Bostoner Torah Insights: Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in Hebrew and English: Parshas Shlach – 25 Sivan 5785
Bostoner Torah Insights - Yerushalayim
Bostoner Torah Insights
Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in English
Parshas Shlach – 25 Sivan 5785
Bostoner Rebbe shlit”a – Yerushalayim
Secretariat Email: bosto...@gmail.com
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The evil report of the ten spies caused the nation to raise their voices in weeping and mourning on the Ninth of Av for the very first time. After Yehoshua and Kalev failed in their attempt to reassure the Jewish People, Hashem said to Moshe, “How long will this people provoke Me and how long will they not have faith in me, despite all the miracles that I have performed among them. I will inflict them with a plague and wipe them out, and I shall make you a greater and more powerful nation…” (Bamidbar 14:11-12). This was not the first time that Hashem made this offer to Moshe. After the sin of the Golden Calf, Hashem said to Moshe, “I have seen this nation and they are a stiff-necked people. If you leave me alone, I shall apply my anger to them and obliterate them, and I shall make you into a large nation”. (Shemos 32:9-10).
At that time Moshe responded to Hashem’s offer with a parable, as Rashi paraphrases from Brachos 32a, “If one chair with three legs is unable to withstand your anger, certainly a chair with only one leg”. As Rashi comments on the Gemara, Moshe was referring to the three Patriarchs: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Moshe offered the following logical argument why Hashem should not destroy B’nei Yisroel and start a new nation from Moshe. If the merit of these three ancestors could not protect the people from their own sins and Hashem’s subsequent decree of annihilation, how could Moshe’s merit alone protect the future nation that would come from him?
This if further demonstrated by Moshe’s prayer as recorded in the Torah. Moshe’s first line of reasoning is that the destruction of Klal Yisroel at this point would be a tremendous desecration of Hashem’s name, as “the Egyptians would say: with evil intent did He take them out, to kill them in the mountains and annihilate them…” (Shemos 32:12). Next, Moshe invokes Zchus Avos, the memory of our forefathers, that their deeds and relationship with Hashem should protect their descendents. “Remember for the sake of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yisroel, Your servants to whom you swore…” (32:13). Hashem accepts Moshe’s words and desists from imposing his punishment immediately, “Hashem reconsidered regarding the evil that He declared He would do to His people” (32:14)
Therefore, when Hashem made the same offer after the Sin of the Spies – to destroy Klal Yisroel and begin a new nation from Moshe – we would expect Moshe to defend Klal Yisroel in a similar manner. If this line of defense produced a beneficial outcome for Chet HaAigel, the same formula should be able to work for Chet HaMeraglim. Moshe begins his plea to Hashem with a similar claim, stating that if Hashem killed Klal Yisroel all at once ‘like a single man’ then it would cause a colossal Chilul Hashem. The nations of the world would claim it was ‘because Hashem lacked the ability to bring this people to the Land that he had sworn to give them’ (Bamidbar 14:15-16). However, for some reason, Moshe does not mention the Patriarchs at all in his opening appeal.
Furthermore, when he utilizes the Thirteen Attributes that he had learned from Hashem as a result of the episode of the Golden Calf (Shemos 34:6-7), he only uses an abridged version (Bamidbar 14:18). One of the terms that Moshe omits is Notzayr Chesed L’Alafim, that Hashem preserves kindness for thousands of generations. Rabbeinu Bechaye points out here that this ‘missing’ attribute of Hashem is a codeword for Zchus Avos, that he ‘preserves’ and applies the ‘kindness’ of the Patriarchs as a merit for their children ‘for thousands of generations’. As we recite in Avos, the first paragraph of our Shemonah Esrei prayers, ‘and he recalls the kindness of our fathers and brings redemption to the sons of their sons…”
The question is why did Moshe not harness the power of Zchus Avos in his defense of Klal Yisroel this time? The precise language of the approach of Rabbeinu Bechaye is that “since they were now disparaging the land that was ‘selected’ by the Avos” they could not merit from Zchus Avos. However, one could argue that during the sin of the Golden Calf the people ‘disparaged’ Hashem and his Torah, which the Avos chose to follow and observe, and likewise should not receive Zchus Avos.
Perhaps, we may suggest that the difference between Chet HaAigel and Chet HaMeraglim was that the former was an affront to Hashem and His Torah commandments, whereas the latter was an affront to the Avos themselves. Hashem may decide to pardon those who transgress by rejecting Him and worshipping a Golden Calf, but by rejecting the Land that Hashem bestowed to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, the people are actively disassociating themselves from their Patriarchs. If so, how would it be possible for the merit of Zchus Avos to have any bearing on the scales of judgment.
No one understood this more than Kalev ben Yefuneh. “They ascended in the Negev and he arrived at Chevron” (Bamidbar 13:22). Rashi, citing Sotah 34b, explains that the change from the plural ‘they’ to the singular ‘he’ refers to Kalev alone, who “spread himself over the burial sites of the Patriarchs” so that he should not succumb to the scheme of the other Meraglim. Apparently, the ruse was already in motion as the scouts were journeying northward towards Eretz Yisroel. Whereas Yehoshua might have had the additional merit and prayers of Moshe Rabbeinu, his Rebbe; Kalev understood that while in the company of the plotting spies, the best way to keep himself on the straight and narrow path was to connect with his Avos – Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. His bond with the Avos would translate into a bond with Eretz Yisroel and a love for Hashem and the precious Land that he bestowed to the Patriarchs and the Jewish People.
May we may merit the restoration of all the holy cities of Eretz Yisroel, as well as the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash, in the very near future.--