PARSHAT SHELACH,NUMBERS 13:1–15:41
שְׁלַח לְךָ֣ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְיָתֻ֨רוּ֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן
נִשְׁלְחָ֤ה אֲנָשִׁים֙ לְפָנֵ֔ינוּ וְיַחְפְּרוּ־לָ֖נוּ אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ
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In Parshat Shelach at 14:8, Joshua and Caleb, the two dissident spies, counter the arguments posed by the ten other leaders of the Bnai Yisrael:
אִם-חָפֵץ בָּנוּ, יְהוָה--וְהֵבִיא אֹתָנוּ אֶל-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת, וּנְתָנָהּ לָנוּ
“If the Lord desires us, He will bring us to this land and give it to us…”
This is an argument that calls upon us to have faith in Hashem.
Years later, despite the Bnai Yisrael being battle hardened, our faith in Hashem is reciprocated when He brings down the walls of Jericho. And after that miracle it took seven more years of bloody fighting before the Canaanites were routed and an additional seven years of mopping up and land dispersal.
That was over three thousand years ago. Likewise in today’s times, it takes more than faith alone. For example:
In the battle for Jerusalem in 1967, Ammunition Hill was the Jordanian strong point. In just a few hours time, half of the IDF paratroopers involved in the battle were either killed or wounded before overcoming the enemy.
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What I like best in the Parshah is the dialogue between Moshe and Hashem that takes place after Hashem calms down after visiting the plague on the nay-sayers, and after Hashem has condemned the current generation to die in the desert for having rebelled against Him. At 15:2-27 Hashem instructs Moshe in detail regarding bringing sacrifices when we enter and are domiciled in the Land:
כִּי תָבֹאוּ, אֶל-אֶרֶץ מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי, נֹתֵן לָכֶם.
“When you will come to the Land that I am giving to you, your settlements…”
For me the focus is on the word מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם …your settlements, abodes, residences, domiciles, the places where you sit. Hashem, despite all, does not give up on us.
And as an aside: I live in Nahariya which adjoins the Moshav Shavei Tzion.
Come visit.
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I don’t claim to be an expert on espionage. But my favorite genre of film and reading material happens to be mystery & thrillers, many of which involve spying. I’ve seen or read a hundred of them. In 2009 I read “A Most Wanted Man” written by David Cornwell, better known as John LeCarre´. He is a master of espionage fiction, and incidentally a person who worked for MI6. I saw a connection between that book and this week’s Parshah. This is the letter that I wrote to LeCarre´:
Nahariya, Israel
August 27, 2009
Dear Mr. Cornwell:
I just had the sublime pleasure of reading “A Most Wanted Man”. In it there is a curious convergence of a theme found in your contemporary tale of intrigue with that of another espionage tale which is found in a most unlikely place, the Book of Numbers. The theme as I see it is: committees do not make for successful espionage.
In the Book of Numbers there is a tale of intelligence gathering, one that took place some 3300 years ago. It is the story of the “m’ragleem”, the spies (Numbers 13:01-14:39). What is interesting to me is the structural similarity between the Joint Steering Committee in “The Most Wanted Man” and the biblical m’ragleem. They are espiocrats all and the eventual outcome of both tales is comparable
The m’ragleem are a joint steering committee of sorts. They are a select assemblage; some say men of distinction, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, who are chosen to reconnoiter the Land of Canaan. Ultimately, 10 of the 12 committee members give into their collective fear. These majority members issue an “evil” report for which they are punished. The mission ends in failure and the Israelites are destined to wander in the wilderness for a total of 40 years.
One message presented in both narratives is that spying by committee does not work. That lesson seems to have been learned by Joshua, one of the two dissident biblical committee members. Years later when the mantle of leadership falls upon Joshua, one of his first acts is to mount a surveillance operation against the stronghold of Jericho. This is done not by committee of distinguished men, but by a 2-person infiltration team who spy out Jericho’s defenses. There is stealth, detection, recruitment of a female operative, tradecraft, deception, concealment and escape (Joshua 02:01-02:24). Ultimately, there is victory.
In “A Most Wanted Man”, the reader feels a sense of revulsion towards the Joint Steering Committee. The same is true how Scripture and biblical commentators treat the m’ragleem. They die at the hand of heaven, and some say because of their wickedness are denied a portion in the world to come. I hope Bachmann would have some consolation with that outcome.
Thank you for having once more treating this reader to a tale most current, but in a certain sense timeless.
Yours truly,
Michael Jaron
LeCarre´ graciously thanked me, and among other things wrote “in matters of intelligence there is no such thing as a joint committee!".
