Parshas Shlach

This week’s Torah portion, Parshas Shelach, tells one of the most pivotal and heartbreaking stories in the entire Torah. After the Jews leave Egypt, accept the Torah at Sinai, and journey through the desert, they are ready to enter Israel, the land Hashem promised us. Hashem reluctantly allows it, and Moshe sends twelve spies, one from each tribe, to scout the land of Canaan. They return forty days later. Ten of the twelve conclude that the people living there are giants, the cities are fortified, and there is simply no way to conquer it. The people panic, break down weeping, and declare they would rather return to Egypt. The fallout is catastrophic. That generation is condemned to wander in the desert for forty years and never enter the land at all. A day marked for tragedy to this day.

Here is what makes this so diicult. Rashi tells us explicitly that when these men were chosen, they were leaders, men of consequence, and at that moment they were righteous. These were not corrupt or wicked people. Yet Rashi also says they went with the same evil intent they came back with. So which is it? Are they righteous or not?

The Chasam Sofer explains. When the spies set out, they went with confidence in their own righteousness and strength. They were great men and they knew it. And that, paradoxically, was their undoing. Hashem had already told the Jewish people explicitly, do not think it is because of your righteousness that you will inherit this land. The moment a person begins calculating their own merit and measuring their own capabilities, they have placed a ceiling on what is possible. The spies, being honest men, looked at the giants and the fortified cities and did the math. By their own strength and righteousness, the math did not work.

Yehoshua and Calev looked at the exact same giants and reached the opposite conclusion. Not because they were stronger or more righteous. But because they were not relying on their own strength at all. When your trust is in Hashem, the math is completely different. Hashem does not have limitations. Hashem does not look at fortified walls and calculate odds.

We, too, assess our own situations using our own abilities as the measuring stick and then wonder why the obstacles seem insurmountable. The spies were not bad people. They just forgot, for one critical moment, who was really running the show.

May Hashem give us the wisdom to take ourselves out of the equation, to trust in Him completely rather than in our own merit and strength, and in that merit may He help us overcome every obstacle standing between us and achieve more than we ourselves are ever capable.