Roots: Rectification and Return
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Parshat Shelach is best known for the unfortunate episode of the spies who toured the Land during the grape harvest, for their return with a negative report of their findings, and for the reaction of Bnei Yisroel. For their crying over their imagined fate in the desert, for not having faith in Hashem, this generation that had been redeemed from Egyptian exile was destined to wander the desert for forty years and die without entering the Promised Land.
Shortly after this decree, Hashem tells Moshe to give Bnei Yisroel two new laws. The first is that when Bnei Yisroel will offer their sacrifices, they will bring a meal offering and a wine libation with it. Second is the mitzvah of separating challah from the first dough. "...When you will eat of the bread of the Land, you shall set aside a portion for Hashem." What is the relevance of these particular mitzvoth to the sin of the spies and to the punishment Bnei Yisroel received?
Rashi answers that Hashem gave these mitzvoth to reassure Bnei Yisroel that even though they would not personally enter the Land, their children would. Nevertheless, asks Shvilei Pinchas, Rabbi Friedman, why, of all the mitzvoth that are specifically tied to the Land, why were these two chosen to fill this role? As an initial response to this question, we will note that these mitzvoth would be observed immediately upon entering the Land, not depending on conquest and settlement.
We can examine this question first on a personal level, The spies understood that in the desert Hashem was feeding them mohn, literally the bread of angels, bread from heaven. Eating was completely spiritual. But we may notice that lechem/bread and milchamah share the same root. The process of eating then becomes a battleground between the yetzer horo and the yetzer hatov continues the Shvilei Pinchas. Earthly food is neutral, but Hashem wants us to elevate the physical and mundane. The spies were afraid that we would fail in this challenge. But with the mitzvah of hafroshat challah, we would infuse the very dough of our earthly bread with sanctity. Therefore, in Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Shimon says that three who eat at a table where no Torah is discussed it is as if they are eating at a table of the dead. In contrast, when Torah is discussed at the table, the table itself is elevated to the state of an altar to Hashem.
Hashem created a world of pleasure, with color, texture, aroma -- everything our senses can enjoy. When we eat, we can indulge in these pleasures as an animal tearing at its prey, diving in purely to gratify our physical hunger, or we can recognize Hashem's investment in every morsel we consume. This is the battle waging within us, writes the Tiferet Shimshon. Will our food be an ענג/ a pleasurable way of connecting to Hashem, or will it be a נגע/an affliction that pulls us into the animal world. Do we recognize that the "bread" represents the world of God, "For it is not by bread alone that man lives, but by the very word that that comes from the mouth of Hashem?" That is the choice we make with every mouthful of bread we consume. Taking a moment to contemplate why I am eating and to bless Hashem transforms that physical necessity of every living creature into a sacred action that brings joy both to man and to God.
This battle traces back to Adam and Chavah in Gan Eden. Their one command from Hashem involved eating. They could eat of every tree, but not of one tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Shvilei Pinchas describes the battle within Adam. Adam understood the temptation that lay before him. After all, all Chavah's senses were aroused by the fruit. Adam relied on his ego, his rationalization that resisting sin when it is internalized and tempting would be greater than obeying Hashem's command without a struggle. But it is precisely the Torah, Hashem's word, that is the antidote to the disease of the yetzer horo.
That is precisely why Rabbi Shimon stated specifically that three who sit and eat without saying words of Torah, it is as if they are eating at a feast of the dead, for that first act of improper eating brought death to the world, and not including Hashem's words as we eat, continues that plague. The three who battled then are the same three who battle now, myself in the center with the yetzer tov and the yetzer ra on either side of me.
Gan Eden was created in Eretz Yisroel, and its name was changed from Gan Eden to Eretz Yisroel. It retains the sanctity of Eden, a sanctity that would be later restored in the Beit Hamikdosh. We were returning not only to the pristine and holy Eden, but also to the place of Man's first sin. Without the heavenly food, with only the earthly food, the spies were afraid we would again fall.
What was the fruit that Adam and Chavah ate? Some say it was wheat, and some say it was grapes. Hashem gives us these two mitzvoth, to sanctify the wine at the altar and to sanctify the bread that we are to eat as a rectification for that first sin writes the Shvilei Pinchas, citing the Ben Ish Chai.
What did the spies bring back from the Land? They took from Nachal Eshkol, literally "the Valley of the Grape Cluster," "and cut from there a vine with a cluster of grapes and carried it on a double pole..." The Shvilei Pinchasquotes an idea that homiletically the spies were trying "to prepare the cure before the plague [the sin] would present itself. According to the medrash, when Hashem created the trees, the tree itself tasted just like its fruit. The trees, not trusting Hashem's wishes, decided that for self preservation, only the fruit, not the trunk and twigs, should be tasty. They created two separate entities where there should have been one.