A MESSAGE FOR TODAY
On a recent Shabbos I was thinking about my family and the negative impact of assimilation on our numbers. A very recent Pew Research Center finding held that 42% of American Jews have a non-Jewish spouse.
I became kind of glum, but it being Shabbos I had to work my way out of the doldrums. I came across a passage from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 23, Verse 9. It is a response from the gentile prophet Billam to the king of Moab in which Billam visualizes a future Jewish Nation. Billam says that the Jewish Nation will be a nation alone, and that it will not consider itself to be like the nations of the world.
Literally [my translation] -
“they are a people who will live alone and it
will not consider itself within the nations.”
And it is true: Israel is a place for Jews to be Jewish
In many ways, Israel is unique. We are one of a kind.
We do not belong to any bloc of nations.
Israel is the only country in which Hebrew is the spoken
language.
Israel is the world’s only Jewish State.
Israel is unique in that it is partly religious and partly
secular, yet it is a liberal democracy with an ideological mission called
Zionism.
In the Book of Leviticus, 19:2, HaShem says:
קְדֹשִׁים
תִּהְיוּ: כִּי קָדוֹשׁ, אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם.
“…You shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.”
The Hebrew word for “holy” is kodesh which has as its root
kdsh. Implied in this root is something
that has been separated. So old Billam
got it right.
Last week’s Parshah ended with Miriam being punished
for speaking disparagingly about her brother, Moses, and his black wife,
Zipporah. This week’s Parshah begins with ten of our leaders having negative
opinions regarding conquering the Land of Israel.
Many commentators seek a connection: Miriam is punished for her unkind words
and likewise our ten Tribal Princes die in a plague for their unkind words. Personally, I do not like making
these kind of connections.
However, look at what Miriam said at 12:1:
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had
married, for he had married a Cushite woman”.
וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה, עַל-אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה
הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח: כִּי-אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית, לָקָח
A Chushite is an Ethiopian, hence a black woman.
In this particular instance “A Black Life Did Matter” and trumped over ten
non-black lives.
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Rachav and the two spies, James Tissot, 1896-1902
In the Haftorah portion for Parshat Shelach, two anonymous Israelite spies are housed in the house of a woman named Rachav, who is described as a זונה:
"And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men out of Shittim to spy secretly, saying, Go see the land and Jericho. And they went, and came to the house of an innkeeper named Rachav, and they lay there".
וַיִּשְׁלַח יְהוֹשֻׁעַ-בִּן-נוּן מִן-הַשִּׁטִּים שְׁנַיִם-אֲנָשִׁים מְרַגְּלִים, חֶרֶשׁ לֵאמֹר, לְכוּ רְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, וְאֶת-יְרִיחוֹ; וַיֵּלְכוּ וַיָּבֹאוּ בֵּית-אִשָּׁה זוֹנָה, וּשְׁמָהּ רָחָב--וַיִּשְׁכְּבוּ-שָׁמָּה.
In this translation, a זונה is described as an innkeeper, but in many other translations the word זונה is commonly described as a prostitute. While it is understandable why a translator would want Rachav to run a bed and breakfast instead of turning tricks, the problem is how do you transition from being a whore to being an innkeeper and remain loyal to the text?
The answer lies in taking the root of זונה to be the letters zion-nun or זן. Remember the first blessing in the Grace after Meals where Hashem is described as the הזן את הכול, the nourisher of everyone.
There you have it, not quite plain as day, in the ברכת המזון
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People of The Book squeeze meaning out of the text. That’s what we do. Don’t be bashful; go ahead and give it a try. But how?
In my opinion the way to start is to look to how the best of the best of Biblical Commentators went about making interpretations. Hands down, that would be the 11th century commentator on the Torah, par excellence, Rashi. What was his interpretive method? And even though we sorely lack Rashi’s knowledge, wisdom and capacity, can we give it a try without thoroughly embarrassing ourselves?
I think so, and I will go so far as to speculate that Rashi would encourage us to do so. Quoting from Avram Grossman’s 2012 book “Rashi” on his interpretive method: “According to Rashi, every biblical verse – and in particular, every verse in the Torah – bears a significance and message that go beyond merely conveying information. Accordingly, one must do more than interpret the literal meaning of the words”.
Try this on for size:
The opening words of the Haftarah portion read: וַיִּשְׁלַח יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, “Joshua sent…”
Who is Joshua? We have a tradition that you can tell something about a person by delving into the meaning of his name. In this case, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ means “God saves” or rescues or delivers. Perhaps we have a foreshadowing of what the two spies are going to encounter.
The root of the word וַיִּשְׁלַח when used as a noun has the connotation of an emissary or agent. So maybe, we have here: “God’s saving emissary”. This could point to either Joshua or the two men or Rachav. My money is on the later.
