In this week’s Parsha, Shelach-Lcha, God tells Moses to send out scouts, each of them being the leaders of their tribe. Moses sent them out from the desert of Paran.

The scouts were Shammua son of Zaccur, from the tribe of Rueben; Shaphat son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon; Caleb son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah; Igal son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar; Hosea son of Nun, from the tribe of Ephraim (but Moses changed his name to Joshua); Palti son of Rafu, from the tribe of Benjamin; Gaddiel son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulun; Gaddi son of Susi, from the tribe of Manasseh; Ammiel son of Gemalli, from the tribe of Dan; Sethur son of Michael, from the tribe of Asher; Nahbi son of Vophsi, from the tribe of Naphtali; Geuel son of Machi, from the tribe of Gad.

Moses asked the scouts to find out what it was like in the Negev and the hills. He asked them: “Are the people strong or weak? Is the country good or bad? Are their towns open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not?” He told them to bring back fruit of the land.

They went up and scouted the land from the wilds in Zin to Rehob, at Lebo-Hamath. In the Negev, they found Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites. They also cut some grapes from a plant and named the grove in which it was located the Wadi Eschol (which means valley of the cluster).

After forty days, the scouts came back to Moses and the Israelites in Paran. They gave Moses the fruit of the land. They said the land flowed with milk and honey, there are fortified cities and the people are both numerous and powerful, with Anakites in the cities, Amalekites in the Negev, Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites in the hill country, and Canaanites by the Sea and the River Jordan.

Caleb tried to hush all of the scouts but they spread rumors among the Israelites. They said that the country devours its settlers and that the Anakites were as to us as we are to grasshoppers. Caleb and Joshua recommended invasion, but the Israelites did not listen. God then said that only Joshua, Caleb, and all of the Israelites under 20 years would make into the Promised Land. The rest would die in the next forty years.

In a similar story, we learn in the Haftorah about forty years later, Joshua sent out two scouts from Shittim, to go scout Jericho. The scouts went to the house of a prostitute named Rahab. The King of Jericho found out, and told Rahab to bring them to him, but Rahab lied and told the king they had left her house. The king sent men after the scouts, but when they left the city, the gate shut behind the men.

Rahab said to the Jewish scouts that the inhabitants were afraid of the Jews, and had no heart to oppose them. Rahab then makes a deal with the scouts: If she helps them escape from the city, they will spare her family when they invade. But, as the scouts say to Rahab, if one of her family leaves her house during the invasion, they don’t have to spare them. They leave, and tell Joshua what they have found out (that the land is cowering before them and the Lord), 
The scouts went into Canaan, saw what was there, and fled back to their camp. These men were supposedly the finest of their tribes, so what they saw must have been quite terrifying. These men had seen shocking things before though; they had seen the 10 plagues, the Egyptians drowning in the red sea. Canaan must have been even worse for them to react in such a way.

Canaan meant a new future. The scouts were scared not only of the giants and fortresses, but the future. It’s easy enough to leave slavery where life was terrible, but it’s another thing to go into the big world. For the Israelites, Canaan was the bigger picture. The scouts must have not understood what the future meant for the Israelites.

God was leading the Israelites into the land of Canaan. So, in trying to stop the Israelites from moving forward, they were proving themselves to be against God. But this is the true sin of the scouts. Not that they discouraged Moses and the Israelites, or that they angered Moses, its that they didn’t have trust in God’s abilities. 

The truth is, being scared is good (sometimes). The thing about the scouts is that, while they knew not to jump into a pool of crocodiles (Canaan), they were afraid to use the bridge over it: God. God knew that they would be able to take over Canaan. Why else would the Israelites be lead there? God was trying to help them.

The word Aliyah, which is what a move to Israel is called, literally means to ‘go up,’ which implies that it is spiritually and morally uplifting for Jews to go to Israel. Conversely, to leave Israel (yerida) means to go down, or descend. At that time, it was better for the Jewish people to be in the land of Israel.

God was trying to move the people higher; forward into the land, into the future as well. People should be scared of the future to a point. It would be careless, not to mention dangerous, to not be cautious. For the Israelites, the future might have meant bad things happening, war, and persecution, but didn’t good things happen too? The Israelites would have had a land to call their own,

Look at Rahab. She knew what was going to happen. She knew she couldn’t stop the invasion of Jericho, so she helped the Jews. Instead of getting killed, she (and her family) survived, and moved onward. She was not afraid of the future. She made the future possible. She had faith in the future, even though she was most likely scared of what it might mean for Jericho.

It may have been harder for the Israelites to move higher because the Israelites didn’t know God yet. God had left the Israelites alone for 400 years in Egypt. There was no way for the Jews to know what God can (or will) do. Sure, They saw God part the Red Sea, and the ten plagues, but that was before the Jews experienced the things that come with walking for 6 months in the desert. They didn’t identify themselves as God’s people yet. They were under God’s protection, but what did that mean to people who had little idea of what God meant yet?

The scouts in particular must have been ignorant of God. They were supposed to follow God’s orders (like any Jew). They did that, because it wasn’t particularly dangerous. But when they gave their report, knowing that God wanted the Israelites to invade, and gave a contradictory account (Caleb and Joshua recommending invasion, and the other ten scouts warning against it) the ten scouts put their personal fears above God.

Caleb and Joshua trusted God. The other scouts didn’t know God sufficiently to trust him enough to let their personal worries be dissuaded by God. When Caleb and Joshua let God put an end to their worries, they were proving themselves braver than the other ten.

It may seem peculiar that the 10 scouts died, just for telling (what seems to be) the truth. Is trying to help your people avoid danger suddenly disloyal? Does lying make you loyal?

Where is the line between loyalty and blind loyalty? Loyalty has its place (respect for a good leader or a healthy country). However, there is a time where you should not tell a sovereign good news. Why tell the prime minister of a country that the army is beating the enemy, when they simply aren’t?

Here is the thing: The 10 scouts were holding back the Israelites. The ten scouts were the chieftains of their tribes. The 10 scouts could not have been in a position of authority if Israel was to go forward. When the people in charge disagreed with God’s priorities, it could have held back the Israelites. The Israelites could not afford to be too scared to invade. They needed to be in Israel. The 10 scout’s dissent had troubled the Israelites to such a degree that they were stopping Israel from progressing. While the scouts need to be stopped, they should not have been killed.

Time doesn’t stop for anybody. Scared or not, you cannot prevent the future, no more than you can stop the tides. The only way to change the future is how you react. While being like Joshua and Caleb is inspiring (and much harder), it’s much worse to try and stop the future, like the spies did. Just go with the flow of time. I know, it sounds kind of corny, but it makes a queer sort of sense. I mean, what else can you do?

Shabat Shalom