Weekly Torah portion: Shelah Lekha
Send men to search the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people; send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them." So Moses, by the Lord's command, sent them out from the wilderness of Paran, all the men being leaders of the Israelites (Numbers 13:2-3).
The Bible describes the twelve spies with the words ‘man,’ ‘chieftan’ and ‘leaders of the Israelites.’ Rashi explains that in the Bible, the term ‘men’ always refers to men of stature. Nevertheless, In the commentary to his translation of the Bible, Prof. Robert Alter notes: “These names are entirely different from the names of the tribal chieftains previously reported. Most of the names, moreover, do not appear elsewhere in the Bible.” The Hebrew term for chieftain or president – nasi - derives from the root ‘to lift’ or ‘to raise up’. Thus, Rashi’s grandson R. Samuel b. Meir (Rashbam) explains that the term nesi’im is not to be understood as appointed chieftains but as referring to people “whose hearts lifted them up to go,” that is, it refers to people who found it in their hearts to volunteer for the mission.
Ten of the returning spies present a negative report. But despite their disheartening words, there report is only referred to a ‘calumny’ later:
Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had searched, saying, "The land that we traversed and searched is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size; we saw the Nephilim there — sons of the giant from the Nephilim — and we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes” (13:32-33).
The word tur – ‘to search’ or ‘to scout’ – in its various forms appears twelve times in the narrative. It occurs twice in the spies’ ‘calumny,’ along with a repetition of the words ‘saw’ and ‘eyes.’ Bearing this in mind, it is interesting to note that the parasha ends with the mitzva of tzitzit:
And it shall be a fringe for you, and you shall see it and be mindful of all the Lord’s commandments and you shall do them. And you shall not search after your heart and after your eyes, after which you go whoring (15:39)
Rashi explains: “And you shall not search after your heart - This is like ‘searching the land.’ The heart and eyes are the body’s spies that bring it sins. The eye sees and the heart lusts, and the body sins.”
1. Why does Rashbam present the spies as volunteers rather than as chieftains, as would appear to be the plain meaning of the text?
2. “And we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.” The spies do not suffice in reporting what they saw, but also report how they appeared to the residents of the land. How did they know how they were perceived? Why did they add it to their report?
3. What did the spies add to their original account that turned their report into ‘calumny’?
4. The spies acknowledged that the land was indeed “flowing with milk and honey” as God had promised, but they question the possibility of taking possession of it in light of what they saw. How does seeing the tzitzit remedy this kind of ‘seeing’?
Iyunei Shabbat is published weekly by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, The Masorti Movement and The Rabbinical Assembly of Israel in conjunction with the Masorti Movement in Israel and Masorti Olami-World Council of Conservative Synagogues.
Chief Editor: Rabbi Avinoam Sharon
