea.

Bamidbar does not actually mention the peoples' request; there we only find God's command Send out for yourself. This is one of many differences between the two accounts of the spies' story. Bamidbar quotes at length the spies' denigrating remarks regarding the Land - a land that consumes its inhabitants - and their troubling report on its population - the people who inhabit the land are mighty. In Devarim the spies simply say that the land the Lord, our God, is giving us is good. According to Devarim, it was the people, rather than the spies, who began the mutiny, and you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, your God. Furthermore, while Bamidbar tells us that Joshua and Caleb stood up to the spies and tried to stifle the rebellion, in Devarim it is Moses who opposes the people's mutiny: And I said to you, "Do not be broken or afraid of them. The Lord, your God, Who goes before you He will fight for you..." Finally, in Devarim Moses explains God's refusal to let him enter the Land: The Lord was also angry with me because of you, saying, "Neither will you go there..." even though Moses had already been prohibited from entering the Land in the wake of the events at Mei Meriva - and not because of the sin of the spies.

The commentators attempt to resolve these contradictions in various ways. Most of them present the two stories as complementary accounts which fill out each other's details, as in the passage from Bamidbar Rabbah cited above. Rashi explains the spies' words in Devarim - the land the Lord, our God, is giving us is good - as having been uttered by Joshua and Caleb, but not by the other spies. Abarbanel tries to resolve the contradiction regarding Moses' punishment: "...Moses and Aaron did not die because of the sin at Mei Meriva... rather, when the Israelites asked for spies, they only said, and they shall bring us back word... and God, may He be blessed only said, send out for yourself men... but our master Moses added many items to their mission, commanding them to observe the people... and the land... and the towns." That is to say: Moses and Aaron were not punished for the events of Mei Meriva, rather each was punished for his part in a different sin, Aaron for his role in the sin of the Golden Calf, and Moses for his part in the sin of the spies. Of course, Abarbanel's explanation does not jibe with the plain meaning of the verses (Bamidbar 20:24; 27:14; Devarim 32: 51; etc.) which attribute Moses and Aaron's punishment to Mei Meriva. His attempt to overcome the contradiction is also a bit strained: "In the parasha of Zot Hukkat HaTorah it says: since you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me...But it does not say, to sanctify me with the water..." [which would have established the connection to Mei Meriva - the "Waters of Contention"].

If we take a deeper look at the contradiction between Bamidbar and Devarim, we shall discover an essential difference between how each of the parties to the events behaves in the two versions. The protagonists of Bamidbar's account are God, the spies, Joshua, and Caleb. God proposes the spies' mission, then the spies sin, and then Joshua and Caleb oppose the spies' attempt to stir up a mutiny among the people. Moses appears as an entirely passive figure, as do the people, who are swept up by the spies' rhetoric without exercising any degree of autonomous thought. In Devarim the protagonists are Moses and the people. The people call for a spying mission to be arranged and later the people rise up against Moses, who must face them alone. The spies are barely mentioned, save in their report that the Land is good. Joshua and Caleb are only mentioned at the story's conclusion as having completely followed the Lord. The other ten spies are not punished at all.

In order to understand this account, we must recall that in the book of Devarim Moses is presenting his farewell address to the people before his death. Moses is not playing the historian when he tells the people the stories of their journey through the wilderness; rather he is a leader speaking just before the decisive moment in the lives of his followers. If so, the story told in Devarim should not be read as historical truth but rather as a leader's final message. Bamidbar's account of the spies is a story of a slave people that has just been liberated; a people which initiates nothing, but rather awaits its leaders' instructions. Most of the spies, who are important members of the people - men, the heads of the Israelites - are faithless cowards, and the entire people are swept up after them.

However, when Moses retells the story he completely changes its meaning. Moses does not expect the people to wait for God's commands; rather, they should take the initiative. On the eve of their entry into the Land, he tells them that they asked him to let us send people. The spies' mission is not a sin; rather it is a welcome initiative, an important military measure taken towards the Land's conquest. No one complains when Joshua send spies to Jericho; neither does Moses condemn the people's request to send spies; rather he says, the matter pleased me. As far as Moses is concerned the historical question of who actually initiated the spies' mission - the people or God - is of no importance. It would be reasonable to assume that a people consisting of recently freed slaves would not initiate such a move. A slave-people would be ignorant of the ways of war. However, Moses tells them that they were the initiators in order to teach them something about responsibility. Moses continues the story in order to teach the people that positive initiative must not involve loss of faith in God. That is the message which Moses wishes to convey to the people upon the eve of his death. In order to survive, the people must preserve its faith in God; however, it must not be swept up by blind faith that is without initiative. Rather, they must ask questions, try things out, initiate moves, and know how to lead. Moses concludes the account with his own personal story of the punishment he received when, in one isolated instance, he failed to lead the people.

