Parashat Sh'lach — Send (for yourself)

שְׁלַח־לְךָ

Torah portion 37 of 54 · Book of Numbers · pronounced shlakh (leh-KHAH)

Sh'lach (שְׁלַח־לְךָ) means "send (for yourself)" — taken, as every parashah name is, from the portion's opening words in the Hebrew.

Next read: July 3, 2027 · then June 17, 2028

The Readings

What Happens in Sh'lach

Send for yourself men — shlach lecha — to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Yisrael: one leader from each tribe, twelve names recorded, among them Hoshea son of Nun, whom Moshe renames Yehoshua — 'YHVH saves.' Their instructions are thorough: see the land, the people, the cities, the soil, and bring back its fruit. Forty days they traverse it, from the wilderness of Tzin to Rechov, past Hebron where the giants dwell, and at the valley of Eshkol they cut a single cluster of grapes so heavy it is carried on a pole between two men.

The report splits in the first sentence. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit — nevertheless the people are strong, the cities fortified and very great, and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. Kalev quiets the people: let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. But the ten answer with the sentence that damns a generation: we are not able... and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Unbelief always shrinks identity first and rewrites the enemy's mind second. The congregation weeps all night, murmurs against Moshe and Aharon — would that we had died in Egypt! — and proposes a captain to return. Yehoshua and Kalev tear their clothes: the land is exceedingly good... only do not rebel against YHVH, neither fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us; their defense is departed from them, and YHVH is with us. The congregation's answer is stones — until the glory of YHVH appears at the tent of meeting.

YHVH speaks of disinheriting them; Moshe intercedes with God's own words from Sinai — YHVH, slow to anger and abounding in chesed — and pardon is granted, but with a sentence that fits the sin exactly: forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquities, forty years. Everyone twenty and upward will fall in the wilderness — except Kalev, because he had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, and Yehoshua. The ten spies die by plague at once. In the morning the people presume to go up without the ark and without Moshe, and are beaten down to Hormah: obedience out of season is still disobedience. The portion then quietly reopens the future — when you come into the land, offering laws, the challah dough offering, atonement for the unintentional (but the high-handed soul is cut off) — and closes with the tzitzit: tassels on the corners of the garments with a thread of blue, that you may look at it and remember all the commandments of YHVH and do them, and that you seek not after your own heart and your own eyes. The generation that followed its eyes will raise children who wear remembrance on their corners.

Main Themes

Ten reports of fear against two of faith Grasshoppers in our own eyes — identity shrunk by unbelief A different spirit — Kalev and Yehoshua Forty years for forty days Tzitzit — remembrance woven into the garment

Key Events

· The twelve spies sent from Paran

· The forty days and the cluster of Eshkol

· The evil report and the night of weeping

· The intercession of Moshe and the forty-year sentence

· The defeat at Hormah

· The laws of challah, atonement, and tzitzit

Key People

Moshe Kalev Yehoshua The ten spies The congregation

Key Verses

← Parashat Beha'alotcha  ·  Parashat Korach →

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