Parshat Shlach Lecha פרשת שלח לך

A bit of Parshat Shavua, Torah Portion of the Week. 

My interpretation/translation of the word/verb וְיָתֻ֙רוּ֙ "yaturu" isn't "scout," it's "stake out." 

In modern terms, we can say that Gd sent the twelve tribal leaders on "pilot trip" to choose which part of the land of Israel each tribe would settle when arriving in the Holy Land. They were to decide according to the which suited each tribe, and that's the "judgements" they were to make. 

Unfortunately, ten out of twelve thought they had the authority to decided whether or not to bring their tribal members into the land, claiming it too dangerous. 

For that sin, they and their generation had to die and only the next generation entered the Holy Land. The two exceptions were the leader who had followed orders, Caleb and Yehoshua.

במדבר י"ג

Bamidbar Chapter 13

What do you think?

"Peace" at Any Cost- Is it PEACE?

The slick advertising campaign has begun!

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been saying that he'll ask the Israeli public to approve any drastic (is that the right adjective?) "peace" sic treaty his staff comes up with.

According to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office who spoke to Hebrew Daily Israel Hayom, the move aims to advance the diplomatic process, and shows how serious Netanyahu is about resuming talks.

Whenever he talks about "painful concessions" I and he knows too that he's just weakening Israel for defeat at war.

"We must ... find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians," says Netanyahu, and that will mean "painful concessions" on Israel's part that include ceding some places that are part of the Jewish homelands.

There is no way that a true, genuine peace agreement can be painful.  And  there's no way that a shrunken, amputated Israel will be secure and safe.  The word "peace" has become a euphemism for an Israel on the way to destruction, G-d forbid.

In the meantime, the Israeli Left is trying to brainwash the nation that "everyone" wants peace at any price.  IMRA posted an interesting post about the public relations campaign now going on to distort the news of Israeli opinion polls:

Haaretz cooks poll question to show support for deal - while 61%:26% Israelis
oppose deal
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA 24 July 20013

The folks at Haaretz needed a poll showing that the public supports a peace
agreement but they had a problem:

The moment that you actually say anything about the agreement, the public is
overwhelmingly opposed.

That's what Maagar - Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting Institute
Ltd., managed by Professor Yitzhak Katz found in a poll of 503 Israelis they
carried out on 22 July for Channel 10
In principle, are you for or against signing a full peace agreement with the
Palestinians on the basis of the 1967 borders, including the exchange of
territory and release of prisoners?
Total: For 29% Against 57% Other replies 14%
and it gets only worse when you spell it out even more:
Are you for or against signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians on
the basis of the 1967 borders, including the evacuation of communities with
the exception of settlement blocs, exchange of territory, Palestinians
recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish People, and release of
Palestinians with "blood on their hands".
Total: For 26% Against 61% Other 13%

So here is the propaganda piece that Haaretz commissioned in a poll carried
out 23 July - by Dialogue under the supervision of statistics professor and
pollster Camil Fuchs of a representative sample of 511 adult Israelis
(including Israeli Arabs). Published in Haaretz on 24 July 2013

Assume that the Prime Minister reaches an agreement with the Palestinians
and brings it to a national referendum, would you support or oppose it?
Support 39% Think support 16% Think oppose 5% Oppose 20% Don’t know 20%

What's the problem with this question?

There are, no doubt, many respondents who were in the "plus column" who
support Netanyahu and were thinking that, in the absence of information
about the deal, that a deal that Netanyahu brings to a national referendum
would have to be radically different than the kind of deal that the talking
heads have been outlining for the last two decades. Take note the huge
"Don't know" response.

The Haaretz poll is meaningless because if and when we reach the point that
there is a national referendum the details of the deal will very much be the
subject of considerable debate.

Remember that democracy is the rule of fools, and most people are easy to trick.  I am not optimistic about the results of such a referendum, and that's for a few reasons.

1. It will be professionally worded to give the impression that the result will be peace.
2. The campaign will stress that if we don't sign two terrible things will happen.  One that  the world will hate us and two that there will be immediate war.

In the time of the Bible, very soon after Moses led the Jewish People from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt, he sent out twelve tribal leaders, one from each tribe, to stakeout the Land in preparation for immediate entry.  Ten out of twelve came back with frightening reports that although the Land was rich and fertile, there was no way the Jewish People could win any war against the present residents.  Democracy! The two dissenting leaders, Joshua and Caleb tried to convince the people otherwise and were voted down in that early referendum.  Democracy!

As a result, G-d punished the people by declaring that they must wait in the wilderness until another generation would be born. 

Today we are physically in the promised Land, the Land G-d gave us, but ideologically, spiritually and emotionally, we the Jewish People are still not ready for the gifts G-d has given us.  Peace will not come from concessions to our enemies.  Peace will only come from our being truly sovereign in the Land of Israel, G-d willing.

Sin of the "Spies," A Misnomer

This week's Parshat HaShavua, Torah Portion of the Week is Shlach Lecha Numbers 13,1-15,41.  If you read through very carefully, you won't find the word מרגלים miraglim, spies any place in the text.  It is a Biblical word, because it appears in the Haftara, the passage from Joshua 2,1-24 read after the Torah.

Here's from Bamidbar, Numbers:

Numbers Chapter 13 בְּמִדְבַּר

א  וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר.	1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:
ב  שְׁלַח-לְךָ אֲנָשִׁים, וְיָתֻרוּ אֶת-אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן, אֲשֶׁר-אֲנִי נֹתֵן, לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:  אִישׁ אֶחָד אִישׁ אֶחָד לְמַטֵּה אֲבֹתָיו, תִּשְׁלָחוּ--כֹּל, נָשִׂיא בָהֶם.	2 'Send thou men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a prince among them.'

