We have already discussed some of the many differences between Devarim and the books that come before it. We have pointed out that Moshe’s rendition here of some of the stories that took place in the first four books of the Torah will be different. But there is one story whose two versions are so markedly dissimilar that it requires its own separate treatment. In the first version, the Torah clearly states that Moshe is not allowed to take the Jews into the Land of Israel due to his lack of leadership while procuring water from a boulder (Bemidbar 20:12, 27:14; Devarim 32:51)9The latter is an example of one of the quotes from God Himself that are scattered throughout “Moshe’s book.” – and yet at the beginning of Devarim Moshe tells us otherwise.
In the middle of his recounting the spy incident, Moshe tells the Jewish people: “God got angry also with me for your sake, saying: ‘You too will not go [over the Jordan]’” (Devarim 1:37). While some commentators suggest that Moshe was not trying to say that God got angry with him over the spy incident, as He did with the rest of the Jewish people,10See, for example, Ramban on Devarim 1:37. this doesn’t appear to be the straightforward reading of the text. More in line with its plain meaning are the commentators who write that both the spy incident as well as the story with the boulder contributed to Moshe’s punishment.11See, for example, Ohr HaChaim, Malbim, ibid. According to this opinion, however, we must discover what Moshe did wrong in the case of the spies and why Moshe himself identifies only this one reason for his punishment.
We will now need to look more carefully at the narrative of the spies in Bemidbar as well as Moshe’s recounting of it in Devarim. Once we do, we may well end up with a very different reading of Moshe’s biography than that to which we are accustomed. The other choice, however, is to simply remain stymied, but such is not the way of Torah study. Its way is to enter with a willingness to climb higher vistas in order to find greater clarity, even if it leads us to unexpected findings.
What Happened to Moshe?
In the same way as the spy incident became a watershed event in Jewish history,12See Francis Nataf, Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Numbers (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2014), Chapter Two. so too was it for Moshe. We start by noting its central place at the beginning of Moshe’s very first speech in Devarim 1:22–26, and we come to appreciate just how great was its impact on his consciousness when we see the extent to which he focuses on it throughout the entire book.
It is not immediately evident why Moshe cannot seem to get this incident out of his mind. On the one hand, we could say it is a simple question of association; as leader of the Jewish people, Moshe could not but be affected by this most fateful national calamity. On the other hand, Moshe’s connection to the event seems to be much more personal than the first hypothesis suggests.
Beyond attributing his own punishment to it, Moshe also reveals his own agreement with the expedition (Devarim 1:23). This in itself is somewhat shocking, as there is no hint to it in the story’s original rendition in Bemidbar. Moreover, he makes this story the heart of his recounting the Jewish people’s journey through the desert. This arouses our suspicion that there is much more to Moshe’s treatment of the story than we previously thought, and that the text may be revealing only the tip of the iceberg. We are forced to reevaluate the weightiness of the story, but it is never clearly laid out for us why. This is where our challenge begins.
To understand why Moshe believed that the incident of the spies caused him to lose the privilege of crossing the Jordan, we will start back with the original narration of the story. Compared with other tragic incidents in which Moshe was involved, we note how unusual this debacle was in his role as leader. In spite of previous major setbacks, including the incident of the golden calf, this is the first time Moshe is rendered speechless or, in the words of Abarbanel, “his tongue cleaved to his jaw.”13Bemidbar 13–14, question 14. This man who was larger than life simply watches events unfold without taking any true action, so much so that it brings Calev and Yehoshua to tear their clothes in mourning. There was ample reason for them to show their displeasure both earlier and later in the incident, yet it is only when Moshe and Aharon respond with apparent impotence by falling on their faces (which we will explain below) that the two new junior leaders rip their garments. In light of Moshe’s silence and prostration, it is as if he is simply not there. But why? What is holding him back?
