According to their website, Jewish
Voice for Peace is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in
the world. They explain: “We organize our people and we resist Zionism because
we love Jews, Jewishness and Judaism. Our struggle against Zionism is not only
an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, but also a concrete commitment to
creating a Jewish future we all deserve. We are fighting for a thriving Judaism
and Jewish communities, for a municipality of Jewish cultures and for the
future of the Jewish people.”

The viewpoint of Jewish Voice for Peace
which may seem shocking is actually nothing new and goes back to the ten spies
who were afraid to go to Israel and convinced the rest of the nation that
Israel isn’t worth their while. Because of their actions, those spies died and
B’nai Yisrael spent forty years in the wilderness while that entire generation died
out.

We read in Bamidbar 14:37: “Those
men died- who spread evil slander against the land- in a plague, before God.”

Why is it so bad that they spread
evil slander about the land? Does the Land of Israel get insulted?

According to Rav David Stav, we learn
from the Torah a basic way in which we are supposed to behave. We can argue and
disagree, but we shouldn’t speak evil about the land. We will all be hurt if
the Land of Israel has negative vibes associated with it.

Rav Stav explains:

Throughout history there have been
groups of Jewish people who rejected Israel and tried to disassociate
themselves from the land. There have been different excuses and the result was
that they remained in exile.

Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi called this
phenomenon “cherpa,” disgrace, as it says in Sefer HaKuzari “You found the
place of my disgrace.”

In Tehillim 106:24 which summarizes
the history of B’nai Yisrael in the wilderness, there is an allusion to the
spies: “They despised the desirable land, they didn’t believe His word.”

At the end of the day, those who
relate to the Land of Israel will be able to go there and connect with the
Jewish nation, while those who despise the Land will remain outside in the
wilderness.

Rav Stav concludes:

The Zionist movement is a
continuation of the process that the heads of the nation like the Vilna Gaon
and his students already put into motion. They wanted to attach themselves to
the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement is the “tikun,” correction for the sin
of the spies. Those who love the land, even if they have differences amongst
themselves, will always remember that it is a “land flowing with milk and honey.”
If we remember who gave it to us as a gift and refrain from despising the
desirable land then we will reach the level of Kalev ben Yefuneh, one of the
two good spies, who said (Bamidbar 13:30) “We can surely go up to the Land and
we shall possess it.”

The entire Jewish religion is
centered around Israel. Just open a Tanach (Bible) or siddur (prayer book) and
you can’t escape it. Most of the Tanach takes places in Israel or revolves
around the yearning of the Jewish people to return there. Our holidays are set
up according to Israel’s agricultural calendar as are our prayers for rain.
Three times a day we pray asking to return to Zion and for the rebuilding of
the Beit HaMikdash (Temple).

While not every Jew can make aliya
at this time or even visit due to all different types of circumstances, that
doesn’t mean that they don’t love the land or that they aren’t yearning to
return.

May all Jews who love Israel have
the opportunity to come back home!

In Parshat Shlach,
Bamidbar 14:22-23, God declares:

Surely, all those men
who have seen My glory, My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness,
and yet have tested Me now these ten times and have not listened to My voice:
surely, they shall not see the Land that I swore to their fathers, nor shall
any of those who provoked Me see it…

We learn in Pirkei
Avot 5:4:

With ten trials our
ancestors tested the Holy One, Blessed is He in the wilderness, as it said,
“They have tested Me now these ten times and have not listened to My voice.”

What were the ten
tests?

The Talmud, Arachin
15a provides us with a list:

Two at the Sea of
Reeds, two concerning water, two concerning the manna, two concerning the
quail, one concerning the Golden Calf and one in the Paran desert (the incident
of the spies).

The Gemara then gives
us details about each of the incidents:

The two tests at the
Sea of Reeds refer to when B’nai Yisrael descended into the sea and ascended out of the
sea. Even when God was miraculously saving them, B’nai Yisrael were worried
that He was also miraculously saving the Egyptians. They were afraid that
instead of the Egyptians drowning, they would also appear on dry land.
Therefore, God told the ministering angel of the sea to spit them out so that
B’nai Yisrael would see their bodies. As we read in Az Yashir (Shmot 14:30)
“And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore…”

The two concerning
the water were in Marah and Refidim. In Marah (Shmot 15:24) “The people
complained against Moshe.” In Refidim (Shmot 17:2) “The people contended with
Moshe.”

