פרשה: שלח · עלייה: רביעי (נצח)

וידבר השם, G'd said, etc. From the wording of this verse one might get the impression that G'd only now addresses Himself to the nature of Israel's sins and the retribution it is about to receive. This is not so, however, seeing that G'd had already been doing just this starting with verse 11. The reason the Torah appears to repeat these things is because up until now G'd had said these things to Moses in a private conversation. Only now does G'd give instructions to Moses and Aaron i.e. לאמור to communicate all this to the Israelites at large. When you review the chapter up until this verse you will note that the word לאמור did not appear once.

עד מתי לעדה הרעה הזאת, "How long will this evil congregation, etc." The "evil congregation" referred to here are the ten spies. This view is confirmed by Sanhedrin 108. G'd continues: את תלונות בני ישראל; this is a reference to the rest of the people. The words עד מתי imply that even now the spies were still exerting their evil influence on the people preventing them from identifying with G'd. This is the reason that G'd calls these ten men עדה רעה, an evil congregation. When G'd says אשר המה מלינים עלי, He underlines that not only are these people wicked themselves but they attempt to turn the Israelites into wicked people.

את תלונות בני ישראל שמעתי, "I have heard the complaints against Me by the children of Israel." It was necessary to inform us that G'd heard, i.e. He only heard the complaints of the Israelites, not the wicked words of the spies. The meaning of the verse is as follows: "The complaints of the Israelites which have been inspired by the spies I have heard, whereas I have not listened to the spies who have inspired these complaints." The words of the spies were so despicable that G'd did not even want to consider if there was any basis for them that He could find an excuse for.

אמר אליהם…כאשר דברתם, "say to them…as you have spoken, etc." Here G'd relates to the fears the Israelites had expressed, sentiments which G'd had heard and decided to address. As a result, He limited the ages of the people who would die in the desert to those who were over the age of twenty. G'd never allowed the spies themselves to be informed of the decree He was about to hand down as they died a miserable death within the sight of all the Israelites.

מבן עשרים שנה..אשר הלינותם, "from the age of twenty and up..because you have complained against Me." We must try and understand why G'd said אשר הלינתם. If the word אשר is to be equivalent to על אשר (the way we have translated it), then there is nothing new here. G'd had mentioned this already in verse 27!

It appears that these words were necessary in view of G'd having spoken of the decree applying to the people who were twenty and over. We might have interpreted this to mean that anyone 20 years of age at the time of the decree was included in the decree that he had to die in the desert. As a result, men who had not been twenty years old at the time of the Exodus would be included in this decree. To make it clear that this was not so, the Torah says אשר הלינתם, people who were 20 years old from the time you started complaining, i.e. immediately after the Exodus. If anyone of the complainants had been twenty years old at the time he complained, he was now included in the group of people to whom this decree applied. This is precisely what G'd had meant when He told Moses in verse 22 that the Israelites had tested Him already ten times.

Perhaps the generation in question did not notice this nuance of the verse as to who was and who was not included in the decree and they thought that the decree applied only to people who had turned twenty as of that day. As a result of such a faulty interpretation they examined who had died in the fortieth year of their wanderings on the night of the ninth of Av. They found then that not a single one had died on that night. When they checked for the next 5 nights and found that not a single Israelite died during those nights either, they declared the 15th of Av of that year as a day of rejoicing concluding that the decree had come to an end (compare introduction to Midrash Eycha Rabbah.) It is difficult to understand why they should have expected anyone to die during the night of the ninth of Av in that year unless they had misunderstood the meaning of who was included in the description "from twenty years and over."