Moshe didn’t necessarily speak to the Israelites with the arrival of every new crisis, but he always took some forceful course of action. Furthermore, the incident of the spies is the first time that someone else comes into the breech, presumably in place of Moshe. When the spies bring back their negative report, it is Calev, the scout from the tribe of Yehudah, and not Moshe who argues with them. As the incident progresses, Calev’s partner, Yehoshua, joins the fray as well. But not Moshe; he remains silent. Different explanations are given for Moshe’s silence,14Perhaps the most interesting is that of Rabbi S.D. Luzzatto, who explains that Moshe wasn’t given a chance to respond due to the passionate zeal of Calev and Yehoshua, who were so strongly impacted by the sight of Moshe falling on his face. Malbim presents an almost lone voice of dissent, claiming that Moshe actually did speak up and that this is recorded later in Devarim 1:29–31. This, however, is a difficult reading of the text in Bemidbar. That text is generally seen as the more objective rendering of the story, in which case it would be hard to explain why Moshe’s speech was left out. See also Tzeror haMor, which suggests an innovative compromise: Moshe felt as if he himself was speaking when his lieutenants spoke for him. but there is no denying Moshe’s lack of leadership in the incident. And once their leader was basically out of the picture – neither showing the way nor endorsing the words of his junior officers – it comes as no surprise that the Jews didn’t listen to these two novice interlopers either.
But it is not only in relation to his flock that Moshe behaves so atypically. His connection to God seems to be similarly affected. Instead of the usual crying out in prayer, Moshe relates to God in a new way – by falling on his face.
There are many ways to understand Moshe’s falling on his face. One way is to take it as an expression of prayer,15See Myer I. Gruber, Aspects of Nonverbal Communication in the Ancient Near East (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1980), pp. 463–466, who points out that falling on one’s face can well be an expression of supplication, in spite of its always being used as an expression of mourning in Akkadian. which of course is a perfectly legitimate strategy and one which Moshe had used in the past (although he was always upright when he did so).16As, for example, when the Jews initially complained about water (Shemot 15:25) and when they did so a second time at Refidim (Shemot 17:4). Yet until the incident of the spies, the only other time a figure fell on his face was to show God a state of particular helplessness.17I.e., Avraham. See Bereshit 17:3, 17.
Helplessness is somewhat intuitively symbolized by the lowering to the ground of a person’s face, that one part of the body that can readily represent a person’s essence. Moreover, Moshe’s prayer, if it was that, was not a request for Divine intervention: As opposed to other supplications, prayers that come with falling on one’s face are generally wordless. In the one case when Avraham’s falling on his face is accompanied by words – when he hears that Sarah is to give birth – the Torah tells us that he was speaking to himself (Bereshit 17:17). And certainly in contrast to his earlier, upright prayers, where Moshe does ask for Divine intervention, when Moshe falls on his face here we read of no communication from him to God.
Another way to understand falling on the face is as an expression of mourning. For instance, when Yehoshua falls on his face after being informed of the collective punishment that came as a result of Achan’s violating the prohibition against looting, it is a sign of anguish akin to mourning (Yehoshua 7:6). Given that sitting on the ground is clearly associated with mourning, it is not unreasonable to say falling on one’s face to the ground can express this as well. At the same time, in light of Bereshit 17:7, it is clearly not always the case. Hence the only question would be whether it is a sign of mourning here. It is not unreasonable to understand it this way with regard to Moshe as well,18Ramban, Abarbanel on Bemidbar 14:5; Da’at Mikra, on Yehoshua 7:6. for there is certainly what to mourn. Yet the Talmud (Taanit 14b) wonders why Moshe responds by falling on his face; why does he not tear his clothes, like Yehoshua and Calev? Additionally, given that Moshe’s action was “in front of the whole community of the congregation of the children of Israel,” why was there no popular reaction to it? If Moshe was trying to censure them with his public mourning, why did they just let it go? Why did they not rebel further or, alternatively, acquiesce and surrender to Moshe’s protest?