The first trial
concerning the manna was that B’nai Yisrael were not supposed to go out on
Shabbat to collect it, nevertheless, some people did go out to gather it (Shmot
16:27). The second test with the manna was that on the weekdays, they were not
supposed to save any for the next day, yet some did leave it over (Shmot
16:20).

B’nai Yisrael tested
God in two incidents with the quail: In the first incident they complained
(Shmot 16:3) “If only we had died by the hand of God in Egypt, as we
sat by the pot of meat, when we ate bread to satiety, for you have taken us out
to this wilderness to kill this entire congregation by famine.” In the second quail episode we read (Bamidbar
11:4) “The rabble that was among them cultivated a craving and B’nai Yisrael
wept once more, and said, ‘Who will feed us meat?’”

The Golden Calf
(Shmot, Chapter 32) was certainly a provocation which is ninth on the list and
the Sin of the Spies in the Paran desert (described in our Parsha, Parshat
Shlach, Bamidbar, Chapters 13-14 as well as in Dvarim, Chapter 1) is tenth.

Maharsha points out
that unfortunately these ten incidents are not the only times that B’nai
Yisrael tried God’s patience. This is just the list of tests that took place up
until the Sin of the Spies. It is also interesting to note that Avot D’Rebbi
Natan (34:1) and the Rambam each have different lists.

The list in Arachin
is not a comprehensive list of all of the trouble that B’nai Yisrael caused in
the wilderness. However, by using the number ten, the rabbis are showing us the
significance of their behavior.

On the flip side, we
also see in Chapter 5 of Pirkei Avot that Avraham was tested ten times and he
withstood them all- to show the degree of our forefather Avraham’s love for
God.

With Avraham as well,
the various commentaries keep different lists of his ten tests. However, the
lesson is clear: Be like Avraham who successfully passed God’s tests and not
like B’nai Yisrael who were constantly out to test God and cause trouble.

Sponsored by Lynn and David Frankel

In Memory of Lynn’s parents, Martin and Lenore Katz

Near the end of Parshat Shlach
(Bamidbar 15:17-21) we read:

God said to Moshe, saying, “Speak to
B’nai Yisrael and say to them: When you come to the Land to which I bring you
it shall be that when you will eat the bread of the Land, you shall set aside a
truma (portion) for God. From the first portion of your doughs you shall set
aside challah (a loaf) as truma, like the truma gift of the threshing-floor, so
shall you set it aside. From the first of your doughs shall you give to God a
truma-offering, throughout your generations.”

For every batch of dough made out of
one of the five types of grains (wheat, barley, rye, spelt, oats) a small piece
of dough (challah) must be given to the Kohen, in the same way that they must
receive a part of the produce of the field. Without separating the challah, the
bread may not be eaten.

The minimum amount of dough from
which challah must be taken is equivalent to the daily volume of the manna (the
volume of 43.2 eggs) that B’nai Yisrael received in the desert.

Why are we taught about the mitzvah
of taking challah right after the sin of the scouts?

According to Sforno, after the sin
of the scouts, the mitzvah of challah became a necessity in order for the homes
of the Israelites to enjoy God’s blessings. Yechezkel 44:30 states: “You are to
give from the kneading bowl to the Kohen so that a blessing will rest on your
house.” We also saw this with Eliyahu HaNavi (Melachim I 17:13-14) when he
assisted the impoverished widow and commanded her to give him a small cake of
the little flour that she had left. God said that in such a case the jar of
flour in her house would not become empty during the remainder of the famine.

Our Shabbat bread is named after the
challa that was separated out for the Kohen.

The Rama comments on the Shulcha
Aruch, Orach Chayim 242:1:

We customarily knead a quantity of
dough that is sufficient to become obligated in the mitzvah of challah, in the
home. With this dough we bake breads that we will then break on Shabbat and
holidays and one must not deviate from this custom.

