Because they lost hope in themselves and in Hashem, the Israelites are informed that they would not enter the land of Israel. They listened to the disheartening report of the Scouts (Meraglim) when they said that conquest of the land is impossible. As a result, all those who came out of Egypt – except for Calev and Yehoshua – would die in the desert.

The only hope in this sad decree is the assurance that the next generation would enter the land:

But your little ones, of whom you said they would become prey, them will I bring in, and they will know the land that you have despised (Bamidbar 14:31).

But this is immediately followed by:

But you, your corpses shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your backsliding, until the last of your corpses fall in the wilderness (verses 32-33).

Is this meant to console them?

The true comfort follows in Chapter 15, in the form of two mitzvot that are intimately connected to the land of Israel:

1. Grain offerings and their wine libations (1-16).

2. Challah (17-21).

Each of these is introduced by a prologue emphasizing that the Children of Israel will ultimately claim their land. Therefore, these are words of consolation, as Rashi says:

“He gives them the tidings that they will enter the land” (15:2).

Ramban explains further:

“Perhaps this comes now to comfort them and to assure them, because they were despondent, saying, ‘Who knows what will be in the fullness of time, after forty years? Perhaps the children too will sin.’ Therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He saw fit to console them. Because by commanding them regarding commandments of the land He assured them that it is revealed before Him that they will come to possess it.”

Their generation will pass, but the eternal mitzvot of the Torah guarantee that the eternal people of Israel will enter their land.

Of course, there are many mitzvot that are binding in the land of Israel. Yet, the Torah chose to place these two specifically after the sin of the Scouts. The discussion about the grain and wine-offerings might have been chosen to suggest a message of atonement, as is appropriate for sacrifices. Nonetheless, this one mitzvah does not seem sufficient; besides, they were discussed earlier (Shemot 29:40). Apparently, the full message of consolation required the placement of the never-before-heard mitzvah of Challah as a “second witness.”

What is the commandment of Challah?

And Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying, “Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come (B’VOACHEM) to the land to which I bring you, and it shall be, when you will eat from the bread of the land, you shall raise up an offering (TERUMAH) to Hashem. The first (REISHIT) of your kneading you shall raise up a loaf as an offering; like the offering of the threshing-floor, so shall you raise it up-From the first of your kneading shall you give to Hashem an offering, for your generations (Bamidbar 15:17-21).

The basics of this mitzvah are as follows: If one makes a batch of dough from one of the five grains (wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelt) that is equal to the omer of manna each person received in the desert (43.2 eggs in volume), then he must separate a small portion (Challah). The remainder of the then dough becomes fit for use, and the separated Challah is given to the Kohen. Like other forms of Terumah, the Torah does not set any minimum size for the Challah. (The Rabbis, however, obligated a private individual to take one twenty-fourth of the dough as a suitable gift to the Kohen, but a professional baker need take only one forty- eighth.) If one forgets to “take Challah” from the dough, it must be taken from the baked bread.

Clearly, the Torah obligates one to “take Challah” only in the land of Israel:

When you come to the land (B’VOACHEM) to which I bring you (v.18).

(The Rabbis decreed that Challah be observed in the Diaspora. However, the Torah command is only in the land of Israel.) Rashi (quoting Sifri, Yevamot 81a, Ketubot 25a) points out, however, that the mitzvah of Challah takes effect at a different stage than all other commandments of the land. Commandments such as Terumah, Ma’aser and Shemittah become obligatory only after the land is conquered and divided among the tribes. This is so because only after this point is sanctity conferred on the land, which, in turn, obligates the produce of the land.

Challah, however is introduced with the word B’VOACHEM, meaning that immediately, upon entry of the Jewish People into the land, the mitzvah of Challah goes into effect. The Jerusalem Talmud (Challah 2:1) says, for example, that if when Yehoshua led the people into the land they discovered flour abandoned by the fleeing Canaanites, and then combined some with water to make a dough, this batter would require that Challah be taken from it. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993) explains the distinction: All other “mitzvot dependent on the land” require the “sanctity of Eretz Yisrael”; Challah merely requires the “name of Eretz Yisrael.” This refers to the geographic location which the land has had from the time that Hashem said to Avraham:

To your descendants have I given this land (Bereishit 15:18).

This “name of Eretz Yisrael” is always stated in terms of the people of Israel. It is insufficient if a portion of the people live there for the mitzvah of Challah to come into being; the corpus of the nation is indivisible.

Challah, as conceived by the Torah is thus a mitzvah of beginnings, as indicated by the word REISHIT. It applies to the most basic form of food, bread, and only from its inception as dough, when it is no longer “G-d’s work,” but man’s. It begins at the first moment when the people find themselves within the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael,

And they ate of the produce of the land on the day after Pesach, matzot and parched grain, on that same day (Yehoshua 5:11; see Yerushalmi Challah 2:1).

Yet, even this mitzvah of rudiments requires the people of Israel in its totality to have entered the land.

Thus, when Hashem sought to thoroughly reassure the punished people, He taught them the mitzvah of Challah. This would be their first “mitzvah of the land,” but only because the united people would be there.