Just because a problem seems to be impossible to solve does not mean that God wants us to give up. He wants us to try to solve the problem. If we make the effort, then He will help us. If we do not, then He will not.
A Quick Devar Torah: The Sin of the Scouts and the Challenge of Freedom
This week’s parsha continues the story of the scouts. We often ask: What exactly was the sin of the scouts? We know the people’s sin—they believed the evil report. But why did the scouts themselves fail so badly?
The parsha begins with God telling Moses, “Send men for yourself”—not for Me. God already knew what the Land of Israel was like. The mission was not to inform God, but to allow the people to see the goodness of the land for themselves.
The scouts return, and ten out of twelve deliver a devastating report. The people panic. But stop and think about who these people were. This was the generation that witnessed the Ten Plagues in Egypt. They stood at the Sea of Reeds and saw it split before their eyes. They stood at Mount Sinai and heard the voice of God. These were not stories they heard from others; they experienced these events personally.
How then could they believe that God had brought them to the edge of the Promised Land only to die there? How could they say, “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes”?
The answer lies in understanding slavery.
One of the effects of slavery is that it destroys initiative. A slave does what he is told. He has little reason to plan, dream, or take risks because his future belongs to someone else. If a master commands something foolish, the slave obeys; he has no choice. Initiative is beaten out of him.
The generation of the Exodus had left Egypt physically, but they had not yet fully left slavery psychologically.
Throughout the Exodus story, God repeatedly teaches the Jewish people to take initiative. Before the plague of the firstborn, the Israelites were commanded to place blood on their doorposts. Did God need help distinguishing between Egyptian and Israelite homes? Of course not. God was teaching them that redemption requires action.
At the Sea of Reeds, Moses cries out to God, and God responds: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.” According to tradition, the sea did not split until Nachshon ben Aminadav stepped into the water. First came human initiative; then came divine assistance.
This is the lesson the scouts failed to understand.
Joshua and Caleb saw exactly what the other scouts saw. They saw fortified cities and powerful enemies. But they also understood that with God’s help—and with human effort—the obstacles could be overcome.
God does not ask us to sit back and wait for miracles. God helps those who act. Faith is not passivity.
I once heard someone say that if you are religious, God will reward you with wealth—as though God were an ATM machine. Judaism does not teach that. If a person needs to earn a living, he must work honestly and use his talents. As Pirkei Avot teaches, if one does not teach his son a trade, it is as though he teaches him robbery, because people must support themselves somehow.
This is the message of the spies. Free people take initiative. Slaves wait for someone else to act.
A free society allows people to rise and fall according to their efforts and choices. In many ancient societies—and in some places even today—people were trapped forever by birth or caste. The Torah rejects that idea. God created human beings with dignity, responsibility, and the capacity to build a better future.
The lesson of the scouts is therefore not only about entering the Land of Israel. It is about learning what it means to be truly free.
Something to think about.
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