Today, we don’t give the separated
piece of dough to the Kohen. Rather, we either burn it or throw it in the
garbage (wrapped in plastic). The amount of flour needed to make the dough in
order to take challah and recite a bracha is more than 7 cups. If you are only
using 5-7 cups of flour then you take challah without reciting  a bracha.

Although taking challah is
considered one of the three women’s mitzvot (along with family purity and
lighting Shabbat candles) and a time when women specifically pray for whatever
they need, if a man is baking bread then he is obligated to observe the mitzvah
as well.

What is interesting about the
mitzvah of challah is that it is one of the Mitzvot HaTluyot Ba’Aretz, a
mitzvah that Biblically is specifically only observed in the Land of Israel yet
it was taken on as a rabbinic mitzvah by those living abroad so that people in
the Diaspora would not forget how to observe the mitzvah. Today, challah is
considered a rabbinic mitzvah in Israel as we see in the Talmud, Ketubot 25a
since all of the Jews in the world are not yet living in the Land of Israel.
When the demographics change, it will become a Biblical mitzvah in Israel once
again.

In Parshat Shlach, before the scouts went to check out the Land, Moshe
gave them some questions to keep in mind (Bamidbar 13:17-19):

…Go up there into the Negev and on into the hill country, and see what
country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is
the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or
fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Are there trees in it or not?

And then Moshe told them what souvenirs to bring back (verse 20):

You shall strengthen yourselves and take from the fruit of the Land.
This was during the season of the first ripe grapes.

In Bamidbar 13:23, we see which fruits they brought back:

They reached Nachal Eshkol and there they cut down a branch with a
single cluster of grapes- it has to be borne on a carrying frame by two of
them- and some pomegranates and figs.

They may have also brought dates as they said (verse 27):

We arrived at the land to which you sent us and indeed it flows with
milk and honey and this is its fruit.

Honey in the Torah usually refers to date honey.

Out of the seven species of the Land of Israel, the only ones that they
did not mention or bring back were wheat, barley or olives.

Rabbi Moshe Lichtman in his book, Ertez Yisrael in the Parashah, quotes
Rabbi Zev Leff:

The scouts brought back the fruits that people usually eat for dessert,
not the ones used for the main part of the meal. In effect they were saying, “Eretz Yisrael is a nice place to visit- a beautiful vacation
spot…but it is not a practical, viable place to live.”

In order to keep Covid out of
Israel, most non-residents have not been able to enter the country. This is the
first time since the establishment of the State of Israel that tourists
couldn’t just pop in for a quick vacation. Even those who have a “valid” reason
for entering such as visiting close relatives or attending a wedding, bar/bat
mitzvah or birth of a grandchild are faced with endless paperwork and there is
no guarantee that their visit will be approved.

When this is all over, I wonder if
aliya will be on the rise or if things will go back to how they were before.

Dedicated to the Memory of Louis Levine z”l, Baruch Aryeh ben Avraham
Halevi, on his Thirteenth Yahrzeit, 19^th of Sivan

At the burning bush (Shmot 3:8) God
promised Moshe that He would save B’nai Yisrael and bring them into the Land of
C’naan:

“I will come down to deliver them out
of the hands of Egypt and bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious
land, a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the C’naani and the
Chiti and the Emori and the Prizi and the Chivi and the Yevusi.”

Before B’nai Yisrael went to inherit
the land, they wanted to send spies to check it out. Ahead of the scouts going
in, Moshe asked them the following questions (Bamidbar 13:18-20):

“See what the land is; and the
people living on it; are they strong or weak, if they are few or many; and how
is the land in which they live, is it good, or bad? And how are the cities in
which you reside; are they open or are they fortified? How is the land (soil)
is it fat (rich) or lean (poor), does it have trees or not?

When the spies returned, they answered
(Bamidbar 13:27-29) “We came into the land into which you sent us, and it
indeed flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the nation is
mighty (those who inhabit the land) and the cities are greatly fortified to the
utmost, and we also saw the offspring of the giant there. Amalek dwells in the
Negev (southern part of the land) and the Chiti, Yevusi and Emori dwell in the
mountain and the C’naani dwell by the sea and next to the Yarden.”

Due to the report of the spies, B’nai
Yisrael were destined to wander in the desert for forty years and only the next
generation would be permitted to enter the land.

