Parshas Shelach 5769

Take heed Evildoers

“And Hashem spoke to Moshe to say, “Send for yourself men and they will tour the Land of Canaan which I am giving to the Children of Yisroel, one man according to the tribe of his fathers you shall send, each one a great person from them” (Bamidbar 13:1 – 2)

“Why did the Torah juxtapose the parsha of the spies to the parsha of Miriam, (who was afflicted with tzaras)? Because she was afflicted on account of that which she said about her brother, (that he shouldn’t have separated from his wife), and these evildoers saw this and didn’t take heed.” Rashi

Why does Rashi have to give an explanation of why these two parshios are next to each other? Even though “there is no chronological order in the Torah”, this only applies when we are forced into saying this through a problem in maintaining chronology. Otherwise we can be confidant that the Torah is chronological. The events of Bereishis occur in chronological order, without any indication otherwise, there is no reason to believe that there has been a departure from the format whch has been established from the beginning of the Torah.

Rashi doesn’t need to give any reason for these parshios being juxtaposed; they are together because this is the order of their occurrence! (As is written in Seder Olam, “They traveled from Kivros HaTaavah and came to Chatezros and were there seven days as it says, “And Miriam was quarantined seven days”. They traveled from Chatezros and they came to the Wilderness of Paran on the 29th Sivan. And on the 29th Sivan Moshe sent spies, etc.”)

The Maskil L’Dovid asks this question and adds that Rashi only explains the juxtaposition of two passages in chronological order when there is a need to explain an issue in the language of a verse.

Thus he explains that Rashi’s intentionis to tell us Hashem’s communication with Moshe regarding the permissibility of sending spies could only have taken place once the people had seen and absorbed the consequences of evil speech.

Now all that’s left is to understand…………….

The next Rashi explains, “Send for yourself, according to your own decision, I am not commanding you, if you want to; send! Because Yisroel came and said, “\end for us men in front of us”, as it says, “And all of you drew close to me” (Devorim 1:22). And Moshe consulted with the Shechinah . “I said that (the land) is good,” as it says, “I shall raise you up from the affliction of Egypt etc.” (Shemos 3:17) “By your lives, I shall giveyou an opportunity to make a mistake through the words of the spies so as not to inherit it!”

To summarize:
The people wanted to send the spies.
Hashem had already guaranteed the quality of Eretz Yisroel and their conquering and settling thereof.
This desire to send the spies thus signified a lack of faith.
This lack of faith did not mean that they weren’t worthy of the land, rather that they were to get the opportunity of delaying their entrance to the land. Before this the inheritance of the generation of the Exodus was assured.

With a flaw in their faith, Yisroel were in danger of being particularly receptive to a negative report from the spies., therefore to balance this, the permission to send spies could only be given after the consequences of evil speech had been seen, in order that the spies themselves should be deterred from giving a negative report.

(in terms of mida keneged mida, the suitability of the punishment to the crime, the sin was to have a lack of faith in Hashem’s promise to give them the land, and so to rely on human effort, the punishment was for Hashem to remove His assurance and enable Yisroel to decide to postpone their entry.)