REB GINSBOURG: The chapter of the מרגלים: the spies, is described in two separate Parshiot of the Torah - in fact, in two separate Books of the Chumash: first, in Parashat Shelach, in Sefer Bamidbar, and, again, in our Parasha, Parsshat Devarim, the opening Parasha of Sefer Devarim.
Intriguingly, we find that are significant differences in the narration of this seminal event, between the two Parshiot.
The opening words of our Parasha:(1:1) ‘אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה אל כל ישראל: These are the words that Moshe spoke to all Israel’, are the first step, to explaining this intriguing matter.
The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh expounds:’
’These are the words’: ‘These’ comes to exclude those said previously, meaning: Moshe said that these were his own words, the whole Sefer being rebuke and mussar from Moshe to those who transgress Hashem’s Word.
‘The Torah here takes care, lest we say that, just as Moshe said these words from himself, so too the rest of the Torah - it therefore said ‘THESE’ are the words that Moshe spoke of himself, but all that is said previously, in the first four Chumashim, not even one letter of them was said by Moshe of himself, but they are all the very words that were uttered by the One who commanded them, in the form in which they were said, without any change, even of a single letter.’
Rav Yaakov Ettlinger expands on this, commenting: ‘Our Sages, at the end of Masechet Megillah, expound: The curses in Parashat Bechukotai, were said from the mouth of Hashem - the curses in Sefer Devarim, Moshe said מפי עצמו: from himself.
‘Rashi comments: The Sages deduced this, because, in Parashat Bechukotai, the language is in the first person:ונתתי: ‘And I will give’,
ופקדתי; ‘And I commanded’.
‘In Devarim, the words are in the indirect tense:’יתן ה׳’ : Hashem will give, יככה ה׳’ : Hashem will strike you’.
‘Clearly the reason cannot be that what Moshe said was not said to Him by Hashem, things that were not received by him by way of prophecy
‘Tosafot - there - comment that the meaning of: ‘Moshe said from himself’, is ‘with ruach hakodesh’
- received by him by way of prophecy.
‘Nevertheless, the language: ‘from himself’ is difficult, and bears further explanation.
‘The answer is provided by the teaching of our Sages, that the words: אלה הדברים: ‘these words’ - unlike ואלה הדברים: ‘And these words’ - come to differentiate them from that which was said in the preceding portions.
‘As they are the opening words of Sefer Devarim, we need to learn in what way, what is said in Sefer Devarim - also known as Mishneh Torah - differs from the previous four Chumashim.
‘The Afikei Yehuda - Rav Yehuda Leib Edel - answers:’The Mechilta, on the passuk:’Moshe spoke and Hashem answered by voice’( Yitro 19:19): ‘this teaches that the Shechina spoke through the throat of Moshe’ - meaning: it was the wish of Hashem to teach Torah to Israel, by Himself, but the people were fearful, and said to Moshe:’You speak to us, and not Hashem, lest we die’.
‘In honor of Israel, Hashem צמצם : ‘reduced’ His shecina, and spoke in the voice of Moshe, from Moshe’s throat, so that, to Israel, it seemed that Moshe was speaking, though, in fact, they heard the voice of Hashem.
‘It therefore says:’This is the thing that Hashem spoke’, concludes Rav Edel.
‘This only continued until Hashem completed commanding all the Mitzvot, those in the first four chumashim, and those that were not written in them, but were given orally to Moshe, some of which are mentioned in Mishneh Torah.
‘However, when Moshe began to repeat to Israel the whole of the Torah in Mishneh Torah, it was no longer the word of Hashem by Himself, but the words of prophecy of Moshe, said from himself, with ruach hakodesh, as Hashem had spoken to him.
‘This is why the Torah says, in our Parasha:’These are the words that Moshe spoke to all of Israel’, to say that the preceding words were not his words, but the words of Hashem - but from now on, they were his words, spoken in prophecy.
‘This is the meaning of the Gemara, that the curses in Sefer Vayikra, were spoken by Moshe from the mouth of Hashem, whereas the curses in Mishneh Torah, Moshe spoke ‘from himself’, through prophecy.’
Let us now bring the description in our Parasha, Parashat Devarim, of the affair of the meraglim.
We read: ( 1:20-34 ) ‘Then I said to you:’You have come unto the Amonite mountain that Hashem our G-d gives us..go up and possess, as Hashem, G-d of your forefathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear and do not lose resolve.’