A third direction focuses more on what we just mentioned, the reaction of the people. Some commentators, among them Ramban, notice that Moshe’s falling on his face was not described as being in front of God but rather in front of the Jewish people who, as we have stated, seemed unmoved by it. Ramban explains that Moshe is trying to get them to change course and repent.19Ramban on Bemidbar 14:5. While Ramban continues to point out that there are many other occurrences of falling on one’s face in the Bible that are expressions of pleas, Moshe’s gesture has little in common with them. Yet, if we see it as part of an ultimately political proceeding that is taking place here, such a reading may fit more easily.
Such an approach is developed in the explanation of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch. From the backdrop of the greater context of the story, R. Hirsch sees Moshe’s bowing down as a way of giving the leadership back to the people.20Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Bemidbar 14:5. Moshe is certainly not abdicating, as it were, out of joy, or even with any positive expectations. He simply believes that his effectiveness is at an end and, if so, there is no point in keeping the leadership for himself. This also helps to explain the behavior of his deputies, Yehoshua and Calev, who tear their clothing at such a possibility, and yet, with Moshe apparently out of the picture, have to take action themselves and try to win over the people without Moshe’s help. (It is interesting to note that God does not accept Moshe’s abdication either; as when He finally intervenes, He does not address the junior leaders who have just stepped in, but rather His trusted shepherd (Bemidbar 14:10–11).
Whatever Moshe’s actions ultimately signify, his falling on the face and his silence clearly show a new and unprecedented feeling of powerlessness. His reserved behavior here stands in marked contrast to earlier events. The essence of this weakness is Moshe not finding it within himself – neither by appealing to God, nor by rebuking the Jewish people – to get events under control.
Once Moshe falls on his face, however, his display of powerlessness ceases to be an isolated incident. His leadership style and abilities change indelibly from then on. Accordingly, when the Jews later cavort with the daughters of Moav and Midian, it is Pinchas and not Moshe who takes action (Bemidbar 25:1–9). And even when Korach challenges Moshe and the status quo more directly, Moshe’s response is epitomized by his falling on his face once again (Bemidbar 15:1–5). What emerges from the incident of the spies, then, is a new, less assertive and more passive Moshe. It remains for us to discover why Moshe responded – or more precisely, did not respond – to the spies’ report in the manner that he did.
Moshe’s Spies
If the extent of the change that occurred in Moshe as a result of the episode of the spies is now more evident, it is still unclear why the incident affected him so deeply. For this part of the equation we will need to return to Moshe’s rendition of the incident in the book of Devarim. There we find out that he not only agreed to the popular suggestion to scout out the land, he was directly involved in its implementation as well.21Although we have some inkling of the latter already in Bemidbar. He was in many ways the driving force behind this highly disastrous plan. True, God had also agreed to the plan, meaning that Moshe did not just go ahead with it without receiving Divine approval. Nevertheless, whereas God did not give a reason why He allowed the plan to proceed, Moshe’s agreement was expressly because “it found favor in his eyes” (Devarim 1:23).
We cannot be sure why Moshe liked the plan, but his agreement does fit in with a slow process of leadership decentralization and popular involvement with decision-making that we see throughout the book of Bemidbar.22See Redeeming Relevance in Numbers, pp. 112–120.
Let us now briefly focus on the general contours of Moshe’s decentralization program. Moshe certainly had good reason to encourage such an idea. He would not live forever and, even if he would, once the Jews settled the land there would be a need for the local administration of the scattered settlements. Such communities would not be able to afford waiting for their concerns to reach the central government and for the decisions to come back.23See Malbim, on Devarim 1:8, who makes this point as well. Yet, as we will discuss later, there is a delicate balance between including the people in their own leadership and allowing them to make decisions for which they are not qualified.
It is easy to understand Moshe’s overly optimistic interpretation of the request to send the spies. After setting his decentralization project into motion with Yitro’s suggestion to appoint deputies (Shemot 18:13–26), he saw the people responding in appropriate ways. One example is the respectful and felicitous petition made by those excluded from participation in the Pesach sacrifice to find an alternative way to bring their sacrifice (Bemidbar 9:6–130). This petition was the first appropriate bottom-up amendment to the order of things in the desert regime, and it would be followed by other similar episodes.24See Redeeming Relevance in Numbers, pp. 112–120. Also included in this trajectory is the more complicated, yet highly significant, Divine “concession” to allow Moshe to give of his spirit to seventy leaders (Bemidbar 11:14–16), which we will discuss later.