Possibly, G'd had couched the decree in a language which permitted more than one interpretation, something G'd is fond of doing on occasion. The reason G'd couches something in ambivalent language is to allow for a more lenient interpretation if the people deserve it, or for a more stringent interpretation in the event the people do not deserve it. A classic example of what I have in mind is Genesis 2,17 where G'd warned man not to eat from the tree of knowledge on pain of death. The "death" warning is phrased as follows: "for on the day you eat from it you will surely die." This could be taken to mean that death would be practically instantaneous, i.e. the very same day, or it could be taken to mean that on that day man would become mortal but that death might still be a long way off and that the "day" G'd spoke of was the amount of time He considered a "day" in His calendar, i.e. 1000 years in our time. If Adam would repent, G'd would apply the latter interpretation, if not, He would let Adam die within 24 hours after he had eaten from the fruit of that tree. In our verse G'd also used ambivalent language when the Torah wrote אשר הלינתם. The expression lends itself to two interpretations. 1) על אשר הלינותם, "because you have complained." 2) "from the time you have started to complain the first time," as we explained earlier. G'd meant that if the Israelites would repent and behave from now on He would apply the more lenient of the two interpretations, i.e. only people who had reached the age of twenty before the episode of the spies would die. If the people would become guilty of further misdemeanours, G'd would consider all those who had been twenty years at the time of the first complaint as included in this decree. When G'd had mentioned that the Israelites had tested Him ten times, He referred to the majority of the complainers. When the people realised on the night of the ninth of Av in the fortieth year that no one had died, they celebrated as the decree had finally been lifted from those who had left Egypt while under twenty years of age but had been 20 years of age when the decree was pronounced.

וטפכם אשר אמרתם לבז יהיה, "And as to your children of whom you said they will become prey, etc." Seeing that G'd had said He would do to the people in a manner corresponding to what they had said, and they had said that evil would befall their children if they listened to Caleb and Joshua, G'd now specifically exempts those children from the curse that they would not enter the Holy Land. The Torah adds the conjunctive letter ו in front of the word והבאתי אותם, "and I will bring them," to tell us that not only will these children not become prey, but they will inherit the land their parents should have inherited.

ופגריכם אתם, "As to you, you are already carcasses, etc." Why did the Torah have to write this verse, seeing it had already told us in verse 29 what would happen to the parents of these children? Perhaps the Torah intended to inform us that the children would not be allowed to carry the bones of their parents into the Holy Land with them, as the children of Israel had done with the bones of Joseph and those of the other tribes (Joseph's brothers).

The Torah may also have intended to tell us about another dimension of the death of this generation. Not only would their bodies die in the desert but they would experience an even greater indignity in that their very bodies would become the property of the שר המדבר, the spirtually negative force which rules over the desert. Scholars who have researched this matter agree that there is no more demeaning experience than to be told that after one has become a carcass one will yet experience another "fall." This is why the Torah speaks of פגריכם..יפלו, "your carcasses will fall." If the word "you will fall" had applied only to their actual death, the word "you will fall" should have preceded any word which described the death. To make this point very clear, the Torah wrote: "you who are already carcasses will fall." Clearly, this phraseology refers to something demeaning that will happen to their bodies after their deaths. The Torah is at pains to add the word אתם, "you," to prevent us from interpreting the verse as speaking of something that would happen to the grandchildren of the present generation. In view of the fact that grandchildren are often described as children, seeing the son is part of his father, the Torah was careful to prevent any misunderstanding by writing אתם.

I have heard in the name of scholars who have been expelled from Castilia that they interpreted the word אתם as a reference to Moses and Aaron whose death in the desert G'd had also decreed. Seeing G'd was addressing Moses and Aaron at the time, He used the word אתם when referring to what would happen to them personally. G'd provided a reason for His words when He concluded (verse 35) by saying: אם לא זאת אעשה לכל העדה הרעה הזאת…יתמו ושם ימותו. This can be understood as similar to the way Bamidbar Rabbah 19,13 explains Deut. 33,21: ויתא ראשי עם. The Midrash explains that the reason Moses was buried on the East Bank of the Jordan was to enable the generation of the spies to be resurrected at the time Moses would be resurrected. If Moses and Aaron had not died in the desert, the people would have thought that Moses led a new generation into the land of Canaan and thereby fulfilled his life's mission, whereas the generation which died in the desert was lost forever. Moses had to die and be buried in the desert to keep alive the tradition that eventually he himself would lead the generation he had led out of Egypt to the Holy Land at the time of the resurrection. This is, of course, merely an allegorial interpretation. It is quite inconceivable that the Torah would refer to the bodies of Moses and Aaron as פגר, "carcass." Their bodies were as refined as if they had been angels. The Torah would also not apply the tern נפילה, "fall," to two of the most illustrious human beings such as Moses and Aaron.