‘All of you approached me and said: ‘Let us send men ahead of us and let them spy out the Land, and bring back word to us: the road on which we should ascend and the cities to which we should come.
‘The idea was good in my eyes, so I took from you twelve men, one man for each tribe. They turned and ascended the mountain and came until the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out..they brought back word to us and said:’Good is the Land that Hashem, our G-d, gives us!’.
‘But you did not want to ascend, and you rebelled against the word of Hashem..Our brothers have melted our hearts, saying:’A people greater and taller than we..’
‘Then I said to you:’Do not be broken and do not fear them! Hashem, your G-d, Who goes before you - He shall make war for you, like everything He did for you in Egypt..Yet in this matter you do not believe in Hashem, your G-d.’
The Torah then relates the awesome decree:’If even a man of these people..shall see the good Land that I swore to give to your forefathers.’
When we compare these psukim - the words of Moshe Rabbeinu - with the description of these very same events, in Parashat Shelach, we can’t help but be struck by the significant differences between the two descriptions of the same events, as if we are reading of two different events!
The events in Parashat Shelach - which, as the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh has emphasized, are the words of Hashem, unlike our Parasha, which is in Moshe Rabbeinu’s words - read as follows: (13:1-14:29 ) Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying:’Send forth men, if you please, and let them spy out the Land of Canaan that I give to the Children of Israel; one man each from his father’s tribe..’
‘Moshe sent them to spy out the Land of Canaan, and he said to them:’Ascend here..and climb the mountain. See the Land - how is it, and the people that dwells in it - is it strong or weak ? Is it few or numerous ? And how is the Land in which it dwells - is it good or bad ? And how are the cities in which it dwells..And how is the land - is it fertile or lean ?
‘So they went up in and explored the land..They returned from scouting the Land at the end of forty days..they came to Moshe and Aaron and all the congregation of Bnei Israel..They told him:’We came to the land to which you sent us, and it is flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
‘However, the people who inhabit the land are mighty, and the cities are extremely huge and fortified.. We re unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.
‘All of the children of Israel complained..’If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if we only we had died in this desert.’
‘And the Lord said:’All the people who perceived My glory, and the signs that I performed in Egypt and in the desert..if they will see thr Land that I swore to their fathers..and all who provoked Me will not see it..in this desert, your corpses shall fall..you shall not come into the Land..’.
Rav Aryeh Leib Heiman has favored us with a brilliant exposition, reconciling the vast differences in the two narrations of this seminal event.
Expounds the Rav: ’Rashi, on the opening passuk of Parashat Shelach, seek to reconcile the glaring difficulty: From this Parasha, it appears that Hashem commanded Moshe to send the spies. On the other hand, Moshe rebukes the people, in our Parasha, that:’All of you approached me, and said: Let us send men ahead of us, and let them spy out the Land’.
‘Therefore, it was Bnei Israel who initiated the idea to send the spies, and not Hashem.’
‘Rashi reconciles:’Send forth men, if you please’: meaning: according if you are so minded, I do not command you to do so’, meaning: since the people asked that spies be sent - as is clear from our Parasha - Moshe consulted Hashem, and the answer he received, was: If you want to accede to their request, you may do do.
‘Rashi adds: clearly Moshe did not see a need to send spies to check out the Land, as Hashem had promised that they would conquer it. He felt compelled to do so, fearing that refusing to accede, would lead the people to think that he was concealing difficulties from them; and that these would be dissipated from their minds by his agreement to their request.
‘The plain reading of the words leaves us with the unanswered question, which arises from the two Parshiot: If it was Bnei Israel who initiated the sendingof the spies - as we read in our Parasha - why is this ‘concealed’ in Parashat Shelach, and, instead, written that Hashem commanded that the spies be sent?
‘The answer, as we have laid down in the past, is that the Torah, as regards to Bnei Israel, acts with a special leniency, out of concern for their honor, lessening as far as possible, the severity of their transgressions, sometimes even completely ‘turning a blind eye’ to their misdeeds.
‘Why? Because they alone of all the nations, accepted the Torah, and, as our Sages teach ( Shabbat 88 ), the continued existence of the world depended on their acceptance.
‘Indeed, our Sages likened the tie between the Torah and Bnei Israel, to the union of man and wife.
‘Here we ask:the essence of Torah is truth: how then can it say - in Parashat Shelach - that Hashem commanded the sending of the spies, if - as is clear from our Parasha - that this was, in fact, initiated by Bnei Israel?