Popular involvement is launched in the book of Shemot, when Yitro advises Moshe to appoint others to help with the administration of the Jewish nation. Moshe discusses this early on in Devarim, before he talks about the incident with the spies (Devarim 1:9–17). The fact that decentralization starts with Yitro could also be the key to understanding something quite puzzling.
Not only does Moshe describe Yitro’s plan in the book of Devarim before he discusses the spy incident, it is the only event besides that of the spies that Moshe focuses on, while ostensibly reviewing the whole sojourn in the desert.25See Ramban on Devarim 1:9. He is followed by several other commentators who understand the appointment of officers as a most important condition for the Jews’ entering the Land of Israel, and which is spoiled only by the incident of the spies which Moshe is about to recount. See also Rabbi S.D. Luzzatto, on ibid., who connects the stories by saying the people should not have requested that Moshe send out spies, seeing that he had already been willing to take care of all their needs even when that meant appointing others to take positions of authority. Why does he mention only these two events? If we understand them as unique milestones in one trajectory, their being grouped together makes a great deal of sense. Both highlight the diffusion of leadership away from Moshe to the periphery, one marking the auspicious beginning of this trajectory and the other its near failure.
There is another important reason to connect the appointment of local officials with the spy story. It is not for naught that Moshe couches specifically these two events in the language of consensus. Moshe tells us in the book of Devarim that he approached the people with the plan to add deputies and they formally agreed to it (Devarim 1:14). The language he uses here is strikingly similar to the consent he gives to the people with regard to sending the spies (Devarim 1:23). In the first story, Moshe is highlighting his willingness to get the Jews involved in controlling their own destiny, as besides appointing others to govern under him, he first gets popular approval in order to do so.26Here we follow the approach of Rashi on Devarim 1:13, however Netziv and Malbim disagree with Rashi. They both comment on Devarim 1:13–14 that Moshe is actually suggesting that the people select their own leaders, an offer which the people subsequently decline. In the case of the spies, however, the order is reversed. There, the initiative comes from the people – the Torah highlights the popular nature of the request by noting that it is coming from all of the people (Devarim 1:22) – and this time it is Moshe who registers his agreement to the plan.
Hence the decentralization plan has reached its logical conclusion with the spies; the apprentices are now able to initiate and register the master’s approval. Yet it is also possible that the reversal of who is petitioning whom indicates that the process went too far. At the very least, Moshe should have been wary of something coming from “all of the people.”27Perhaps this is what the rabbis are referring to when they point out the disorderly and undisciplined manner of the people’s approach (Sifrei Devarim 1:22). See also Rabbi Zvi Grumet’s insightful treatment of how this is highlighted by its contrast to the appointment of the administrative leaders, in Moses and the Path to Leadership (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2014), pp. 197–200. Still – as we see with the men disqualified from participating in the Paschal sacrifice (Bemidbar 9:6–14), with the daughters of Tzelofchad (Bemidbar 27:1–11) and with other events in the wilderness – Moshe had successfully made room for the people to approach him with suggestions.28See Redeeming Relevance in Numbers, pp. 112–120. Our approach can also explain why in Moshe’s version of the Yitro story and the spy incident in the book of Devarim, he almost surgically removes the other key players. His rendition of the events is initially quite surprising. We recognize the stories but the names are changed. In the place of Yitro, Calev and Yehoshua, Moshe inserts himself. The attentive reader will wonder why Moshe attributes the actions of others to himself. In line with what we have discovered, however, the decentralization process would be Moshe’s legacy to the Jewish people. Realizing that the project had to succeed, Moshe put a great deal of himself into it. It was a project completely in line with his personal modesty and his very characteristic wish that all Jews become prophets (Bemidbar 11:29). But sometimes pushing oneself to the side requires taking an even larger role, at least temporarily. Given the Israelites’ long period of servitude in Egypt, convincing them to take a part in their own governance required a great deal of activism on Moshe’s part. And there may not have been any other way to get them to accept Moshe’s move away from leadership except for it to counterintuitively come from their supreme leader himself. Hence Moshe usurps the role of others where they represented the process that he needed to own.