After forty years in the desert,
when B’nai Yisrael were finally ready to enter the land, Moshe was very open
about who was living in the land (Dvarim 9:1-2):

“Listen, Israel! You are crossing
the Yarden to come inherit nations greater and more powerful than you; cities
great and fortified to the sky. A great and powerful people, descendents of the
Anakim (giants) about whom you know and heard, ‘Who can stand up to the
descendents of Anak?’”

Why did the spies get in trouble the
first time around for saying the same thing that Moshe ended up saying the
second time around?

The reason that the spies got into
trouble is found in Bamidbar 13:31-33:

“‘We are not able to go up against
the nation, for they are more powerful than we.’ They spread slander about the
land that they had scouted, to B’nai Yisrael, saying: ‘The land which we have
passed to scout it, is a land which consumes its inhabitants; and every one of
the people we saw in it, are men of dimensions. There we saw the giants, the
sons of the giant, of the Nephilim, and we were like grasshoppers in our eyes,
and so we appeared in their eyes.’”

The downfall of the spies (aside
from Yehoshua and Calev) is that they did not have enough faith in God to
believe that He would save them from their enemies.

In Dvarim 9:3, Moshe made it very
clear that despite the strong people who were already living there, God will
protect B’nai Yisrael and help them fight their wars:

“You may know today that HaShem,
your God, is the One crossing before you, a consuming fire, He will destroy
them and He will subdue them before you; you will expel them and destroy them
quickly, as God promised you.”  

Ramban points out that God’s promise
came true in the Book of Yehoshua (10:14) where it says: “…for God did battle
for Israel.” In addition, God conquered the fortified city of Yericho (Yehoshua
6:20) “The people cried out and (the Kohanim) blew with the shofars. And when
the people heard the sound of the shofar that the people cried out with a great
shout: The wall fell in its place and the people went up to the city- each man
straight ahead- and they conquered the city.” As well, in Yehoshua 11:21 we
read “At that time, Yehoshua came and cut down the Anakim (giants) from the
mountain, from Hevron, from Dvir, from Anav and from the Mountains of Yehuda
and from all of Mount Yisrael; Yehoshua destroyed them with their cities.”

Yehoshua, who had faith in God, was
able to go into battle and miraculously fight the strong enemies.

The same is true today. Israel still
has many issues including enemies on all sides but we see miracles every day where
God together with a strong IDF helps us fight our battles. We must continue to
have confidence in God the way that Moshe, Calev and Yehoshua did and not give
up like the other ten spies.

Sponsored by Steven Toberman and
Bonnie and Mickey Kamel to commemorate the 28th yahrzeit of

Earl Melvin
Toberman z”l יחיאל מרדכי בן אביגדור הלוי וגיטל

After the scouts returned from their
trip to the Land of Israel, they gave their report to Moshe, Aharon and B’nai
Yisrael. They started with the positive, both in Bamidbar 13:27: “We arrived at
the Land to which you sent us, and indeed it flows with milk and honey, and
this is its fruit” and in Dvarim 1:25: “Good is the Land that HaShem, our God,
gives us!’”

The scouts continued with a factual
report about the cities and nations who lived there (Bamidbar 13:28-29):

However, the nation is mighty, those
who inhabit the Land, and the cities are greatly fortified to the utmost, and
we also saw the offspring of the giant over there. Amalek lives in the southern
part of the land, the Chiti, Yevusi and Emori dwell in the mountain and the
Cnaani dwell by the sea and next to the Yarden.

According to Ramban (Dvarim 1:25),
after Calev encouraged B’nai Yisrael that they surely could inherit the Land,
the scouts chose to continue the conversation later and slander the Land when
they were not in the presence of Moshe or Aharon.

We read in Bamidbar 14:1-4:

The entire community arose and
raised their voices; and the people wept that night. They murmured against
Moshe and Aharon- all of B’nai Yisrael- and the entire congregation said to
them: “Would we have died in the land of Egypt or in the desert, would we have
died. Why does God bring us into this land to fall by the sword: our wives and
infants would be as spoils; is it not better for us to return to Egypt?” They
said to each other: “Let us appoint a head and we will return to Egypt.”