‘The answer is that of course the Torah only writes the truth, BUT, where it is possible to find an element of justification, the Torah will seek to put this to the zechut of her ‘spouse’.
‘The sending of the spies, in itself, at the outset, was not a negative thought; we can well understand that the people had a yearning to know more about the nature of the Land, to which they had yearned for so many generations.
‘Further, as the Ramban expounds, we are not allowed to rely on miracles, but are required, as far as we are able, to act, even where Hashem had promised that we would conquer the Land.
‘For this reason, the Torah chose to ‘conceal’, in Parashat Shelach, that the people were the initiators of the sending of the spies - especially in view of the awesome outcome.
‘We can say that there were three stages in the decision to send spies: One: the people asked that spies be sent; Two: Moshe asked Hashem, and was given permission; Three: Moshe decided to accede to the request.’
‘The Torah chose to ‘cover’ for Bnei Israel, and to only relate stages two and three - and therefore, in Parashat Shelach, opened by saying:’Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: ‘Send for you people..’, and, in the following passuk:’’And Moshe sent them..by the word of Hashem’ - as a faithful wife, who hears that her spouse has done an improper deed, initially seeks to cast the blame away from him, onto others.
‘However, in our Parasha, Moshe, Hashem’s prophet, is the one who speaks, and we have learned from our Sages, the answer of the Prophet, that the soul that sins, merits death - whilst the Torah, in its mercy, answers that he atones by bringing an offering.
‘Therefore, Moshe, the Father of the Prophets, rebukes the people, that they themselves were the initiators of the spies being sent, and that all blame for all that developed from this, lies on them, leading to the decree that they traverse the desert for forty years, and perish there.
‘As a prophet whose rebuke is to atone and correct Bnei Israel, Moshe, in our Parasha, alludes to the initial fault that led to the situation: the lack of derech eretz, that they ALL crowded on him, demanding that he send spies - a lack of derech eretz that led to the loss of the Eretz.’
The Rav brings a support to his exposition, from another seminal event in our history: the sale of Yosef, commenting:’A careful reader of the Torah’s description will be surprised to note, that despite all that is known to us as to the blame of the brothers, the Torah does not state that they sold him - only that Yehuda suggested that he be sold to the approaching Ishmaelites, ‘and his brothers heard ( meaning: agreed ), and ‘Midianite traders passed by, and they raised him from the well, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites’.
This, as the Rashbam expounds, is the literal description of the sale, in the Torah.
‘According to this, the brothers indeed did not know what had happened to Yosef, and may well have surmised that a wild animal had eaten him. This explains why the brothers did not immediately descend to Egypt to seek to redeem Yosef.
‘Thus, the Torah sought to enable the reader not to fault the brothers - why? What merit did it find for them?
‘We might say, that the sale was made against the wishes of the majority of the brothers: Reuben, the oldest brother, was absent at that time, Shimon and Levi, on the other hand, were the prime proponents for killing Yosef, but the rest of the brothers feared to oppose the twosome - even Yehuda feared their anger, and therefore suggested the compromise, of selling Yosef, which was gladly accepted by the sons of the concubines, with whom Yosef had good relations, and certainly wished him no harm.
‘Therefore, the Torah did not write the sin which lay against all the brothers.’
A parting thought: the Rav’s exposition, as to the difference between the Torah covering, as it were, for Bnei Israel, its ‘spouse’, and the rebuke of Moshe Rabbeinu, in Sefer Devarim - ‘Mishneh Torah’ - may be seen in the Midrash, on the opening words of our Parasha:
‘These are the words of Moshe..’: Said Rav Acha bar Rav Chanina: These words of rebuke merited being said by Balaam, and the blessing from the mouth of Moshe, but, had the rebuke been said by Balaam, Israel would have said: the one who hates us, rebukes us; and, if the blessings been uttered by Moshe who loved them, the nations of the world would have said: Their lover naturally blessed them.
‘Said Hakadosh-Baruch-Hu: Let Moshe who loved them, rebuke them, and let Balaam who hated them, bless them, so that both should come to be, on Bnei Israel.
Could we not - based on the Rav’s original exposition - see in this Midrash, support for his insight: The blessings are written in the Torah, as befits the love of the Torah for its spouse, Bnei Israel, whilst the rebuke is in Mishneh Torah, the words of Moshe Rabbeinu, the Prophet, to bring his people back to the right track?
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