אני ה׳ דברתי אם לא זאת אעשה, "I the Lord have spoken, surely this I will do, etc." Why did G'd have to announce that it was He who had been saying all this? Did we not know this? What is the meaning of the words אם לא זאת אעשה? Why did G'd repeat שם ימותו, "they will die there?" This was implied already by the words "they will be consumed in this wilderness." I believe we have to approach this verse by concentrating on the attribute G'd applies to Himself here. He describes Himself as השם, i.e. as the attribute of Mercy. It is an announcement by G'd that the attribute of Mercy concurred with the decision of the attribute of Justice. G'd emphasised דברתי, "I spoke these harsh words," to show that even the attribute of Mercy had to associate itself with this decree. In the event that we would wonder how the attribute of Mercy could agree to subject the people of Israel to such harsh punishment, G'd said "if I do not do this, etc." He meant that If He did not now decree death but extended His patience even longer, in the end He would not only have to deny them life on earth now but He would have to deny them life in the hereafter. This would be due to future acts of spurning G'd of which the Israelites would become guilty. The words במדבר הזה יתמו "they will be consumed in this desert," mean that they would die in שלמות, i.e. that at the time of their deaths their bodies would expire, ושם ימותו, and in the hereafter their souls would die. The only way G'd could forestall such a development was to let them die in the desert now so that they would not also forfeit any chance at a life in the hereafter (according to the view expressed in Sanhedrin 108 that the generation of the desert had not forfeited their life in the hereafter).

והאנשים אשר שלח משה, And the men whom Moses had despatched, etc. This entire verse seems superfluous. We already know that Moses had despatched the spies and what the spies had done. Perhaps this verse wanted to inform us that although under normal circumstances G'd extends His patience also to sinners -as we explained on verse 18- in this instance G'd punished these men immediately. The Torah repeats the nature of their sin in order to explain why they did not deserve G'd's patience.

There are five different circumstances which cause G'd to exact retribution without extending patience towards the sinner. 1) The sinner in question is a person of exceptional stature. When such a person rebels against G'd, He does not want to forgive him. After all, such a person should have known better and cannot expect to be judged by the same standards as an average person who commits a sin. 2) A person who has moved in a Torah-observant society and has abandoned this society to pursue a sinful conduct. 3) If someone experiences a strong urge not to commit a certain sin and he makes every effort to resist that urge and sins regardless of his primordial urge not to sin. The Talmud Menachot 44 illustrates this with the example of someone deliberately ignoring the warning by his ציציות not to go through with his intention to sleep with a certain harlot. 4) If the person involved not only sinned but caused others to sin. 5) If the nature of the sin is greater than normal; the Talmud in Sanhedrin 103 describes Amon the son of King Menashe as committing such a sin when he slept with his mother against her will. When his mother tried to dissuade him claiming he could not possibly derive any gratification from entering an area of her body which he had come out of at birth and which was unclean, he countered that his objective was not gratification but causing G'd to be angry.

In our situation the Torah informed us that G'd did not extend His customary patience to the ten spies in question as they had been guilty of all the five factors we just enumerated. The Torah described the spies as והאנשים, to remind us that these men used to be looked up to as models of Torah-observance. Bamidbar Rabbah on our verse states that the term אנשים throughout Scripture means that such people were knwon for their exemplary conduct. 2) They were described as leaders of thousands, i.e. people looked up to them. They were despatched by a society, i.e. Moses and the children of Israel, all of whom were known to be a healthy Torah-observant environment. 3) Although they were exposed to great dangers in their mission as spies, they had themselves acknowledged that they only returned safely because they had experienced G'd's personal protection. In spite of this they had committed such an ugly sin. 4) The Torah tells us that they not only sinned themselves but caused the whole community to sin, i.e. וילינו עליו את כל העדה, "They caused the whole congregation to murmur against G'd." 5) By slandering the nature of ארץ ישראל they angered G'd although they could not possibly derive any gratification from their sin. It is hardly surprising then that G'd did not extend His patience to such men.

