By Rabbi Dovid Markel
The central theme of both this week’s Torah portion as well as its haftara, is the scouting out of the Land of Israel. In the parsha, Moshe sends the spies to examine the land, and in the haftara, Yehoshua does as well. There are however, focal differences between the two narratives.
The spies that Moshe sent were not sent on G-d’s command; on the contrary, the verse (Bamidbar 13:2) states, “Send out for yourself men,” which is interpreted to mean that Moshe sent them without a specific directive from G-d. Not so concerning Yehoshua, who was specifically directed to send scouts.
An additional difference is that the spies that Moshe sent were given the mandate to examine the entire land, while Yehoshua merely sent them to investigate the city of Yericho.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, explains the spiritual significance of this differentiation, articulating that within these two stories is embedded man’s objective of personal refinement.
In a spiritual sense, the Land of Israel is represented in every single Jew. Initially, we all start off as the Land of Canaan-with a personality that is not expressive of G-dliness. Our objective is to conquer ourselves to the point that we are expressive of G-dliness.
The Land of Israel represents our entire emotional framework, while the city of Yericho represents the soul’s garments of thought, speech and action.
It is due to this distinction that the manner of investigation by Moshe and Yehoshua differentiated. Not every person can possibly hope to transform their entire identity to a G-dly one and therefore G-d does not command that we do so. However, because we are indeed in control of our thought, speech and action, we are directed that we keep them in check.
Notwithstanding that for most of us, transforming our essential nature to become G-dly is beyond our control, this too however, was written in the Torah.
Herein is an important lesson. No matter our personal opinion of ourselves-even if true-we must reach for the heavens and attempt the feat of transforming our very person. One never knows-he may indeed succeed!
May we indeed be completely expressive of G-dliness with the coming of Moshiach-speedily in our time!