We are currently marking the third anniversary of the passing of my aunt, Elizabeth (Babette) Warschawski, z"l. Despite the pain left in the wake of her death, I have no doubt that everyone who knew her found in her personality those very virtues which Moses tried to instill in the people on the eve of his death. Alongside her faith, which brought her to make aliyah to Israel and raise a strong Jewish family, she was also a woman who knew how to take the initiative and take responsibility. She knew how to ask questions, to learn and take interest in things; she never took anything for granted or let herself be carried away by the currents of mass opinion. She succeeded in combining her profound religious faith with social values and genuine love for others in a way that is rarely achieved. All of us loved her for remaining a woman of faith while also a woman of strong independent thought. Time passes, but it is still difficult to abide her loss. We do, however, find solace in what we managed to learn from her during the course of her life. Her spirit and the ideas which guided her life continue to encourage us. We hope to live our own lives in accordance with those ideas and values; thus we shall also live in accordance with the ways commanded us by Moses in his final address.

Netanel Warschawski graduated from the Bezalel Institute and is a graphic artist residing in Jerusalem

 

Elisabeth Nehama Warschawski - "Babette" - was born in Strasbourg on Shabbat, the ninth of Av 5718 (1958). She was the sixth of seven children born to Rabbi Meir Shimon Warschawski and his wife Mireille. After completing an MA at the University of Strasbourg, she came to live in Israel and continued her studies of the history of religion in the Second Temple period and of archaeology. In 1982 she joined the staff of the Centre de Recherche Français de Jérusalem - a French governmental institution that supports the work of French and Israeli researchers in the fields of archeology, history, and the social sciences - and in 1977 became the Secretary General of the Center. Babette died on the 15^th of Sivan 5766 after a protracted struggle with cancer, and was survived by her husband, Daniel Rohrlich, their daughter Talia (who became a Bat-Mitzvah two months after Babette's passing), her parents, brothers, sisters, and many others who loved her. This year an organizer's position in the Rabbis for Human Rights organization has been dedicated to her memory.

 

The Land of Israel Can Give Rise to Powerful Warriors or Giants of the Spirit. Sparta or Athens?

...In the Land of Israel, then, there remained remnants of the giants of the pre-deluge period. This fact well suits the position (Zevahim 113a) that the flood did not affect the Land of Israel, and therefore all the original vitality of the land was preserved. When it was under the control of a Canaanite population this power was revealed only in the growth of giants of great physical dimensions. But in equal measure, this strength can make the land appropriate for God's people, for this nation will observe God's Torah and thus will the world return to its days of youth, and the earth will be like the Garden of Eden. Let us not forget the dictum of the Sages to the effect that health and physical strength are among the conditions necessary for supreme spiritual development (Shabbat 92a). Perhaps we will not err when we say that this is the relationship between the strength of the land and the attributes of its inhabitants; Wherever spiritual endeavor is suspended, the earth has the power to grow giants of great physical stature; but if the dwellers of the land are of a spiritual inclination, the vigor of the earth will be exploited for spiritual activity and not for the giant body stature.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, Bamidbar 13:33)

 

And they shall make fringes - Completion of the Garment as a Metaphor for Man's Partnership with God in Perfection of the World.

...it is as if Creation cloaks the Creator; an ignorant person who knows not, a wicked person, is liable to think that there is no God. Therefore creation in general is called begged - a garment. As pointed out in our introduction, that creation was not complete, and the Creator, Be He Blessed, left it for His chosen to complete and perfect... and therefore the Creator commanded us to observe the commandment of tzitzit, to teach us that reality is but a garment which has - at both ends - strands which have not as yet been woven, and is therefore in need of tassels and locks. This teaches that even when man freely chooses life and goodness and to walk in God's path, in these, too, God's assistance from above will sustain him... And you, son of man, if you weave creation, you will become partner to God in the act of Creation, as, in the words of the Sages, "Every judge who dispenses true justice is considered as though he is the partner of God in Creation" (Sanhedrin 99). And this is the meaning of "Whoever engages in Torah for its own sake is considered as though he built a palace above and a palace below, as is written, to plant the heavens and to establish earth, and perhaps the phrase va-asitem otam [and you shall make them] can be read va-asitem atem- [and you yourselves shall make them] - as though one makes them for himself.

(Meshekh Hokhma, Bamidbar 15:40)

 

 

 

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