In our synagogue, we follow the ancient Palestinian method of completing the entire Torah reading in three years. This year we are reading the second third of every portion. In this week’s portion of Shelach Lecha, there is one central theme: The scouts.

The Mission of the Scouts:

In preparation for living in Israel, Moses (at God's command) sends twelve scouts (one from each tribe), to visit the land. Moses preps them with specific questions: Are the people strong or weak? Do they live in cities? Is the land fertile? Are the towns open or fortified? When the scouts enter the land, they observe how fertile the land truly is. Yet, they are intimidated by the size of the people. In returning to the desert with their report, ten of the twelve scouts report that the people there are fierce and that the land is a land that devours its settlers. In addition, the scouts considered themselves as “grasshoppers” compared to the mighty giants dwelling in Canaan (the name by which Israel was known in Torah days). Of the twelve scouts, only Joshua and Caleb report optimistically. When the masses hear the report, they murmur against Moses and Aaron, speaking nostalgically about their days in Egypt. In response to their panic and rebellion, God threatens to destroy most of the nation and only withholds such threats when Moses intercedes.

The reaction of the 10 “pessimistic” scouts and the general population devastates and frustrates Moses. As a result of their excessive doubts, the people will be subjected to forty years of wandering in the desert. The generation which left Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb, will die in the wilderness. Only the younger generation will inhabit Canaan. It is evident that the generation liberated from Egypt is not physically, spiritually or emotionally prepared for independence in their own land. The fact that they speak nostalgically about Egypt (the land of their oppression) best illustrates their fragile state of mind!

Some questions and thoughts about the story: We know that God promised the land to b'nai yisrael. Why then require human scouts to observe the land? We learn that despite God's promise, the nation could not rely on miracles; human initiative was important. Unless the people were prepared for the challenge of living an independent life in a new land, they would still carry a slave mentality cultivated in Egypt. Only a generation raised in the desert could enter the Land of Israel with the confidence necessary to succeed.

During my year as a rabbinical student in Israel, I attended a three-day conference at Yad V’Shem. Scholars throughout the world gathered to present papers on various themes about the Concentration Camps. During one session, led by Israeli authors (who wrote about the Holocaust), a young woman asked a well-intended question about Jewish passivity against Nazi brutality. Why didn’t anyone fight back? She was speaking as a young Israeli, living in an independent state equipped with a powerful army. She could not comprehend the notion of a “meek” Jewish community. Such reasoning has led many Israelis to negate Jewish history during the two thousand years of Diaspora life.

The surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, led to some shocking, initial doubts about the ability of Israel’s military to protect them. Albeit briefly, the Hamas brutality recalled Nazi barbarism and Israelis were certainly unaccustomed to such victimization. Fortunately, over time many of those doubts abated.

One of the great Yiddish writers of the nineteenth century was Yehuda Leib Peretz. Peretz wrote about the traditional, pious and (often) meek Eastern European Jew; resistant to modernity and subjected to the rule of authorities often hostile to Jews. Such realities were anathema to the modern Israeli, who rebelled against such thinking. The stereotypical Eastern European Jew and the ancient desert Israelites shared a similar slave mentality. Both were willing to endure a life of oppression as an inevitable fact of life. The desert generation, when confronted by new challenges, yearned for a return to Egypt; no matter how severe their past enslavement. Likewise, the Eastern European Jew endured trying conditions to simply live a life of piety.

Because of their nostalgic thinking toward Egypt, the desert generation had to die out. Their children, raised in freedom, will enter the land of Canaan to establish a Jewish home.

Looking at the scout narrative from an alternative perspective: What was so terrible about the scout's pessimistic report? After all, Moses sent them to observe the Land and to do some fact finding based on a series of questions. They diligently follow Moses' command and return with an honest report of what they saw. If their report were pre‑determined, why send them in the first place?

What the scouts lacked was an understanding of what it meant to inhabit a land; a land which required military defense and serious labor to succeed as a nation. Despite the hardships in Egypt, the Israelites lived there by a regular and consistent schedule. They knew when they would eat and how many hours they would labor. Never mind the regular abuse they endured; there was certainty to their daily lives. In Israel, the national future depended entirely on the people themselves and such a notion was frightening. When the scouts observed that the people living in Canaan were “giants,” they made a hasty judgment about the land without much visionary thinking. Their attitude of resignation was totally contrary to the attitude of the 19th-20th century Zionist pioneers, who built the Land of Israel under imposing physical and military conditions.

At no point in the Torah does God, Moses, or anyone else argue that living in Israel would be easy. Certainly today, Israelis fully appreciate the struggles of living in a nation surrounded by hostile nations and terrorists, whose mission is Israel’s annihilation. Those who make aliyah do so not for the convenience, but out of deep commitment to living in a Jewish Zionist state.

Why did God get angry? How can we express faith in a wrathful God who Is impatient with the nation? If we believe that the Torah represents a human account of the biblical experience, then we can understand how God is portrayed; a God seeking human partnership in order to perfect the world. The faithlessness of the people frustrates and even impedes God's design to create a nation which lives according to high spiritual and ethical standards.

Haftorah: Joshua 2:1-24 (pages 857-859)

Parallel to the Torah reading, the Haftorah details how Joshua sent two observers to scout out the city of Jericho. Unlike their predecessors, the two scouts return with a favorable report. They are assisted and protected by Rahab, a courageous innkeeper who acted in the spirit of other courageous non-Israelites in the Bible (the Egyptian midwives and Pharaoh’s daughter come to mind).