What Was Moshe Thinking?

Why on earth would Moshe agree to send spies to scout out the land of Canaan?  Didn't he realize that the mission was fraught with danger?  

 

Just to very briefly summarize the story:  The Jews left Egypt and received the Torah, and it was time to go and capture the land of Canaan and transform it into the Holy Land of Israel.  Moshe sent 12 spies to scout the land, and ten of them reported that the people in Canaan were strong, the cities were fortified, and that it would be impossible to capture the land.  

 

The people cried all night asking why Hashem had taken them out of Egypt, and Hashem decreed that they would spend 40 years in the desert, until that generation died out.

 

So why did Moshe send the spies?  First of all it was dangerous for the spies themselves, and in fact Hashem miraculously arranged for diversions so that the natives should not notice them.  (Rashi says that wherever they went there were funerals, so the locals were preoccupied and didn't notice the spies.  This was one reason that when they came back to the desert, they reported that it is a land that "consumes its inhabitants.")  

 

In addition, there was the real danger that the spies would come back with a negative report, as in fact happened.

 

Now it is true that a superficial reading of the Biblical text seems to imply that Hashem told Moshe to "send spies for you," so he was seemingly following a command of Hashem.  But the Oral Torah focuses on the word (Shelach) LECHA - send FOR YOU spies.  This implies that it was Moshe's idea and Hashem was allowing him to do it, as opposed to a command from Hashem.  

 

When Moshe recounts the story in Devarim, he tells us how the people came to him and said they want to send spies, and he agreed. He asked Hashem and He said: "Send if you want, I am not telling you to do this." (Rashi.)  So again, the question, why did he do it?

 

There are many commentaries and discussions of this question, and I want to present one perspective.  When the Jewish people were asked by Moshe at Sinai if they would accept the Torah, they said the famous two words: “Na'aseh v'nishma" - we will observe and we will hear, meaning learn and understand.  We committed first to observe the Mitzvot without question, but then to learn and understand their meaning.  

 

While we accept Hashem's will and follow the commandments because He commanded them, Hashem does not want us to be like robots.  He gave us emotions and intellect, and we should use all our faculties to observe the Torah.  Yes, we observe regardless of understanding, but we do need to engage our minds and work to understand what we are doing with our own minds.  

 

At the same time, the fact that we said "we will observe" first, emphasizes that even while we are engaging our own minds, we should not allow ourselves to be limited by our understanding, and observe either way.

 

Moshe had been charged with the Mitzvah of creating the Holy Land of Israel.  Hashem had promised that he would be able to capture it miraculously and the people there would not be able to stop them.  Rather than just take this on blind faith and go into the land with no preparation and no knowledge of the lay of the land, Moshe knew that Hashem would want him to use all natural means, to use his mind and all the tools available to him, to do the Mitzvah.

 

When you want to capture a country, you need to know what the land looks like, what kind of people are there, what kind of strategy you need to use, etc.  Rather than just rely on pure miracles, Moshe sent spies to use their eyes and their minds to figure out the best way to get there.  This was  not something Hashem commanded him, because the whole point was for him to use his mind to figure out the best, natural way to capture the land.

 

So what was the spies' mistake?  Didn't they use logic when they were reporting about the strength of the people and the fortified cities?  Didn't they do exactly what they were supposed to?  The answer is that they got so caught up in the "Nishma" (we will understand) that they forgot the first step - the "Na'aseh" (we will observe).  They were not asked to decide if it was possible to capture the land, just to figure out what it was like and report back, to provide intelligence for the best way to approach the capture.  They extended their report to include their own ideas of whether Hashem's will could, and therefore should, be carried out.

 

There is a lesson that we can learn here in our own lives.  As thinking human beings, we should not just follow the laws blindly.  We need to use our minds to delve deeply into the meanings of the Mitzvot, their significance, their spiritual impact and more.  At the same time we should not forget that all of this comes after the recognition that it is Hashem's Torah, and whatever we understand is only a tiny fraction of its real meaning and purpose.  

 

If we get so caught up in the intellectual pursuit that we forget the foundation of acceptance, we may decide that because we don't understand something we should not observe it.  The other day I saw a post on a Jewish group on Facebook:  "That's why I'm an Atheist - because there is so much in the religion that doesn't make sense."  I wanted to ask him (but didn't want to start a whole thing going) whether he lives his life that way.  Do you understand why a tree stands and a river flows?  If you don't, does that mean they do not exist?

 

Our capacity to understand Hashem's will and wisdom is limited.  Nevertheless, we have been given the gift of understanding, albeit to the extent that a human can comprehend.  The story of the spies reminds us to keep it all in perspective and balance between faith, acceptance and logic.