Rabbi Winston - Parashas Shlach

WHEN I CHOSE to make aliyah, I was still single and it had little to do with this week’s parsha. Even though I could not have imagined living in Eretz Yisroel for the rest of my life just a year earlier, after one year of yeshivah here, I realized there is no better, no easier place to be a Jew. I just felt so at home, and if it could happen to me, it could happen to just about any Jew. 

I hadn’t even seen the gemoros, of which there are many, yet extolling the virtues of living in our ancestral home. I hadn’t yet come to appreciate the spies’ sin for rejecting the land in this week’s parsha, or the Kabbalah behind what they did. There was just something very reassuring and supporting about walking the streets of a country that you know actually belongs to you, filled with brothers and sisters. 

Despite all the wars over the last 40 years, nothing has changed. Sometimes you have to fight to live on your own land. Despite all the political upheaval since then, nothing has changed. This reassurance and support are not tied to what my fellow Jews think or do, but to the land, and more importantly, the Divine Presence that dwells on it. 

Besides, it’s the media that distorts and perverts the true reality. In the hands of Leftists, manipulated by their money, and having the biggest media mouths, they paint a political picture to their liking, completely disregarding how the majority of the country truly feels about all things Jewish. They try and do to the political Right what the Arabs do to the Jews: wear us down through a war of attrition.

All of it is really just a distraction. It always has been. It’s the Sitra Achra, a.k.a. the Satan, once again keeping the Jewish people out of Eretz Yisroel to hold off the redemption. He needs to because, if ever the entire Jewish nation were to cross the Jordan River, physically or today, metaphorically, to settle on the land, the geulah would come. He would not only be out of a job, but out of an existence. 

In Moshe Rabbeinu’s time, that meant keeping all, or at least some, of the nation out of the land. He did that, succeeding in distracting the tribes of Gad, Reuven, and half of Menashe, with pasture land to keep them on the east side of the Jordan River. As a result, it pushed off the geulah shlaimah in their time. 

That was in Moshe Rabbeinu’s time, because everyone was frum then, even the spies. They weren’t fighting against G–D, Torah, and for a more secular way of life so they could be more like the rest of the nations around them. So the only way to keep them out of the land was to physically keep them out of the land.

But today it is a different story. Today the Left is so anti anything Jewish, so focused on be just another European nation, that they can be kept “out of the land” without ever leaving it. The Sitra Achra owns them because it’s either G–D’s way or his way, and if it is not G–D’s way, then it is his way…no matter how independent they believe they are. 

Because, like everything in Creation, Eretz Yisroel clearly has the potential for two sides. It can either be Eretz Canaan, which it was before the Jewish people came and conquered it, or it can be Eretz Yisroel, something we had to make it, but often fell short of. Even people who work on themselves to become tzaddikim have their bad days, and some have even gone in the other direction when conquered by their yetzer hara. 

The difference between the two potentials is obvious, and actually, only minutes apart. That’s how long it takes to go from downtown Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak, two extreme ends on a religious continuum. Tel Aviv can be quite physically beautiful, but much of it lacks a Jewish soul. Bnei Brak however has a lot of Jewish soul but, unfortunately, is not the most aesthetically pleasing city to visit or live in. Fortunately, today, thank G–D, there are many places where you can get the best of both worlds. 

One thing is clear. To live in Eretz Yisroel, and not Eretz Canaan, you have to be in touch with your Neshamah. That does not just mean learning Torah and performing mitzvos because the entire generation in this week’s parsha did that better than we do. It means living more in your inside world than the outside one, which talks to our bodies and not our souls. That’s when thinking about making aliyah triggers a personal war of attrition between a Jew’s body and their soul. 

Then the argument begins all over again, and the sin of the spies goes unrectified.

Shabbat Shalom

Pinchas Winston