Avraham Burg
Photo: Avigail Uzi
Convincing God
Moses managed to avert a national death sentence by arguing directly wtih God. We must do the same
Most people know the story of the spies: the Israelites, recently liberated from Egypt, on the eve of entering the Promised Land, screwed it all up, both the assignment and meaning of the generation.
“How could it be”, ask all the commentators. How could the freed Egyptian slaves fall from receiving the Torah to wandering in the desert? Deep down, what were they afraid of?
So what if the spies brought back frightening information about the enemy awaiting them just over the river - Egypt was far more formidable an enemy than the kings of Canaan, yet the Jews were saved by a higher power. Whatever the spies may have said, there was no reason to fall apart so completely.
And even if they were afraid, and lacked self confidence – why couldn’t God have a little bit of patience? After all, He took them out of Egypt – why was He so angry, madder than He’d been since the glory days in the Garden of Eden, Noah’s flood, Sodom and Gemorrah?
Manic nation
Let us read between the lines to draw out several small details. One touches on the thread connecting of the Israeli people and the interface of the true, and desireable, relationship between God and man.
The reader cannot escape the national manic-depression. One minute they send 13 spies- a large contingent, arrogant and obvious, saying, “we are not afraid.”
The next minute, they’re back, telling everyone they would be “like grasshoppers” to the giants of Canaan. In other words, even they looked us over, and we lost our self confidence and once again started to look at ourselves as weak grasshoppers.
Afterwards, everyone cries and complains, and God responds with fuming anger. “I will smite them with the plague and annihilate them,” He tells Moses (Numbers 14:12), as if to say He will wipe out the whiners.
But then He changes His mind, sweetening the death sentence with endless wandering in the desert.
For their part, the Jews gather themselves together to embark on a maniacal attack on the very same enemy – and lose.
Atomic to Auschwitz
Depression and enthusiasm, endless whining and national bragging have always been character faults for all of us, and it would appear that not much has changed. One day we are depressed, the next ecstatic. One minute, we’re an atomic power, the next—back at Auschwitz.
On the other hand, something very deep has happened to God – and not for the only time (even if since then we have made every effort to conceal this quality from our relationship with Him).
Something happened after that outburst of anger, after he wanted to end it all with the Chosen People. Moses displays the supreme power of persuasion on behalf of a nation that has also given him no shortage of headaches.
Jewish mother
Again, he appeals to God’s image: “the nations of the world will say… God lacked the ability to bring this nation to the land He had sworn to give them. He slaughtered them in the Wilderness.” (Numbers 14:16)
“It’s not worth it,” says Moses. “Think about what they will say about You,” sounding suspiciously like a classic Jewish mother. “Public opinion,” he whispers politically – and the impossible happens. “And God say, “I have forgiven because of your words.” (Numbers 14:20).
Amazing. One man, Moses, has managed to change a Divine decision.
Changing God
This would appear to be the strongest message of faith in this week’s parsha. This is the honest and appropriate relationship between the faithful and God.
Our God does not expect us to be robots who accept everything, including collective, summary death sentences with no argument. He is an attentive and changing God, prepared to change His mind if convinced by mortal man.
He is not the closed off, stubborn or distant God He is portrayed to be by fanatic commentators and His self-appointed Earthly “representatives.”
Relations like this between man and his Creator are a key to establishing a new type of relationship between ourselves and the proverbial Big Man (or Woman) in the sky.
It’s a fact – Moses is successful, and you and I are all obliged to do the same. It’s the only way reality will change, from a decree without explanation to fantastic life, full of compromise.