וימותו האנשים מוצאי דבת הארץ רעה, The men who had issued an evil report about the land died, etc. We have to understand this verse as follows: "The men who died were the ones who issued the evil report." We find a parallel construction in Psalms 9,17: בפועל כפיו נוקש רשע, "The wicked person is snared by his own deeds." The verse may also tell us why these people died by pestilence; this was an appropriate tit-for-tat because they had spread evil tales. The words davar, word, and dever, pestilence, are spelled identically.

לפני השם, in the presence of G'd. The Torah means that they died before G'd's presence as represented by the cloud ascended again. The type of permission granted to the destructive forces in this instance differs from that given to the same forces when Aaron and Miriam had been guilty of slandering Moses. On that occasion the Tzoraat had not struck until after G'd departed. The fact that in this case G'd gave permission for the destructive forces to become active immediately indicates the seriousness of the sin of the spies.

ויהושע בן נון, And Joshua son of Nun, etc. Why was there a need to write this verse seeing the Torah had already written that the men who issued the slanderous report died? Besides, what is the meaning of the words מן האנשים, "from amongst the men, etc.?"

The meaning will become clear when we recall a statement by the Talmud Baba Batra 121 that Yair son of Menashe was born while Jacob was still alive. The Talmud queries this seeing that this same Yair was among the people who entered the land of Canaan as we know from Joshua 7,5 where the men of Ai are reported as having killed about 36 Israelites during the latter's first attempt to conquer that town. The Talmud there suggests that the peculiar phrase כשלושים וששה איש, means that only one man was killed and that the man was Yair ben Menashe. The reason the Book of Joshua spoke about "approximately 36 men," is that this Yair was so outstanding a person that he was considered equal to half the members of the Sanhedrin of 71 sages, i.e. 36. At any rate, it is obvious that this Yair was far older than 20 years when he left Egypt. How is it that he was permitted to enter the land of Canaan? Rabbi Acha concludes from this example that G'd's decree to kill the men over 20 applied only to the men between the ages of 20 and 60, i.e. the men who would bear arms and who would have been in danger of being killed by the Canaanites in any attempt to conquer the land. Our verse hints at the conclusion Rabbi Acha arrived at in the Talmud. The reason that Joshua and Caleb were exempted from the decree although they were under the age of 60 at that time was because they had been part of the group of spies and had proven their loyalty to G'd. Had they not been מן האנשים אשר תרו, from amongst the men who toured the land, they too would have been affected by the decree that all men between 20 and 60 had to die in the desert even though they were righteous.

Our verse hints at yet another comment we find in Chagigah 15 that the deserving person inherits also the place in the hereafter reserved for a person who forfeited it through having become wicked. The words מן האנשים allude to Caleb and Joshua inheriting the share the other ten spies would have inherited in the hereafter had they not spread slander about the land. They also took over the shares reserved for these spies inside the land of ארץ ישראל (compare Baba Batra 117).

אל תעלו כי אין ה׳ בקרבכם, "do not go up for G'd is not in your midst." Moses gave two reasons why the מעפילים should not attempt to invade the land of Canaan. 1) G'd was not in their midst. 2) Seeing that G'd was not in their midst, i.e. had not approved their plan, any attempt to invade the land of Canaan now would be an act of rebellion against G'd. You will find that Moses spells this out in Deut. 1,43 when he recalled to the new generation that he had warned their fathers at the time not to attempt to invade the land and thereby to rebel against G'd.

כי העמלקי והכנעני שם, "for the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there, etc." The meaning is clear: The ten spies had given as the reason that the people would be unable to conquer the land the very presence of the Amalekite and the Canaanite. In view of this, any attempt to invade that part of the land knowing that G'd was not in their midst was an act of rebellion as it reflected the fact that they relied on themselves rather than on G'd. Moses warned that the certain result of such an attempt would be that they would fall by the sword just as the ten spies had predicted.