The trees' defiance of Hashem's command in preference to their own egos and understanding was the model for Adam's sin. The spies sought to rectify the sin of the trees. They took the vine, the "tree," with the cluster of grapes as one unit. But then they put it on a double pole and Raised'/carried it, again inserting their own ego into the process. In everything, Hashem's word is clear, His instructions are straightforward, but man himself creates crooked twists ind turns in the path, using rationalization in service to his ego, writes the Chazon Lamoed, citing the verse from Koheles.
The spies were meant to be emissaries of Hashem, but only Yehoshua and Calev lived up to that mission, erasing any ego and submitting themselves totally to Hashem's will. In fact, notes Halekach Vehalebuv, in all of Tanach, only Moshe and Calev are praised so superlatively as eved Hashem, servants of Hashem. We are all meant to be avdei Hashem, each with our own mission from birth. While still an embryo, we are sworn to be a tzadik and not a rasha.
But ego interferes with this mandate. The spies were heads of their tribes, men of great authority. They feared they would lose their stature upon entering Eretz Yisroel, and so they found a way to rationalize not moving forward, writes Rabbi Bernstein, citing the Zohar..Initially, they did want to repair the rift caused by Adam's sin, but once ego entered, their focus was sabotaged.
Names re meant to reveal the essence of things. The Slonimer Rebbe notes that this land was called כנען /Kenaan, a land with Hashem's special providence for those who are נכנעים / humble before Him. Between their arrogance and their lack of faith in Hashem's protection, the spies sinned.
It is this lack of faith that is the source of our original exile and of future exiles. When we have full faith in Hakodosh Boruch Hu and rely on no one and nothing else, we can eat our bread and drink our wine serenely. Without that faith, we are filled with anxiety, writes Rabbi Solomon Breuer zt”l. We understand and believe that all our basic necessities are provided by Hashem, and by Hashem alone. As Rebbetzin Smiles points out, the same Iron Dome System, when used by Eretz Yisroel, is 98% effective; when used by other nations, it is only about 30% effective.
What is our connection to Eretz Yisroel? When Hashem created Adam, He took dust from the earth, from the earth of Eretz Yisroel, tells us the Medrash. Some parts of Adam were formed from the holiest earth, while other parts were formed from the outskirts of the Land. As such, writes Rabbi Wolfson zt”l, each of us, descendants of the first Man, finds not only our homeland, but our very source in Eretz Yisroel. Jews are descended from the holiest areas of the Land. When we die, our body returns to its source, the earth, while our soul flies upward to its Source. But when we are alive, a Jew maintains a constant connection to Eretz Yisroel whether or not he is aware of it. As such, when Hashem tells Avraham Avinu lech lecha, continues Rabbi Wolfson, He is telling Avraham Avine to go back to his source, to Eretz Yisroel. And the Land itself recognizes this connection, blossoming and being fruitful only when Bnei Yisroel are within it.
The medrash tells us in many places that a spiritual universe exists in heaven that parallels the earthly universe. So while our body originates in Eretz Yisroel, our soul originates in its heavenly parallel, in olam habo, what we call the future world, or the eternal world.
Like two magnets, a Jew is always attracted to Eretz Yisroel unless there is some interference, like an alien culture.
A Jew needs to identify with his real homeland writes Rabbi Sorotskin zt”l in Oznaim Latorah. While he may be residing in New York, California, West Hempstead, Australia—he needs to know his real home is in Eretz Yisroel. If he so identifies, as Yosef continually did in Egypt, he will merit being buried in that holy soil; if not, as Moshe Rabbenu who was called an Egyptian, he will be buried outside the Land.
When Adam sinned, he was ejected from this special land. The meraglim had the opportunity to rectify this sin. Had they not fallen and brought the Nation down with them, Bnei Yisroel would have reentered the earthly Gan Eden. Immediately, Bnei Yisroel realized their terrible mistake and did teshuvah. Hashem responded, writes Rabbi Wolfson, by giving us these two mitzvoth that would reconnect us to our roots. The libation wine poured over the altar would flow through a channel all the way down to to the foundation stone of the earth [even hashesiyah]. Through the mitzvah of challah, the "dough" [we might think of it as clay] that formed the body of Adam is again connected to its sacred origin.
Rabbi Wolfson cites an insight from the Rogatchover Gaon zt”l: Just as a women plucks a small handful of dough from the greater bowl and separates it to perform the mitzvah of challah, so did Hashem "pluck" a handful of earth to form the body of Man. The "hole" formed by this removed piece of dough formed the channel for the libation wine to return to the source of creation. With these mitzvoth, Bnei Yisroel was comforted that they, too, would return to their roots, to Eretz Yisroel, even if not in their lifetime.
Every generation is a reincarnation of the generation of the wilderness. Every generation has the potential to return to Eretz Yisroel. In this generation, we are witnessing the approaching footsteps of Moshiach, encourages us Rabbi Wolfson. May we merit the day our Nation returns to its source very soon, to Eretz Yisroel.