And here's from Joshua:

Joshua Chapter 2 יְהוֹשֻׁעַ

א  וַיִּשְׁלַח יְהוֹשֻׁעַ-בִּן-נוּן מִן-הַשִּׁטִּים שְׁנַיִם-אֲנָשִׁים מְרַגְּלִים, חֶרֶשׁ לֵאמֹר, לְכוּ רְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, וְאֶת-יְרִיחוֹ; וַיֵּלְכוּ וַיָּבֹאוּ בֵּית-אִשָּׁה זוֹנָה, וּשְׁמָהּ רָחָב--וַיִּשְׁכְּבוּ-שָׁמָּה.	1 And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two spies secretly, saying: 'Go view the land, and Jericho.' And they went, and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lay there.
ב  וַיֵּאָמַר, לְמֶלֶךְ יְרִיחוֹ לֵאמֹר:  הִנֵּה אֲנָשִׁים בָּאוּ הֵנָּה הַלַּיְלָה, מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל--לַחְפֹּר אֶת-הָאָרֶץ.	2 And it was told the king of Jericho, saying: 'Behold, there came men in hither to-night of the children of Israel to search out the land.'

They are not the same words.  I prefer looking at the Hebrew before the English. 
 אֲנָשִׁים, וְיָתֻרוּ אֶת-אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן  anashim-people viyaturu-?  Later in the verse we are told that these people are tribal heads, important people.  They didn't hide.  They wandered the Land in public view. 

One of the men who was sent by Moshe was Joshua, who took over as leader after Moshe's death.  He gave different orders and to שְׁנַיִם-אֲנָשִׁים מְרַגְּלִים  anashim meraglim, spies.  Another difference was that it was in secret.

I believe that Moshe had sent his tribal heads to stake out  the Land.  Moshe rather naively expected all twelve of them to understand that this was the "mother of all" pilot trips.  They were supposed to claim their areas and come back giving the greatest, most convincing PR ever to excite and enthuse the tribes to hurry and settle the Land ASAP.

Only Caleb and Joshua understood their task.  For that reason, Caleb's tribe Judah was given Hebron, which he had claimed during the mission.

The lesson we Jews today must learn from this is that our job isn't to decide the pros and cons of living in Israel.  We must just pick the place in the Land of Israel where we will live and make it all work out, with G-d's help.

Have a wonderful week.

Loyal Soldiers!

Here's the latest "Voices From Shiloh" which appears in Sharon Katz's "Voices."

I recently wrote about the IDF, and one of my readers asked a very important, crucial question in the comments.

"Are we supposed to be proud of serving in the army? Are we making it into a specific ideal in itself?"

At first I didn't know how to answer him. Very conveniently I had to say my daily T'hilim (Psalms) and, even though I must admit that I mumble them, somehow an answer was formulated in my mind by the time I had finished.

Here's part of my reply:

"Our Jewish soldiers should be in the army to observe the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh and keeping Eretz Yisrael safe and Jewish.That's what every one of our soldiers must be focused on, and then it's totally a mitzvah, a mitzvah to be proud of. If the army punishes the good Jewish soldier, it has to be seen as among the "trials/challenges" of living a proper Torah life."

The Israeli Left-wing has been dealing with their dilemmas, the conflicts between their ideology and army orders, for a long time. They show no embarrassment at refusing orders and writing protest letters. The media support them, and the politicians adopt their ideas.

The women in the extreme left-wing Machsom Watch keep denying that their harassment of soldiers endangers the soldiers and innocent Jewish Israeli civilians. They proclaim their "superior morality," even when facts contradict them.

Now back to our soldiers, our husbands, sons, brothers, neighbors.
It is a great mitzvah to be a soldier, a Jewish soldier for the Land of Israel. Defending Jews and defending our Holy Land are a privilege. The more frum soldiers in the army, the more power Torah will have in the army. I'm not claiming it's easy.

Why should any of us expect that building a Jewish State should be easy? Building a Jewish State is hard. As the mother of five and a grandmother, I know that giving birth and raising children, as wonderful, thrilling and important as it is, easy it's not. When we become pregnant, our body definitely undergoes changes. For many women, even the monthly ovulation can cause obvious changes to the body. Some women are almost unrecognizable during pregnancy, and so many books and articles have been written about childbirth, there's no need for me to go into detail. But I'm sure you all know that the uterus must work terribly hard to expel the baby, and then… ahhh, a newborn baby is so sweet, soft and helpless. Then they begin growing and developing. I'm sure most of you have seen infants crawling enthusiastically, proudly and earnestly backwards.

The Jewish People are so smart about some things, but we're not too wise about ourselves. Remember the "Golden Calf?" Such a short time after G-d's miracles facilitated our exodus from Egypt; couldn't we give Moshe another few days to get down from the mountain? Did they all have such exact watches and "palms" to keep track of the time? It's perfectly legitimate for someone to be late, not that he actually was.

G-d forgave, OK, after Moshe used all his powers. Then there's the story of the "Meraglim," spies. They were la crème de la crème of the Hebrews, and ten out of twelve decided that they knew better than Moshe, even better than G-d. The majority voted against G-d and Moshe. So much for democracy! Joshua and Caleb were the only ones to insist that our People, with the help of G-d, could conquer the Land and live in peace.

Our IDF soldiers must model themselves on Joshua and Caleb. They must be proud to be soldiers, because it's a great mitzvah. They must remember who the real Chief of Staff is. They must remember who gives the true rewards and punishments. Yes, we need strong soldiers, strong in faith in G-d.