Joshua sends out two men. They are spies. What kind of spies are they? The text says שְׁנַיִם-אֲנָשִׁים מְרַגְּלִים חֶרֶשׁ. The possible answers may focus on how you interpret the word חֶרֶשׁ. If חֶרֶשׁ is being used as an adverb, then they were sent out secretly. But why the need for secrecy? An obvious answer, and one that relates to our world today, is to avoid intelligence leaks. This is a clandestine secret mission, fraught with danger. The fewer people who know about it, the better. Was there possibly a spy from Jericho in the Israeli camp?...maybe, maybe not, best not take a chance.
חֶרֶשׁ can also mean silently. That’s an easy one; silence or stealth goes without saying. However, חֶרֶשׁ has an implication of being deaf. There is a commentator who suggests that the spies should pose as being deaf. This is so because then the inhabitants of Jericho thinking that they are deaf will talk openly around them, and perhaps reveal secrets.
And perhaps a “deaf” person has difficulty in speaking. By not speaking, the spies won’t be revealing their lack of facility with the Canaanite language.
חֶרֶשׁ can also signify earthenware or clay pots. There is another commentator who suggests that the spies should pose as merchants selling clay pots. This would be their cover when question by the city’s gatekeeper: “What is your business here?” “We’re here to sell our pots”. Likewise, חֶרֶשׁ can also mean a carpenter, and another cover story: “We’re just here to erect some scaffolding for the city’s walls”.
Spies want to blend in. They do not want to be remembered. They do not want to call attention to themselves. A pair of deaf people, pottery salesmen or carpenters are sure to be remembered. And those commentators who are surely heads and shoulders above us laypeople would have benefited if they had read Graham Greene or John LeCarre, both of whom worked for MI6.
Falling back on Rashi, the master of interpretation, I suggest that חֶרֶשׁ refers to the word plow or plowman. The B’nai Yisrael are nomads. At this juncture they are not farmers. I’m thinking that the two spies changed out of their herdsman attire, got rid of the pungent odor of the flocks by taking a good bath and donned a farmer’s clothing. If asked, they tell the gatekeeper that they are in town to buy seeds for next year’s planting. I think it will fly, not only in the sense of a good cover story, but in the literal sense of the text.
The reality however turned out to be that their cover must have been blown from the start. It did not take very long before the King’s henchmen to catch on to them. But for the quick thinking of Rechav, the mission would have been a disaster.
But going beyond the literal sense of the text, consider what a plow or plowman does. It or he turns up the dirt which is exactly what the two spies have been tasked to do. And incidentally, one verse later, that is what they will be accused of, “digging” into the land”, לַחְפֹּר אֶת-הָאָרֶץ.
I could go on and explain how and why Rachav is sometimes referred to as an innkeeper and not a hooker, but by now you get the gist of making interpretations. Try it yourself. Run your commentary past your Rabbi or maybe your wife or husband. Put a smile on Rashi’s face.
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Squeezing a little bit more from the text:
In general terms what were the men that Moshe sent out commanded to do?
Were they spies?
In this Parshah and in Sefer Devarim they are not called by any term.
But, there is a clue as to what they are is found in what they are commanded to do:
In verse one and two , Hashem told Moshe to send out men, and they will וְיָתֻ֨רו the Land…
The infinitive is לתור which means to tour, explore or to survey and is found in verse 17. A person who surveys, looks carefully and thoroughly at someone or/and somethings, so as to do an appraisal of them.
These men are charged to collect information about their enemy who they intend to battle and report on the Land in which they will reside. A person who engages in this activity is a מרגל, a spy.
As an aside: It is interesting to note that without the vowels, וְיָתֻ֨רוּ֙ becomes יתרו, Moshe’s father-in-law, who in my opinion was a conniving renegade spy.
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At the conclusion of the Parshah at 15:39 we are commanded regarding the wearing of tzitzes:
“…and you shall not lust after your heart and after your eyes after which you are going astray”.
וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר-אַתֶּם זֹנִים, אַחֲרֵיהֶם
The translation is a little difficult, but you are already know that זֹנִים is a reference to harlotry, and תָתוּרוּ has something to do with checking things out. However, לְבַבְכֶם, “your hearts”, brings up another issue. In the Chumash, heart does not have a romantic connotation. The function of the heart to the biblical person thirty five hundred years ago comes most close to the function of the mind. There is no word for “brain” in the Chumash. In Egypt at that time, the brain was just a waste product to be discarded in preparing a mummy. The gist of the commandment goes to not exploring lustful thoughts that will get a man into trouble.
In effect, the tzitzes are akin to a male chastity belt.
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