The Bubble Bursts
On the face of it, the request for spies to scout out the land was not radically different from other events that had come before it. In fact, it could have represented a welcome step forward, with even more people taking responsibility for their own future. And, as opposed to the demands of Korach and his group (Bemidbar 16:1–14), there is every indication in the text that this request was made respectfully. If for no other reason, it is something that Moshe tells us was good in his eyes.
Unfortunately, however, Moshe’s optimism was premature, to say the least. If he hadn’t yet realized that the decentralization process needed to be gradual (and perhaps never quite complete, in the utopian sense that Korach ostensibly tried to actualize), the spy incident certainly shook him out of any illusions.
The scouting mission turned out to be completely different from Moshe’s aspirations for it. The spies exploited Moshe’s plan in order to foil his overarching goal of bringing the Jews into the Land of Israel. Had he been aware of this, there is no way he would have agreed to the mission, let alone aided and encouraged it. But focused as he was on preparing the Jews for the proper administration of the land, he failed to see that they were not yet won over to inhabiting it altogether. Hence, he blissfully allowed the scouting mission to become a link in the otherwise worthy decentralization process he had made his own.
Given that Moshe could not but admit ownership of the plan, he had to shudder at how it unfolded before his very eyes: The report was not what he had expected and the reaction of the people even worse. One can easily imagine his shock and disorientation at what he saw. And then suddenly . . . Moshe has no words as he realizes that he completely misjudged the very people he was meant to shape. Clearly, he knew that they were capable of backsliding, but he did not realize to what extent the central plan to conquer the Land of Israel had never completely taken root among the people. On some level it was now evident that Moshe had literally made the mistake of his life.
Moshe becomes distraught in a completely new way. He is paralyzed by the realization of just how far he had overshot the mark. The whole project was unraveling completely out of his control, for he could not possibly direct the people whom he suddenly realized he did not really understand. As a result, and despite his good intentions, the incident threatened to undo everything that Moshe had built. (Later, we will see that what he was trying to build may have been actually much greater than what we have presented thus far.)
From what we have seen, then, it would appear that for Moshe, the spy debacle represented a tragic failure on his part – even more than it represented a failure on the part of his people. Accordingly, we can now understand his overwhelming feeling of responsibility. Still, questions remain. For one, in what way does Moshe’s sense of responsibility turn into an understanding that it is his role in the story that, like the rest of the Jews at the time of the spies, prevents him from crossing into the Land of Israel?
The Symptom and the Cause
Netziv’s explanation of how the spy incident contributed to Moshe’s exclusion from the Land of Israel is among the most helpful. He writes that the process that ultimately led to Moshe’s failure at the boulder began with the spies.29Ha’amek Davar on Devarim 1:37. For Netziv, this process centered around the need for radical diminution of Divine involvement in the lives of the Jewish people in the desert.30Ha’amek Davar on Bemidbar 20:8–12. Moshe had wanted to maintain a strong Divine presence, as embodied by the unusual providence the children of Israel had experienced since leaving Egypt. However, this required an extremely high level of moral and religious discipline on the part of the Jews, the absence of which would lead to immediate punishment.
After several related mishaps,31See Bemidbar 11:1–22, which begins with a vague description of complaints. This in turn brings Divine wrath, which destroys part of the camp, only to be followed by still more complaints from the Israelites. it became clear that the Jews needed to forego the intensity of God’s immediate presence. Instead, they would need to accustom themselves to a more hidden level of Divine favor in conquering the land. The first actualization of this was the sending of the spies.
