Why were the spies sent and what did they do wrong?
Table for Five: Shlach
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
“Send out for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. You shall send one man each for his father’s tribe; each one shall be a chieftain in their midst.” – Numbers 13:2
Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Professor of Talmud, Yeshiva University
The contrast between Lech Lecha and Shelach Lecha has always seemed to me one of the Torah’s most profound lessons about faith, mission, and the difference between trust in God and trust only in oneself.
The Jewish journey truly begins with two simple words spoken to Abraham: “Lech lecha” — “Go forth.” (Genesis 12:1.) God summons Abraham to leave behind the familiar, the comfortable, and the secure in order to discover his true purpose. The command is not merely geographic; it is spiritual. Go to yourself, to your essence, to the reason for which you were created. Abraham is asked to trust a destiny he cannot yet see. He is promised neither ease nor certainty, only that blessing lies in the courage to follow God’s call.
Centuries later, another command echoes those same words, yet with tragic consequences. This time the Torah says, “Shelach lecha” — “Send for yourself men to spy out the land” [Numbers 13:2]. The similarity in language is striking, but the difference is even more revealing. Lech lecha is the language of faith. Shelach lecha becomes the language of hesitation.
The spies were sent not because God required reassurance, but because the people did. According to classical commentators, the tragedy was not in gathering information but in the spirit behind the mission. God had already promised them the land. Yet they wished to determine for themselves whether the promise was realistic, whether the dangers were too great, whether the challenge was worth the risk. Fear replaced faith.
Their report exposed the true problem. “We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers” Numbers 13:33]. Before the enemy ever defeated them, they had already defeated themselves. A nation chosen for greatness suddenly saw itself as small, powerless, and incapable of fulfilling its divine destiny.
That is the eternal difference between the two Torah portions. Lech lecha teaches that greatness begins when human beings trust God enough to move forward even without guarantees. Shelach lecha warns what happens when fear causes us to surrender responsibility, transfer courage to others, and question whether God’s vision can truly be achieved.
One phrase changed history because Abraham said yes to God’s future. The other delayed history because a generation no longer believed it was worthy of that future.
Rabbi Shmuel Reichman
Bestselling Author and Inspirational Speaker (ShmuelReichman.com)
When the Jewish People were getting ready to enter Eretz Yisrael, Moshe famously sent the Meraglim (spies) to scout out the land. While we often think of their account as malicious libel, this does not seem to be the case when the story is read on a surface level. As the spies scouted the land, they witnessed many giants burying their dead, and upon return, the spies reported this to the Jewish People. But didn’t the Meraglim speak the truth? Wasn’t it their job to report what they saw?
The Jewish Sages provide a profound explanation. There are two levels of reality: The first is how things appear on the physical surface; the second is the meaning that lies behind that exterior.
The Meraglim’s physical sight was intact; what they lacked was spiritual sight. They physically saw giants burying their dead, but they interpreted this to mean that the “land consumes its inhabitants” (Bamidbar 13:32). In reality, as the Gemara explains, this was a miracle that Hashem performed to aid the Meraglim in their mission. Hashem killed off the leaders of the giants in each city so that the dwellers would be distracted with their funerals, ensuring that the Meraglim could travel through Eretz Yisrael undetected. The death of the giants was the external reality; the Meraglim’s mistake lay in projecting faulty meaning onto it.
May we be inspired to continuously expand our horizons, revolutionize and reconstruct our set paradigms, and build deeper eyes through which we see the world.
Rabbi Elchanan Shoff
Rabbi, Beis Knesses of Los Angeles
Just after the Torah tells us how Miriam spoke ill of Moshe – is the story of the Spies, and their bad report about the Land that God had brought the Israelites to. Says Rashi: To teach us that the spies should have learned from the story of Miriam who was punished for how she spoke. The way that we talk about things is immensely important. Some call it “self-talk” – this is that internal voice that accompanies a person in life. Sometimes we can tell ourselves “I can never do this. It’s too hard. Too much. I never signed up for this.” Imagine if someone were following you around, saying, “You’re inadequate, you can’t do it.” You’d need to excise them from your life! How awful. And yet so often we may do this to ourselves with negative talk. It surely affects others when we speak negativity – that is poison. But it also hurts us. Terribly. The flipside must be clear to us. Speaking positively and gently and encouragingly is life-saving. Both to others, and internally. We have so much control of whether life feels hopeful or hopeless. Picture this: a man emerges from a long car ride and tell us, “That trip was horrific –heavy metal music was blasting at TOP volume for 5 hours in my rental car – I have a MONSTER horrendous headache.” You ask, “Why didn’t you turn it off?” And he says, “you can turn it off?!” We have so much control. Let’s use it!
Rabbi Johnny Solomon
Spiritual Coach, #theVirtualRabbi at WebYeshiva.org
Like every other nation who gathers intelligence before undertaking a military offensive, the Jewish nation sent intelligence officers to the Land of Israel in order to gather information about the military might and the military defense systems of its residents. Of course, given the many miracles which God wrought for the Jewish nation during the Exodus from Egypt we may wonder why there was a need to send these intelligence officers or why it was necessary to gather this information. Nachmanides addresses this concern by explaining that we should not rely on miracles and that the Torah ‘commands combatants to arm themselves and to protect themselves.’ In fact, Maimonides writes in his letter to the Sages of Montpellier that the reason why the Jewish nation was exiled from the Land of Israel was because that they did not study the art of war or the ways of conquest. As we know, the horrific attacks that occurred in southern Israel on October 7th 2023 were due to a catastrophic series of intelligence failures which left civilians and soldiers vulnerable to an attack. In contrast to this failure, the many military achievements that have taken place since then are due to remarkable intelligence gathering efforts over a long period of time. Overall, we learn that intelligence gathering and military readiness is truly a matter of life and death and that, rather than relying on miracles, we must ensure that the Jewish nation is safe and protected wherever they may be.
Nina Litvak
Screenwriter, Co-creator of accidentaltalmudist.org
The twelve spies who entered the land of Israel were great men and respected leaders of their tribes. So how did they commit the grievous error of delivering a bad report about the land to the Jewish people, effectively conceding defeat before even trying to battle the inhabitants? Why didn’t they have faith that God would help them take the land as promised?
Chassidic masters explain that the spies feared the spiritual challenges of entering the land. In the wilderness, manna descended from heaven, water and clothing appeared by Divine Providence, and the Jews could focus on studying Torah and serving God. Once they settled in Canaan they would have to plow, sow, harvest, conduct business, and engage with the material world. The spies were concerned that this would bring down the Jewish people spiritually.
The spies’ mistake was misunderstanding why they were created. God does not want Jews to remain separate from the material world. Rather, we must transform the world itself into a dwelling place for the Divine. Our mandate is to bring holiness into ordinary life by following the Torah’s laws relating to mundane areas such as farming, commerce, and creating a godly home. A Jew does not become spiritually elevated by escaping the world, but by bringing holiness into it. After 120 years we will earn our place in the world to come by serving God and leading a life of Torah and good deeds, thereby making this world a place where the Divine presence is revealed.
With thanks to Rabbi Shmuel Reichman, Rabbi Benjamin Blech, Rabbi Elchanan Shoff, Rabbi Johnny Solomon and Nina Litvak.
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