Parashat Shelach Lecha 5782

by Rabbi Margie Cella

The story of this week’s parashah is a familiar one to many of us: God instructed Moses to send twelve men to scout the land of Canaan. While there, they cut down a branch with a cluster of grapes so big it required two men to carry it. After forty days, they brought back their report: the land flowed with milk and honey, but the people there were powerful giants. Caleb and Joshua alone said that the people should go into the land; the others said that they could not attack the people, who were stronger than them. Tragically, the nation listened to the majority, deciding not to enter the land; as punishment God decreed that they would travel in the wilderness for forty years, and all the men aged twenty years old and up (fighting age), except for Joshua and Caleb would die. The next morning the people changed their minds, deciding to go into the land, despite Moses’ warning not to do so. The Amalekites and Canaanites attacked and defeated them.

The parashah ends with the passage that is the third paragraph of the Shema: the commandment to put fringes (tzitzit) on the corners of our garments to remind us of the commandments.

The haftarah has a strong connection to the parashah.

Forty years later, Joshua assumed the leadership of the nation and planned once again to enter the land. He sent two men to spy out the land. They came to the house of a woman named Rahav, who hid them from the King of Jericho under the stalks of flax on the roof of her house. After she had diverted the king’s men out of the city, Rahav came to the spies; recounting how her people had come to fear the Lord after hearing about all the wonderful things that they had heard about what God had done for Israel, Rahav exacted a promise from them to save her and her entire family when they took possession of the land. After three days’ time, the spies returned to Joshua, bringing him the positive report that victory would be theirs. Thus, the haftarah is the sequel to the parashah. Joshua is fulfilling the mission at which Moses’ spies failed. Joshua and Caleb alone survived the forty years in the desert because they brought back a favorable report; in the haftarah, Joshua takes his place as the leader of the nation, and a midrash (Numbers Rabbah 16:1) tells us that Caleb was one of the two spies sent into Jericho by Joshua.

In the parashah we are told to place a blue thread in our tzitzit to remind us of the commandments; Rahav placed a red thread in the window as a sign of her faithfulness to the Jewish people.

The parashah warns us to wear tzitzit so that we do not stray (zonim) from God; Rahav is described as a zonah (prostitute or innkeeper.)

A grammatical connection occurs in the use of the verb shelach (send) which gives the parashah its name (Numbers 13:2); this same verb appears three times in the haftarah (2:2, 2:3, 2:21).

Thus, the haftarah demonstrates the fulfillment of the prophecies made so many years before when God promised to bring Abraham’s descendants into this land. Ours is a faithful God.