Netziv writes that starting with the spies’ mission, the desert experience was to be the training ground for adjusting to this new modality. Although Moshe accepted God’s decision to lower the intensity of His presence, dealing with the change would prove to be an existential struggle for the rest of his life. The scene at the boulder is the final chapter: Moshe is given one last chance to overcome his inability to adjust to what the Jews needed from their leader, which Netziv tells us was for Moshe to definitively teach the Jews how to earn God’s favor in more conventional ways. This included a more communal and subtle type of prayer than the dramatic petitions of Moshe that they were used to. At the boulder, then, Moshe needed to motivate and teach the people to pray.32Netziv explains that a less dramatic and more personal type of prayer was common much later on, when the Jews were not privy to overt miracles. Here, however, when God’s presence was still more manifest, the Jews would need to learn that communal prayer can also elicit a positive response. But it was not to be. Moshe demonstrated once and for all that he could not be the one to lead the Jews into the Promised Land.
According to Netziv, Moshe correctly understood his punishment. He failed to make the transition to the hidden mode of Divine providence, which was what God had decided the Jews now needed, even if it would come at the expense of their faithful leader. Their sins led them to need the spies and it would remain to be seen whether Moshe might somehow miraculously pull off working with the transition that the spies represented. But he did not. From that point on, his fate was (almost) sealed. We can now appreciate Moshe’s claim that he was punished “for the sake of [the Jewish people]” (Devarim 1:37) as a result of [the process that started with] the spy incident.
Would They Were All Prophets!
Netziv’s approach allows us to reflect on the nature of Moshe’s leadership more broadly. Moshe was ideally suited to the role of an intermediary between God’s highly immanent presence on the one hand and a nation capable of standing at Mount Sinai on the other. But he was not so well suited to leadership in front of a hidden God Who would not perform any new miracles for most of the time the Jews would be in the desert. With God in the background, so to speak, Moshe would be challenged by having to deal with the more mundane political and social grievances that would be the daily fare of a more banal existence.
Given Moshe’s intense level of prophecy, it is likely that he didn’t have much patience for living a “regular” human life. We are reminded of the similarly inclined Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai when he came out of a rugged and isolated multi-year interaction with God and could not understand – or even tolerate – the vacuity of mundane goings-on (Shabbat 33b). Moshe was likely not much different. As such, it could not have been easy to live with the attenuated consciousness of God that the Jews had been assigned after leaving Sinai.
Netziv is of the opinion that Moshe eventually acquiesces to the need for a more earthly regime and agrees to send out the spies on that basis. But did Moshe really believe that this was what must be done? We can imagine the tremendous ambivalence Moshe would have felt in going along with God’s withdrawal from the camp. And so, perhaps he did not go along with it: If he was aware that the Jews had experienced setbacks, his decentralization project could have actually been a way to reverse the process of God’s withdrawal. If so, what he sought was to infuse the people with the self-confidence and discipline needed to bring God’s more regular presence back into their camp. Accordingly, not only may Moshe not have agreed to the lessening of God’s presence, he might have really been seeking ways to turn it around.
This perspective sheds a different light on how to understand events. Going back to the beginning of the decentralization process, Yitro told Moshe that his being the only leader would take its toll on the Israelites as well as on Moshe (Shemot 18:17–18). Although Yitro’s plan was mainly a practical issue, Moshe may well have understood it otherwise: that not only would he be prevented from reaching his spiritual potential, but that the Jews would be prevented from reaching theirs as well.
Moshe saw no contradiction between religious growth and public responsibility. On the contrary, he likely saw leadership as an additional channel through which to cling to God. As Yitro had pointed out, were Moshe to be involved exclusively in leadership it would prove to be debilitating. But in combination with more explicitly spiritual pursuits, one would fruitfully complement the other. Hence, it is quite natural that he welcomed the participation of others in a leadership that he saw as part of a larger spiritual package. From this perspective we can understand early events in the desert journey from a different angle. For instance, when Moshe is challenged by the men who were disqualified from celebrating Pesach, he could only have welcomed their initiative, as their action came from a desire for spirituality and, as such, was exactly what Moshe wanted to see. Moreover, it gave him reason to look forward to other Jews doing the same.
