Look, Don't Scheme - Shelach 5784

We read an intriguing story this week. The Jews are ready to enter the land of Israel, and, based on a request by the people, Moshe sends spies to “tour the land.”  They return with very disturbing reports. Ten of them insisted that the nation would not be able to capture the land, and the two who disagreed were not allowed to speak up. 

There is a seeming contradiction at the very beginning of the story. Moshe handpicked the 12 “anashim” - men.  Rashi points out that the word anashim is a statement of importance. “At that time they were “kesherim” - kosher, meaning righteous people, not malicious sinners as they turned out later.

Nevertheless, we see that Moshe must have had some concerns. He changed the name of the leader of the tribe of Efraim, who would become Moshe’s successor, from Hoshea to Yehoshua (Bamidbar 13:16). Rashi tells us the name Yehoshua represents two words of prayer: Kah Yoshiacha - may Hashem save you from the scheme of the spies. (The word “scheme” is interesting here.  One would think he would have said “the sin of the spies.”)

So which is it?  Were they kosher and only turned bad later, or were they scheming evildoers from whom Moshe needed to protect Yehoshua?  And on the other side of the coin, if Moshe saw that the spies intended to derail the plans for the Jews to enter the land, why didn’t he cancel the mission?

The Rebbe gives a brilliant answer to this paradox, based on the fact that the Torah never actually uses the word “spy” (meraglim in Hebrew) about these 12 men  Also the mission was not “leragel et haaretz” - to spy the land.  The words Moshe used were “latur et haaretz” - to tour or scout the land.  This is not just a semantic difference, but a completely different idea.

To tour or scout a place involves going to a place and seeing what is there.  There is no need to hide your identity.  To spy, on the other hand, means to gain information that can be used to infiltrate or attack, and uses subterfuge to hide your identity.

Hashem established that He would bring the Jews into Israel.  Moshe did not need anyone to go and spy, or to  figure out how to capture the land.  The people wanted to know the situation there, as is natural when preparing for war.  Moshe felt it was important to allow this request, rather than have the people wonder if he was hiding anything.

So he picked leaders of the people to scout the land, to be sure that they fulfill the mission faithfully.  Then when they met to discuss the mission, Moshe saw that they thought of themselves as spies, and planned to come up with schemes on how to capture the land.  He did not cancel the mission because at the outset they were still “kosher.”  They were not planning to bring back a negative report.  

But Moshe was concerned that their scheming would lead to problems, both because they were using their own calculations to determine what was possible, and also because the subterfuge required to spy would set them on a path of deceit which itself could lead to negative consequences.

So Moshe prayed to Hashem for his future successor, the future leader of the Jewish people Yehosua, to follow the mission faithfully and stay away from any scheming.  We also find that Kalev, who also remained faithful to the mission, went to Chevron to pray at the grave of our forefathers that he should have the strength not to follow the others’ schemes. (Rashi, Ibid:22.)

In the end, as the spies moved away from Moshe’s path of truth and his mission of simply scouting the land, they decided to give their opinion on the feasibility of the conquest.  This led them to the terrible mistake of questioning whether or not they could enter the land, and to the entire nation spending 40 years in the desert.

One lesson we can take from this is that when it comes to doing a Mitzvah, while we have to use all our natural abilities to perform it, like Moshe sending scouts to the land, we should never question whether we will be able to do it.  If Hashem has given us the Mitzvah, we will certainly succeed, if we proceed with faith and resilience, and use all our abilities to fulfill it.