What went on that night to cause
B’nai Yisrael to become so antagonistic?

Ramban (Bamidbar 14:1) points out
that the scouts went into the people’s tents towards evening, after they left
Moshe, and in the morning, the people rose early and they all murmured against
Moshe and Aharon. And likewise Moshe said (Dvarim 1:27) “You slandered in your
tents and said, ‘Because of God’s hatred for us did He take us out of the land
of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorite to destroy us.’” For it
was in their tents that they spoke the words of a complainer as it says in
Mishlei 18:8: “The words of a talebearer are like blows and they descend to the
innermost parts of the body.”

Ramban explains further (Bamidbar
14:3) that the spies only gave the evil report privately in their tents, they
did not say it publicly to the entire congregation since Moshe and Aharon would
have testified against them that they spoke falsely.

Ramban believes that the verses in
Bamidbar 13:31-33 were said behind closed doors, while Moshe and Aharon were
not present: “We are not able to go up against the nation, for they are more
powerful than we…The Land through which we have passed to scout it, is a Land
which consumes its inhabitants…There we saw the giants…”

Somehow, overnight, when Moshe and
Aharon were not around, the scouts convinced B’nai Yisrael that God was
bringing them into the Land where they would fall by the sword and that their
wives and infants would be as spoils, therefore it would be better to return to
Egypt.

Despite everything that God had done
for B’nai Yisrael so far- saving them from the Egyptians, feeding and taking
care of them in the desert, promising that He would fight for them and take
care of them in the Land of Israel, they were still willing to accept a
negatively skewed report that was told to them privately.

We can learn from here that we need
to beware of what happens behind closed doors and take rumors with a grain of
salt if they were started quietly by people who are too embarrassed to be upfront
and out in the open.

In Parhsat Shlach, Bamidbar 13:25 we read: “They (the scouts) returned from searching the land, at the end of
forty days.”

Rashi asks:

But is not the land 400×400 parsaot
(a parsa is about 2.2 miles) and the average person’s traveling distance is ten
parsaot a day and there was a traveling distance of 40 days from east to west,
and they traversed its length and breadth (Then the total, including the return
trip should have been several times forty days). However since God knew that he
would sentence them with a year in the desert for every day that they searched
the land (as it says in Bamidbar 14:34 “According to the number of days which
you scouted the land; forty days, a day for a year you will bear the burden of
your iniquity forty years, and you will know My displeasure”) he shortened the
way before them.

Chizkuni points out that the scouts
began their journey on the 29^th of Sivan (on this year’s calendar
that will be this coming Tuesday) and they returned on the 8^th of Av
(Erev Tisha B’Av).

The Talmud, Taanit 29a explains that
if you add up the days, it seems that their tour only lasted 39 days, not 40 (Rashi
calculates: Sivan 29+30=2 days, Tamuz 1-29=29 days, Av 1-8=8 days, total: 39
days).

The Talmud answers, Abaye said:
Although Tamuz usually has 29 days, in that particular year, the Beit Din
(court) made Tamuz a full month of 30 days (with two days of Rosh Chodesh), as
it says in Eicha 1:15 “He proclaimed a set time against me to crush my young
men.”

Rashi comments (on Ein Yaakov) that
when calculated this way, the return of the scouts fell out on the 8^th
of Av and the people’s faithless weeping (in Bamidbar 14:1, “The entire
community arose and raised their voices; and the people wept that night”) fell
out on the eve of the 9^th of Av (Erev Tisha B’Av) so that Tisha B’Av
would be a time predisposed to misfortune and the Jewish people would be
crushed on that day in the massacres that accompanied the destruction of the
Beit HaMikdash.

The Talmud continues, Raba said in the
name of Rabbi Yochanan, The day that the scouts returned was Erev Tisha B’Av.
God said to them: You wept without cause; therefore, I shall establish you a
weeping for generations on this day.

There was no reason to weep as God
had already promised them Land of Israel. They should have disregarded the
discouraging report of the scouts and had faith that God would keep His
promise.

We see from here that the decree
that the generation of the wilderness would not enter the Land of Israel was
issued on Tisha B’Av.