The notion that Moshe had such a vision is buttressed by a curious incident recorded only a few chapters before the incident with the spies. After a series of improper complaints from the Israelites, Moshe laments that he cannot continue to lead the people by himself (Bemidbar 11:14).33The expression he uses, kaved memeni (it is too heavy for me), is interestingly the same used by Yitro (kaved mim’cha) to warn Moshe what would happen if he would not appoint more judges (Shemot 18:18). God responds by commanding him to share his prophetic spirit with seventy elders. Since it appears that Moshe had already appointed judges/captains over the thousands, the hundreds, etc., in accordance with Yitro’s suggestion, the need for additional leaders is perplexing – all the more so since we have already heard of other Jewish leaders that could have already helped Moshe as well. These include the tribal elders we read about at the beginning of the book of Bemidbar 1:4–17 and those who were with Moshe in Pharaoh’s court (Shemot 4:29).34 See Midrash Tanchuma, Beha’alotecha 16, which posits that this first group of elders had just died as a group. This is an obvious attempt to explain the need for Moshe to choose seventy leaders when such a group already existed. This makes it appear as if Moshe is asking to appoint leaders who already exist. Yet God responds without raising an objection, as Moshe’s request is for leaders of a different type. Hence, He proclaims that this time those chosen will take from Moshe’s prophetic spirit, such that they will be the leaders Moshe wants.
Moshe’s satisfaction with God’s response becomes clear when two of the elders, Eldad and Meidad, prophesy in the midst of the camp. That they do so without official sanction makes their initiative highly questionable. But, as opposed to Yehoshua’s concern for the anarchy that could ensue, Moshe seems quite comfortable with the occurrence. In fact, there is something even more fundamental going on. Here Moshe actually declares what has probably been motivating him all along – that all Jews should be prophets! In other words, as God is about to lower the spiritual level of the nation, Moshe is looking to do just the opposite and raise the entire nation to the level of prophecy.
With this understanding, we are ready to reexamine the story of the spies. From Moshe’s perspective, that which began with the diffusion of his spirit to the seventy elders was to continue with the diffusion of responsibility to prepare the people’s entrance into their land. Far from being part of the downward adjustment to a more mundane existence, the spies were to be the next chapter in Moshe’s campaign for national prophecy. Now that it had been jumpstarted by the appointment of seventy true leaders, Moshe would continue to bring more people into the spiritually charged leadership. As tribal leaders of some sort,35In Bemidbar 13:2 they are described as nesi’im (raised ones). the spies seemed like the ideal candidates.
This was all shattered when the spies presented Moshe with a report he did not expect.
We now have a more profound appreciation of Moshe’s shock at the events that ensued. Moshe viewed the land as holy, and scouting it a spiritually enriching experience. Had the spies gone out with that same vision, they would have seen very different things. First and foremost they would have seen God’s presence. Instead they saw big fruit, strong men and fortified cities. Granted, Moshe asked them to look at the produce, the people and the habitations, but this could not have been at the center of his plan, could not have been why sending spies “found favor in his eyes.” Such details were to be secondary to the main report, which he later summarizes as “good is the land that the Lord our God gives us” (Devarim 1:25). Good in the full, spiritually charged meaning of the word – especially as it is “the land which God gives us.”
Sending spies to scout out the land was meant to be a landmark of the reversal Moshe was trying to orchestrate, in order to keep God in the camp. Instead it showed him just how far the people were from any path to redemption. Whether it made him understand that his generation had no interest in conquering the land or that they were content to live out more mundane lives, or both, the disappointment must have been excruciating. Through the fiasco of the spies, the desert Israelites sealed their fate – they would neither enter the land nor continue to enjoy the immediacy of God’s presence.