ויעפילו לעלות אל ראש ההר, But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain, etc. They erred in thinking that by ascending the mountain they could demonstrate their faith in G'd and that as a result G'd would save them. G'd was not impressed, 1) for their punishment was still too recent to have run its course, and 2) the decree had been made absolute so that G'd could not reverse it. Please compare what I have written on this subject in Deut. 1,43.

כי תבואו אל ארץ מושבותיכם, "when you will come to the land of your habitations, etc." When G'd saw the despondency of the Jewish people over the decree that He had issued against them to wander aimlessly in the desert for forty years, He provided some encouragement for their hearts by instructing them in commandments which would apply only once they lived in the land of Canaan. G'd wanted to keep this prospect before their eyes in order to make their lives more meaningful. If one knows that at the end of a certain period of time one will experience fulfilment of one's hopes then the time lag until then becomes less onerous. G'd made sure to write אשר אני נותן לכם, "which I am about to give to you," although the generation He addressed had already been described as carcasses. He taught the people that the accomplishments of the children reflect credit also on their parents seeing the children are meant to be the extension of their parents.

Another reason why the Torah wrote here נותן לכם, "am about to give you," may be based on Sanhedrin 90 where the Talmud raises the question "where it is written in the Torah that there will be a resurrection?" The Talmud quotes Exodus 6,4: "and I will also keep My covenant with them (the patriarchs) to give the land of Canaan to them." The fact that the Torah did not write "to you," seeing the living Israelites were being addressed, proves that the patriarchs will be resurrected. In our verse the Torah addresses "carcasses." The verse makes sense only if it presumes that these "carcasses" will be resurrected and will take possession of their land.

והקריב המקריב קרבנו, When the person offering his sacrifice is about to do so, etc. An examination of the relative amounts of oil which are to be part of the meal-offerings appears at first glance to be proportional to the amounts of solids used in those offerings, i.e. the amount of flour. Similarly, the amount of wine which accompanies an animal sacrifice as a drink-offering is also proportional to the size of the animal being offered as a sacrifice. Why does the Torah make an exception to these proportions (compare verse 6) in our verse when the amount of flour used in the meal-offering is one tenth of an eyphah, i.e. a quarter hin which is equivalent to three lugin? [this is a proportionally much larger amount of oil than with other sacrifices. Ed.] Please refer to the Mishnah in Menachot 107. Maimonides writes in chapter 17 of his treatise on Maaseh Hakorbanot that "someone may voluntarily donate, or promise by means of a vow, a drink-offering to consist only out of wine, provided the minimum quantity is two lugin. He is not allowed to donate an offering consisting entirely out of oil even if the quantity is 2 lugin oil, as we do not find meal-offerings containing such a small amount of oil. One may also not donate one log or two lugin wine, however, as the drink-offerings accompanying animal offerings require larger amounts of wine than that." Thus far Maimonides on the subject. This may be the reason why in our verse the Torah is not satisfied with the person offering the meal-offering donating two lugin oil to be mixed with the tenth of the eyphah of flour although when the amount of flour in the meal-offering consists of two tenths eyphah of flour, the Torah had stated that 4 lugin oil are required. This is to teach you that a drink-offering of wine must not consist of less than two lugin of wine.

One may be tempted to argue that this reasoning is only correct concerning the amount of wine in the respective drink-offerings, seeing that according to Rabbi Tarfon (Zevachim 91) an offering consisting of oil only is acceptable even in a relatively small amount. We find a difference of opinion in the Talmud Menachot we have quoted, one sage holding that one may donate as little as one log of oil as a separate offering. According to the reasoning presented in the Talmud for this latter opinion, why did the Torah not remain consistent in its presentation of the relative amounts of oil and flour? We may have to conclude that the Torah was anxious to equalise the respective amounts of oil and wine to be used in these drink or meal-offerings respectively which accompany the animal offerings.