Tourist or Torah-Ist?

Our way of preparing for the imminent coming of Moshiach is understandably to strengthen our commitment to the teachings of the Torah. But more specifically, it involves the process of “opening our eyes,” to becoming “Torah tourists”—to see things through the prism of Torah.

The Pitfalls of Touring

The English word “tourist” most likely has its roots in the Biblical term for scouting the land that appears in this week’s parsha multiple times.

Moses charges the leaders of the twelve tribes to become spies with the mission of “touring” the land. In the original Hebrew, the word (after the prefix that means “and they shall”) is “touru.” Throughout the parsha the word used is not the Hebrew word for “spying” but the word that can be translated as “touring,” “surveying” “scouting” or “exploring” the land.

Interestingly, at the end of the parsha, in an entirely unrelated subject, the Torah uses the same root. When it commands us to wear the tzitzis-fringes on the corners of our garments, the Torah admonishes us to look at the tzitzis, “and you shall not follow your hearts and eyes.” Here too the Torah employs the word “(sa)suru,” in terms of not following the desires of your heart and eyes. Rashi, the principal commentator of the Torah, applies the meaning of scouting and spying to this word. We should not allow our hearts and eyes to serve as spies for the body, enabling it to stray.

We can see from this week’s parsha that being a tourist is fraught with danger. From the beginning of the parsha we see how the original “tourists”—i.e., ten of the twelve spies—ended up dying a tragic death and preventing an entire generation of Jews from entering the Promised Land.

And in the end of the parsha we see how the Torah regards the touring of the heart and eyes to be so potentially harmful.

What is it about being a “tourist” that proved to be so deleterious to the Jews then, and continues to plague us even today?

Torah and Touring

To answer this question it should be pointed out that the Hebrew word tour, is almost identical to the word Torah. The letters are the same, just the vowels are different. Is there any connection between these two words? Are they similar or are they opposites?

Let’s first discuss what these two words have in common. A tourist keeps his or her eyes open. We don’t take a trip to a foreign country to stay in our hotel 24 hours a day. We take our cameras and let our eyes and our extended eyes (i.e., cameras) view as much as we can.

Likewise Torah is a text that gives us the means to see the world. The very word Torah is derived from a root that means: instruction, direction and guidance because Torah was intended for it to be our eye to the world. Torah instructs us not only what we should do and avoid doing, but it also gives us direction in life by teaching us how to view the world in general and any and every situation in particular.

Eyes of the Community

However, since we cannot always find the Torah’s view on a given matter, the Torah therefore commands us to follow the teachings of the Sages, who are appropriately referred to in this week’s parsha as “the eyes of the community.” They enable us to see things through the prism of Torah.

The difference between conventional touring and “Torahtouring” is that touring is to see the world through physical and human lenses, whereas Torah enables us to see the world through G-dly lenses.

When Moses sent the spies to Israel, he wanted them to tour the Land of Israel; but he wanted them to do it through the prism of G-d’s plan for the Jewish people to enter, conquer and settle the Land.

See the Land from G-d’s Vantage Point

In G-d’s instructions to Moses, He said explicitly: “Send out men for yourself to explore the Land of Cana’an, which I am giving to the children of Israel.” Here G-d added the words “which I am giving to the children of Israel,” that seem to be unnecessary. Haven’t we already been told numerous times that this was the land that G-d intended for the children of Israel? Why emphasize this point here again?

The answer is clear. While G-d consented to the sending of these spies to become tourists and explore the land, He wanted it explored from His vantage point. G-d wanted them to see the land through the prism, mindset and premise that it was indeed conquerable because G-d was giving it to them. While they were to use their own eyes to survey the land, they were to have their eyes reflect the vision of G-d vis-à-vis the land.

Their error was that they viewed it through their own limited lenses and myopic view.

And this is what distinguishes the art of conventional touring from the way Torah takes us for a tour of life;

guiding us through all of its confusing pathways. Torah is the ultimate GPS that tells us when to go right and when to go left and when to go straight ahead.

Torah Transcends Political Views

In the Jewish community, we find Jews who have adopted all sorts of political views. There are Jews on the right and there are Jews on the left and there are Jews in the center. In truth, the Torah transcends all of these movements and directions because unlike all these ideologies that are manmade, Torah is G-d’s plan for the world.

Occasionally the Torah will appear to agree with a particular direction and sometimes it will tell us to go in the opposite direction. It does not mean the Torah is liberal or conservative; the Torah is a Divine blueprint for the world that cannot be neatly slotted in to any narrow category.

In the literature of Kabbalah we are taught that Torah represents the Divine attribute of tiferes, which means beauty or harmony. Torah is not chesed-kindness which is on the right in Kabbalah terminology, neither is it gevurahjudgment, which is on the left. Torah combines and synthesizes both, thereby giving us a beautiful, harmonious blend between right and left.

We can be like the spies of old and allow our own limited perspectives color the way we see the Land of Israel and our rights to it, or we can seek guidance and direction from the Torah.

Opening Our Eyes

One of the unfortunate by-products of being in exile is that our Torah vision becomes clouded. We do not see things the way G-d intended us to see them. The Messianic Age— when we will be liberated from exile—is thus not just about peace and freedom; it is also about clearing up all the misconceptions and distortions of reality that is currently the norm, not the exception.

Our way of preparing for the imminent coming of Moshiach, generally speaking, is understandably to strengthen our commitment to the teachings of the Torah. But more specifically, it involves the process of “opening our eyes,” to becoming “Torah tourists”—to attempt to see things through the prism of Torah.

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