Parshat Shelach  28 Sivan 5763, 28 June 2003

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - Everyone who thinks of this week's Torah portion emphasizes the heinous sin of the Scouts, the refusal of ten tribal princes and- under their influence- the entire desert generation, to attempt to conquer the Land of Israel as a result of their ill-advised reconnaissance mission. And of course the Divine punishment is immediately meted out:"... Your children.... Will be the ones whom I shall bring here (to the Promised Land)..."You however will fall as corpses in the desert" (Numbers 14:31,32).

But what follows this sin and punishment is an even stranger account, a story which seems to dispute the very power of repentance to achieve forgiveness and a second chance."Moses related these words (of penalty and desert destruction) to all the children of Israel... And they arose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying:"We are now ready; let us go up to the place that G-d described: we have sinned!" And Moses said,"... Do not go up; G-d is not in your midst.... But (the people) wickedly (Hebrew Vaya'apilu, which Targum takes to mean wickedly, and Rashi translates as defiantly) went up to the top of the mountain, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses did not move from the midst of the encampment. The Amalakites and the Canaanites who dwelt on that mountain scooped down and defeated (the Israelites), pursuing them with crushing force all the way to Hormah" (Numbers 14: 39-45).

But why was G-d not in their midst? Why did the Almighty cause the Israelites to be defeated? They seem to have repented; they were apparently trying to repair the sin of the scouts and make it to Israel! Why is this story taken as an added transgression rather than as an act of repentance, the repair, or tikkun, for the major transgression of the desert!

I would add to this major question, which is asked by the Abarbanel as well as by other Biblical commentaries, a further question. What follows this incident of the ma'apilim (the wicked or defiant climbers of the mountain) seem to be a string of disparate commandments which hardly seem connected to our theme of the Land of Israel: the sacrificial offerings, the gift of hallah, national atonement for unwitting transgressions, the sin of the wood gatherer on the Sabbath and the commandment of the ritual fringes. What have these laws to do with each other, and what is their collective connection to the sin of the scouts and the story of the ma'apilim?

Let us begin by trying to comprehend the negative quality of the action of the mountain climbers. The Biblical text initially hints that we are not dealing with an act of true repentance by the perverted order of their words:"we are now ready. Let us go up to the place... We have sinned" (Numbers 14:40). Repentance demands recognition of sin and contrition for past misdeeds; only after atonement has been made, ought the individual proceed with his act of reparation. Here they are focused first and foremost on the place; they mention their sin merely as an afterthought without any expression of contrition.

The issue becomes even clearer as the text continues. Moses tells them not to ascend the mountain to Israel because G-d is not in their midst; they are Israel oriented rather than G-d oriented, committed to occupying a land rather than to fulfilling Divine will. Indeed, they barely seem to recognize the relationship between the physical soil of Israel and the Divine soul of Israel.

Hence,"(the people) wickedly went up to the top of the mountain while neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses moved out from the midst of the encampment (ibid. 14:44)." Remember they had been warned only one verse previously that"up ahead were the Amalekites and the Canaanites, and you will fall by the sword" (ibid. 14:43); and they had already gotten the message that"(Only) when the Ark (of the Lord) went forth, (would) Moses say,"Arise Oh G-d and scatter your enemies and cause those who hate you to flee before you'" (Numbers 10:35). Nevertheless, these defiant mountain-climbers were prepared to face their enemies on their way to the Land of Israel without the Ark of G-d and without Moses, the prophet of G-d. Apparently they were completely secular Zionists, who may have been committed to the land but were blind to its Divine mission and messages.

Perhaps this is what Rabbi Yehuda Ben Betera had in mind when he argues against Rabbi Akiva- that Tselafhad, whose daughters insisted on their feminine rights of inheritance to the land of Israel, was one of the defiant mountain climbers (ma'apilim) and not the Sabbath desecrator who gathered wood (B.T. Shabbat 96b). The Bible teaches that Tselafhad died in the desert because of his sin. Rabbi Yehuda Ben Betera refuses to accept the fact that the father of such righteous lovers of Zion could have been guilty of a crime as major as that of Sabbath desecration as Rabbi Akiva maintains. He prefers to believe that his sin was rather that of the ma'apilim, an incomplete appreciation of the Land of Israel. But Tselafhad did succeed in transmitting his passion for the Land of Israel to his daughters, who added their commitment to G-d.

From this perspective, we can well understand the list of laws which follow the incident of the ma'apilim. The Bible reminds the Israelites that when they do ultimately enter the land, they must be mindful of its true purpose: offerings to G-d, national atonement, commitment to the Sabbath and involvement in all 613 commandments. The land of Israel and the laws of the Torah must be connected as one to express the true mission and message of our nation.

Shabbat Shalom.

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