The Confident Spies

The Jewish people have been compared to the human body. A healthy human body is one where all of its organs and limbs work in concert because their connection to the brain is intact. Similarly, the Jewish nation is spiritually healthy when all of us are united under the direction of our head; its Moses.

Early Conquest

At the end of this week’s parsha the Torah relates how the Jewish nation conquered territory on the east bank of the Jordan. This territory was to become the land allocated to the tribes of Gad and Rueben as well as half of the tribe of Menasha.

Although the plan was for the Children of Israel to cross the Jordan River and settle the land west of it, circumstances caused them to make an adjustment. Sichon the king of the Amorites refused to allow safe passage for the Israelites through his territory and amassed his army on his boundary, ready to attack the Jewish nation. In response to his provocation the Jewish nation attacked him and conquered his land.

After that conquest was completed, the Torah records how Moses sent spies to scout a location called Yaazer. These spies, the Torah continues, captured the villages of that area.

Rashi comments that their conquering of the Yaazer area was a reaction to the story of the original spies sent by Moses to scout the land of Canaan and who returned with a negative report. That tragic episode resulted in an entire generation forced to wander through the desert for forty years. According to Rashi, these new spies said:

“We will not do as the first spies, we are confident that we can wage war because of the power of Moses’ prayer.”

In other words, these spies not only scouted the Yaazer but also took the initiative to conquer it as well.

Taking Liberties

This prompts the following question: The original spies erred as a result of the liberty they took in going beyond their mission. Moses instructed them to simply report on the land and its inhabitants. He did not ask them to draw any conclusions as to whether the Jewish people ought to conquer the land or not. Yet the spies decided to campaign against the conquest of Canaan. Had they simply reported all of what they had seen, even if some of it would appear negative, it would not have evoked such negative emotion and all the negative consequences would have been avoided.

From this we can appreciate how serious a mistake it is for a person sent on a mission to alter its focus by adding or subtracting from it.

If so, the question has been asked, why did these new spies, who were certainly well aware of their predecessors’ error, repeat the same mistake of adding on to the mission? Moses did not instruct them to conquer the land of Yaazer, only to scout it. Yet they seemed to have added on to his directive and conquered it as well.

Going to the Other Extreme

The Rebbe answers the question by referring to a basic principle associated with the process of Teshuvah (repentance or return). When a person strays and moves in the wrong direction, when they realize their error and try to rectify their mistake it does not suffice to go back to the proper path. One must go to the opposite extreme as a way of balancing his or her life.

While the first spies overstepped their mission in a negative way, the second spies sought to exceed their mission in a positive way. The first spies doubted Moses’ instructions to them to scout the land as a preparation for their conquest of it. Their sin derived from their lack of faith in Moses who communicated G-d’s directive to the Jewish people to conquer the land.

The second set of spies thus exceeded their mission and conquered that which they were not expressly instructed to do precisely because they believed in Moses’ “connections.” And they took this belief to its logical conclusion: Let us do what we have to do to make the land that we were instructed to scout our land.

Connecting to Moses

There are several lessons that can be derived from this analysis:

First, from this episode we see that there is a need to be connected to Moses or the spiritual leader of each and every generation and be confident in his ability to pray for our success in doing the right thing.

This dependence on Moses’ prayer does not contradict Judaism’s insistence that we make no intermediaries between ourselves and G-d. The definition of an illicit intermediary is someone who causes us to be separated from G-d, not someone who enhances our relationship with Him. Moreover, the Jewish people have been compared to the human body. A healthy human body is one where all of its organs and limbs work in concert because their connection to the brain is intact. Similarly, the Jewish nation is spiritually healthy when all of us are united under the direction of our head; its Moses.

A time for Moderation and a Time for Extremes

Second, there are times when we have to follow a moderate approach to things. But when we try to correct an imbalance it is crucial that we go the extra mile in the right direction.

Third, notwithstanding their confidence in Moses’ prayer, they did not rely on his prayer alone. They took action to conquer Yaazer. Relying on Moses does not exempt us from our own efforts. Moreover, not only do we not sit back and wait for Moses to secure G-d’s help for us, but we go beyond that which we were expressly commanded.

Our Moses

In our generation we are privileged to have the Rebbe as our Moses, whose inspiration and guidance we continue to benefit from in spite of the physical impediments that were put up on the third day of Tammuz a number of years ago. Nevertheless, we can still confident of his prayers that we will succeed in “conquering” the remaining areas of life that are in need of liberation.

The Rebbe’s instruction to us is to fight against the darkness of exile, where our spiritual and physical lives are compromised, by bringing more light into the world. The Rebbe’s constant prayer was for Moshiach to come and liberate the Jewish people and the entire world from exile and its suffering. We are confident that the Rebbe’s prayerful wish and demand for Redemption will spur us to action and will enable us to conquer the remaining vestiges of exile and transform it into Redemption imminently.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Chukas by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.