As we enter the week when the scouts
began their journey, let’s take some time to appreciate everything that the
land has to offer by travelling in Israel or enjoying its beautiful produce.
For those who will not be in Israel, this is a great opportunity to purchase
products from the Israel and tell the supporters of BDS what Yehoshua and Calev
said (Bamidbar 14:7): “The land which we have passed to scout it; that land is
very, very good.”

In Parshat Shlach we read Calev
ben Yefuneh’s answer to the spies who did not want to enter the Land of Israel:
“Aloh Naaleh”, “We can surely go up and inherit the land of Israel.”
How fitting that the Knesset passed a law this week that Yom Ha’Aliya
(Immigration Day) will be instituted as a national holiday in Israel on the 7^th
of Cheshvan.

The idea of Yom Ha’Aliya is
not new. In fact, back in 2004 (the year that I made aliya) there was a discussion
in the Knesset of celebrating Yom Ha’Aliya on the proposed date of the 21^st
of Tevet, Eliezer ben Yehuda’s birthday since he was the one who revived the
Hebrew language. They felt that his birthday would be the best day to celebrate
since Modern Hebrew is the tie that connects all of the immigrants to the State
of Israel and gives them a common language.

Somewhere along the way the
topic was dropped and a few years ago Jay Shultz, an immigrant from England and
his group Tel Aviv Internationals began to celebrate Yom Ha’Aliya on the 10^th
of Nisan, the date that B’nai Yisrael crossed the Jordan River 3500 years ago
when the entire nation made aliya and entered the land with Yehoshua bin Nun.

MK Miki Zohar brought up the
bill in the Knesset and many other Knesset Members joined in support including
Michael Oren and Hilik Bar. In April 2016, it was decided that the holiday
would take place on the 10^th of Nisan. However, the date was
rejected this week since the 10^th of Nisan falls out a few days
before Pesach when the students are on vacation and would not be celebrated
properly if the students would not be in school.

The final date that was
decided on is the 7^th of Cheshvan which corresponds to Parshat Lech
Lecha where we read about Avraham and Sarah’s aliya to the Land of Israel.

Absorption Minister Sofa
Lander who immigrated from the Former Soviet Union in 1979 said that the
holiday will be celebrated in the Knesset, in the school system and in the
larger community. She hopes that Israeli society will gain a new respect for
immigrants when they hear the history of their aliya. She also hopes it will be
a day that is celebrated in the Diaspora to encourage aliya.

In contrast to the spies
(aside from Yehoshua and Calev) who did not have respect for aliya and who
encouraged the nation not to immigrate, in a rare moment, the Knesset members
from the different parties were in agreement when it came to the importance of
aliya and a holiday to promote it.

Sponsored by Sharona,
Josh, Dov, Moshe and Yehuda Halickman

 in Honor of Chaim Snow’s Birthday

In Parshat Shlach, while twelve men were sent to scout out
the Land of Israel, only two found it suitable to
live there.

What problem did the ten other scouts find with the land?

While scouting out the land, the scouts encountered a lot of
challenges. In Bamidbar 13:30 only Kalev and Yehoshua said that they were up
for the challenge, that they were ready to go up: “We can surely go up to the
land and we shall possess it for we are surely able to overcome it.”

Living in Israel
today also comes with a lot of challenges. Some of the latest issues are from
within the chief rabbinate.

While in New York last week
I saw a letter in the Jewish Week entitled “Losing Faith in Israel” where the author complained that Israel is not
pluralistic enough and he doesn’t know how much longer he will continue to
defend her. By making comments like that the author of the letter is behaving
like one of the ten scouts.

Those who care about Israel will not abandon her and
refuse to visit. Those who care will make a commitment to help resolve some of
the problems. They will make an effort to move to Israel
and make changes from within like Rabbi Riskin who brought Modern Orthodoxy to Israel or they
will stand behind and support those who are courageous enough to work on making
a difference.

Only a small portion of Israelis call themselves Modern
Orthodox. The only way to get the demographics to change is for more Modern
Orthodox teachers and rabbis to make aliya.

We need to stand up for Israel and try to make changes from
within as Yehoshua and Kalev did when they merited to enter the Land of Israel
rather than abandon her as the other ten scouts did.

