(Numbers 13-15)
My deep dive into this text got stuck, of course, at the first two words: Shelach lecha. The phrase echoes Lach lecha — God’s seminal instruction to Abraham to “Go forth.”
Reb Google tells me that phrase occurs ten times in our Torah. That’s about twice as often as, say, the ban against adultery. That could be paraphrased as “Stay home.” Of course, even a ban stated just once is still operational at every opportunity. But a 10-time commandment may merit special attention.
With Shelach Lacha God instructs Moses to “send forth” some scouts to Canaan. Both phrases are calls to advance to the promised land. The commentators contend that this going forth is not just to leave but to confront danger. The advance is not just in geography but in character, in courage. Hence the gloss in our siddur: “We don’t like leaving but God loves becoming.”
Or as my Bobba Bayleh might have advised, Aroif foon dein tuches shoin, un gay mach foon zich eppes. That was for our Jack. For some of you others, I’ll translate. Arise already— and go make something of yourself. That’s the family Lach lecha.
It could also be the essence of Judaism. It impels our tikkun olam — our duty at whatever risk to improve the world for humanity. Preferably without helping to eliminate the Jews. If not now, then. Tikun olam unites us even when we are driven apart.
Lach lecha even lies behind the very word “Israel.” Jacob earns that name by surviving that all-night rasslin match. To this day the Jew gets many a Dark Night of struggle. Inertia is no option. Nor is submission to the paralysis of fear. Of course — it’s hip to be hurt in that struggle.
It is just this deeper meaning of lach lecha that escapes Moses’s emissaries to Canaan. They go forth literally but fail that deeper thrust. They recoil from risk.
By their report the grapes must be like watermelons if it takes two men to carry one cluster. But the people are correspondingly large — which scares off the scouts. They fear to go forth.
They even exaggerate the danger: “They’re so big we feel and look like grasshoppers.” Why grasshoppers? Grasshoppers are locusts — jumping insects prone to infest. God used the locust plague in Egypt to support the Jews. But the Israelites forget that. They turn God’s instrument of support into feeling helpless. So they pour out their old whine: “Why oh why did we leave wonderful Egypt?” The gripes of wrath.
Only Caleb and Joshua keep the proper courage: “The Eternal is with us. Have no fear of them!” For that? The stiff-necked jerks prepare to stone them — but are stayed by the Divine smoke.
Now, consider how Moses negotiates with God here. When Abraham bargained with God he focused on the righteous people who might be saved from Sodom. Remember? What if there are 20? Ten? One? Will you take an IOU?
Now Moses, instead of focusing on the people, focuses on God. He appeals to God’s self-respect. (That’s the divine form of our vanity.)
What did Moses say after the Golden Calf incident? If You kill the Jews, the Egyptians will say “you maliciously freed them from us, just to slaughter them yourself.” Not a good vibe.
And so again here.“If you slay this people wholesale” everyone will say “It must be because the Eternal was powerless” to bring them to his promised land. Moses asks God to dare to show the best of Himself. He returns God's lach lecha.
God rises to the occasion. Both just and magnanimous, he punishes the faithless and rewards the faithful.
By the way, that wholesale slaughter of the Jews? This is that rare point in the Bible where wholesale is worse than retail.
But the story doesn’t end there. The stiff-necks screw up again. From the sin of despair they shift to the delusion of independence. Despite Moses’s warning the Israelite soldiers go forth in battle, “up to the mountain top.” It’s properly aspirational but against God’s instruction. They go without Moses, without the Ark, without God. So they’re destroyed.
As God doesn’t have to punish them, the plot is paused for three demonstrations of devotion. On the edge of the Promised Land and after all these recent failings, that’s necessary. Two demands of activity surround one of rest. The first details another ritual of sacrifice. In the second, a dramatic incident reminds us that — the sabbath is something to die for — especially when you get stoned. In Biblical terms.
Now, it has been some time since we mortally stoned someone for washing his camel on shabbos. But that period was the beginning of morality. That merry band of stiff-necks needed harsh reminders to stop making the worst of themselves —the anti- lach lecha.
The seventh day of rest was not just a holiday but a basic principle of being — beginning with God’s Creation. It defines life as a constant discipline. There are equal duties of rigour and relief, of impulse and control, of action and thought. The sabbatical of the seventh extended from that day of rest to the rules of servitude, to the organization of human debts and responsibility, even to the summer fallowing of the fields.
There are equal duties in repose as in action. There is fertility in abstinence. Hence the old proverb, Abstinence makes the heart go fondle. (Yeah, I made that one up.) Or from another poem in our siddur: That open space is like the air between the logs that enables the logs to burn.
The third dedication we get here is —the talles! Or — the talleet, as you young whippersnappers have it. To me, talles includes alles, which is everything. Like the inviolable sabbath the talles is our distinguishing dedication.
Symbolically, the prescribed blue evokes the sea and the sky, our origin and our aspiration. The straight lines are our brief moment in eternity. The golden collar is an ennobling yoke. The talles combines the collective flow of fabric with the individuation of the tsitsis, the fringe. Even those threads are both individual and intertwined. Like our people. In a room full of activated talleiseem we are a community of solitudes. So also even when we wear one alone.
What surprised me here is the purpose of the talles. It is literally prescribed to prevent following “your heart …and your eyes… and go whoring.”
That’s the Robert Alter wording. The Israelites are often warned against “whoring after false gods.” Alter elsewhere suggests that monogamy is a Biblical metaphor for monotheism. But as infidelity is a real human temptation in its own right -- or so I have been told — I’d rather call it a parallel.
The Plaut translation is “lustful.” But the point is the same, succumbing to our lower senses. Remember, the Sinai orgy began with religious doubt. Then it dipped to idolatry — then sank into sexual anarchy. Of course, that was my favourite scene in the movie. But it was the Israelites’ lowest point. From their spiritual potential they sank into demeaning chaos.
To ward that off, the talles gives our spirituality a sensual experience. It’s our last remnant from all those unimaginably rich multi-sensory rituals of sacrifice.
The talles is tactile, whether it cocoons us over our head or it embraces our shoulders. The fringe entwines our fingers. Wearing it, touching it, seeing it, are a healthy sensuality. Our sensations of the talles check our temptation to run improperly loose, in the mind or in the flesh. To mistake weakness for freedom. Think anti-lunatic fringe. The talles recalls us to our strengthening dedication.
And for the talles on steroids we lay on the tefillin — an even more physical spiritual commitment — the box on our forehead, at our heart, our bound arm, by which we bind ourself to our highest address. With this sensual spirituality we dare to take risks, to aspire. We find the courage to get out to make the most of ourselves. Lach lecha.
Which is where I came in. Thank you and good luck.
