Shabbat Parshat Shelach - 5763
The “Meraglim” – “Two Roads Diverged”
(from the poem by Robert Frost)

Summer has arrived. One aspect of midsummer is the period of mourning known as “The Three Weeks,” that includes “The Nine Days,” that culminates in “Tishah B’Av,” the ninth day of the Month of Av, the saddest day of the Hebrew Calendar. That day commemorates, among other things, the negative report of the “Meraglim” concerning Eretz Yisrael, and the destruction of both of the Temples that once stood in Yerushalayim.

What was the sin of the “Meraglim?” On one hand, it seems that they called it as they saw it. They found unnaturally large fruit, and brought back samples (BaMidbar 13:27). They saw fierce nations, and warrior-giants who made them feel like grasshoppers (BaMidbar 13:28-29, 33). They could not imagine the Jewish People, even with the intervention of HaShem on their side, defeating them (BaMidbar 13:31). And the idea has been mentioned that at that point in their history, the Jewish People had not yet overcome the “slave mentality” with which they emerged from Egypt. And they could not have been expected at that point to have the courage necessary to face the fearsome residents of the Land of Canaan.

Furthermore, the consequences of their decision don’t seem, at first glance, to have been totally disastrous for the Jewish nation. After all, after forty years, they did enter the Holy Land under the leadership of Yehoshua, conquered the “Seven Nations,” produced 48 immortal prophets and 7 holy prophetesses, and built the First Temple, that stood for hundreds of years, until it was destroyed by the Babylonians.

Later, the Temple was rebuilt and the Jewish People struggled with World Empires, produced the Talmud and great men such as Hillel and Rabbi Akiva, and hundreds of other great Torah scholars, before and after the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. Followed by a 2,000 year Exile, during which we were sustained, in every generation of persecution by great heroes inspired by HaShem, that seems now finally to be coming to an end, with a climactic battle already engaged between Yaakov and Yishmael.

Could the “Meraglim” have acted differently? I believe they could have chosen to follow the leadership of Calev and Yehoshua, who had been fortified by HaShem with super-natural courage, that enabled them to see that the Jewish People could indeed, with the aid of the Almighty “Ish Milchamah,” the G-dly Warrior, be victorious in battle. And who were able to say “Ki yachol nuchal lah,” “We shall surely ascend and conquer it...” (BaMidbar 13:30) (That expression, “Ki yachol nuchal lah” was in fact borrowed by Moshe Dayan, with minor variation, in the terribly frightening days leading up to the Six-Day War). And they could have chosen to bring back a positive, optimistic report concerning the Land of Israel that would not have broken the spirit of the Jewish People.

“Two roads diverged,” as Robert Frost says in his poem, before the “Meraglim” at that point in our history, and it seems that they chose the wrong one. “Yet knowing how way leads on to way,” as Frost says, that choice has led to the history of our People, over some 3,300 years.

What would have happened had the “Meraglim” “kept the faith” and chosen more wisely and courageously? Chazal say that the Jewish People would have entered immediately into Eretz Yisrael under the leadership of Moshe and would have built the Holy Temple that would never have been destroyed. Mashiach would have come and the complete Redemption of the Jewish People would have been at hand.

What other glorious events would have occurred? Who knows? But they are in the realm of non-existence, wherein reside all events on paths not chosen. Whether they exist even in G-d’s eye might be a matter for philosophical speculation. But for us, our task is to deal with life as it is.

At the end of the summer, we will come to the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days, the Days of Repentance and Atonement. Both nationally and individually, we are commanded, as Lot’s wife was, not to look back and dwell on the past, for that would imperil our existence. We must do “Teshuvah” for our mistakes of the past, for “roads not taken,” and embrace our present and future with confidence and faith in the ability of the “Tzayar HaOlamim,” the Supreme Artist of the World, to draw different pictures of our lives for us than what perhaps “could have been.”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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