The Portion of Shlach Lecha One Unusual Letter Reveals a Complete Story The portion of Shlach Lecha deals with one of the most painful incidents which occurred in the desert as the Children of Israel made their way to the Land of Israel. The Children of Israel are within reach of the Promised Land. In order to plan the strategy needed to conquer the land the leaders of the 12 tribes are sent to collect intelligence. The spies embark on their mission and upon its completion they return and present their report to Moshe and the people. Each of the spies saw the very same things but their interpretation of what they saw was different, and so they presented a majority report and a minority report. Ten spies reported that the local population was strong and well-fortified and that it would be impossible to defeat them in battle. The other two spies, Joshua and Calev, saw things differently. As Calev declared "Let us go up and take possession of it, for we can indeed overcome it (Numbers 13;30)." The punishment for this lack of faith is pronounced immediately. The Children of Israel will continue their trek in the desert for 40 years until the entire generation which violated their covenant with G-d will pass away. The next generation will merit entering and possessing the Land. The Talmud (Tractate Sotah 37) lists this covenant as one of the eight covenants (britot) between the Almighty and the Children of Israel and this is alluded to in the unusual manner in which the letter "chet" (the numerical value of the letter chet is 8) is written in the word "vayishchatem bamidbar"- and He slaughtered them in the desert" (Numbers 14;16). And in the words of the Baal Haturim: the broken letter "chet" shows that they violated the Torah which they agreed to in eight covenants and therefore G-d gave permission to His ministering angels to administer the punishment for their sin and break them. |