Moshe’s agreement to the scouting mission was a bet on the Jews getting it right. When they did not, he was left with little to look forward to. As such, he would expect nothing more than the same fate that was sealed for the generation that left Egypt. Moshe understood that the spy episode had been the gamble that forever dashed his plan to enter the land. For even if the Jews conquered the land, as they eventually did, it would be done in a mundane way that would no longer be in line with his vision. Perhaps a shadow of Moshe could go into the land this way. But the real Moshe’s hopes were forever dashed with the spies’ report. Therefore it was, as Moshe says, because of the spy incident that his fate was sealed.
The Failure and the Rebuke
It is clear that Moshe was not the right man to send the spies. As apparent as this is in the episode itself, it is made even more clear by the success of his more grounded successor, Yehoshua, when he later executes a successful spy mission into the Land of Israel (Yehoshua 2). But Moshe’s failure was not really the point, as even if he had succeeded in adjusting to a more mundane approach to leadership, it would not have mitigated the immense shortcoming in that first generation of desert Jews that led to the spy debacle in the first place.
In Moshe’s eyes, the Jews were capable of meriting a miraculous and highly intensive manifestation of the Divine presence. Had they realized that potential, Moshe would have crossed the Jordan and helped establish a kingdom of God on earth. Instead, the Jews would need to start near the beginning, and from there it would be necessary to go through many centuries of trials and tribulations before they would be ready to create God’s kingdom on earth once again.36See Devarim 31:29, where Moshe tells the Jews that he knows that they will sin.
But Moshe was too great to wallow in disappointment. Upon coming to the end of his tenure, he prepares his charges for what is to come. He encourages them to reach their potential, even if it was no longer what he once had in mind. These are his parting words, and they form a large part of the book of Devarim.
It was not enough for Moshe to inform the Jews of their current potential; he also wanted them to remember the true ideal. For Moshe this could be nothing less than a communal state of prophecy, which the Jews had attained at Sinai. To motivate them, he stresses that death and destruction could easily happen when they settle for less.
Yet, even without destruction, the path chosen by the Jews had no room for someone of Moshe’s stature (nor perhaps that of Aharon and Miriam either). Like the Talmud’s Choni haMa’agel who preferred death to spiritual loneliness (Taanit 23a), Moshe could not live when his sublime life’s vision had been rendered irrelevant.
For their part, the Jews would be granted another chance to slowly build up to Moshe’s ideal in the Land of Israel. They would have new spiritual greats. And when the exhortations of these greats would also fall on deaf ears, these new ones too would disappear, whether by death or by simple irrelevance. They too would become mute, as Moshe had become at the spy incident; and if not mute, they would be muted by those around them. As with Moshe, even if they were there, it would be as if they were not.
And yet in spite of all this, Moshe’s vision would never die. Through his life and through his charge – both of which are recorded in the Torah for all eternity – his message lives on, perpetually reminding us that there is a lofty ideal we must strive to attain. Awareness of that ideal and our need to aspire to it is Moshe’s legacy to us.37We will discuss this idea at greater length in Chapter Nine.
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Moshe was correct in his assessment of and disappointment in the Jews of his time. But he was also wrong. He was right that God is everywhere, all of the time, and is, ipso facto, in complete control of everything that happens. But he was wrong in thinking most people can comfortably live with this. Since they cannot, God removes His immediate and tangible presence from our world so that people can make their mistakes and learn from them on their own, without His overarching guidance showing us the way.
Jewish tradition tells us that a highly attuned spiritual individual can choose to live in a world of heightened God-consciousness and Divine providence. Yet in light of Moshe’s isolation, it is a path chosen by very few. A great challenge for those who take the higher path – or really for anyone who has attained lofty spiritual goals – is not losing sight of everybody else. Moshe understood that spirituality is not meant to be a selfish affair, and that one cannot leave the community behind. But that is easier said than done, especially by one as great as Moshe. The higher the precipice, the farther one is from those standing at the bottom. Not only do they look much smaller than they really are, but one can barely make them out at all.
Difficulty notwithstanding, a religious leader must keep his finger on the pulse of the people, even as he tries to bring them forward and have them take a more active role in their own spiritual development. Certainly, the ideal is for everyone to be prophets – but this can only be accomplished one step at a time.