The reason that almost the entire generation of the scouts died
in the desert was because they followed the ten scouts and agreed with them
that they did not want to enter the land.

The more Jews that come to Israel with strong American values,
the more of an impact we can have.

This in not the time to abandon Israel, this is the time to stand
behind her and work on making changes from within.

Dedicated to the Memory
of Louis Levine z”l, Baruch Aryeh ben Avraham Halevi,

on his Eighth
Yahrzeit, 19^th of Sivan

When Moshe sends the spies to scout out the Land of Israel, he gives them a list of things
to look for (Bamidbar 13: 18-20):

And see the land what it is; and the people that live there,
whether they be strong or weak, few or many.

What the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or
bad;

And what cities they dwell in, whether in tents or
strongholds;

And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether it
be wooded or not.

When the spies return they answer the questions that they
were asked forty days earlier by stating the facts of exactly what they saw (Bamidbar
13:27-28):

We came to the Land that you sent us to and it does flow
with milk and honey and this is the fruit of it (they carried some samples of
the fruits back with them). Nevertheless, the people are fierce that dwell in
the land and the cities are very strongly fortified; also, we saw the children
of Anak (giants) there. Amalekites live in the south and the Chiti, Yevusi and
Emori dwell in the mountain and the Cnaani dwell by the sea and next to the
Yarden.

In Devarim 1:29-32 we see that after the spies gave their
account of what they saw in the Land, Moshe said to B’nai Yisrael: “Do not
crumble and do not fear them. Hashem your God who goes before you, He will wage
war for you as in everything that He did with you in Egypt before your eyes and in the
wilderness as you have seen where God carried you as a man carries his son all
along the road you went until you arrived at this place. Yet in this matter,
you do not trust God.”

According to Chizkuni, as Calev saw that the nation was
starting to get worried by the facts that the spies presented, he silenced the
nation.

Calev tried to use words of encouragement by saying “we can
surely go up to the Land.”

However the other spies that had been with him said “we are
not able to go up because they are much stronger than us (or they are stronger
than God)”.

According to Nehama Leibowitz at this point the spies don’t
just state facts, they actually give their own opinions as well and take on the
role of advisor (13:32-33): “The Land through which we have passed to scout it
is a land which consumes its inhabitants; and every one of the people we saw in
it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, the sons of the giant, of
the Nephilim and we were like grasshoppers in our eyes and so we appeared in
their eyes.”

Rabbi Yitzchak Arama (The Akedat Yitzchak) brings a parable:

A man asks an agent to go to a warehouse and look at a
tallit that the merchant has in stock. He is instructed to examine it carefully
for the quality of the wool and linen, for size, appearance and price. If the
agent comes back and says that it is too expensive then he has not fulfilled
his mission. The man only asked for the facts, he didn’t ask for advice.

What right did the spies have to say that the people in the
Land were stronger than God? How could they possibly even know that? Why were
they so sure that they appeared as grasshoppers in the eyes of the inhabitants?

We see from here that there is no problem with finding and
presenting facts. The problem is embellishing the facts and giving unsolicited advice.

In 1969, Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet, a brilliant Rabbi from the NY
area and his family decided to make Aliya. When Rabbi Rakeffet went to meet
with an Aliyah Shaliach, they tried to discourage him, they told him that there
are no jobs and that he would probably end up having to sweep the streets.
Despite their advice, he made Aliayh anyway and ended up with the prestigious
job of working as a staff writer for Encyclopedia Judaica. He also taught is Yeshivot
and Midrashot for Overseas students. It would have been a great loss to Israeli
society if Rabbi Rakeffet had taken the advice of the Aliyah Shaliach.

Thankfully, today, when a person decides to make Aliyah and
move to Israel,
they will find a warm and inviting message on the Nefesh B’Nefesh website:

Mazal
Tov on your decision to make Aliyah! We wish you much success as you begin this
new adventure, and we are thrilled that Nefesh B’Nefesh is able to help you
fulfill your Aliyah dreams and assist you in building your future in Israel. After
ten years of working with more than 30,000 Olim, Nefesh B’Nefesh has extensive
experience, and we are happy to do our part in helping you realize your
individual goals and aspirations.