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Orchard of Delights # Shelach
#
£Impressions Made Impressions Made Impressions Made Perhaps Abraham’s merit in passing his ten tests gave God, as it were,
the strength, patience, and compassion to endure his descendants’
££
in the Fabric of Timein the Fabric of Timein the Fabric of Time ten tests. (See “The Ten Tests of Abraham – The Ten Tests of God”
above.)
God did not allow the men between the ages of twenty and sixty
Upon hearing the spies’ report, their description of the well-fortified to enter the Holy Land because of the sin of the spies. The Slonimer
cities and the giants who inhabited them, “the entire congregation Rebbe explains that we should not view this decree as a punishment,
lifted up their voice and cried; and the people wept that night” but rather as the inevitable result of their actions. Because they
(Numbers 14:1). The Talmud discusses the ramifications of their lacked the faith to enter the Promised Land, they changed their
crying: “Rabbah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: ‘That night own destinies with regard to the Land. The Land itself could not
was the ninth of Av. The Holy One Blessed Is He said to them: You allow them to enter. In fact, many of the ostensible punishments in
cried for no reason – I will establish for you [on this night] a crying the Torah have been explained by the commentators as being the
for generations’” (Ta’anit 29a). inevitable consequences of peoples’ actions. This principle of Divine
justice is similar to the notion of “measure for measure” that we have
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There are two possible valid approaches to interpreting God’s
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decision to establish on this night “a crying for generations”: a rational discussed many times before.
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approach and a mystical one. From a rational perspective, we could As the multiple connections between the number ten and the letter
understand God’s words to indicate that the people’s rejection of His yud indicate, the Torah’s stories are linked on many levels. These
promise to bring them into the Promised Land will have ramifications same connective forces occur and reoccur in our private lives, the
for future generations. This began with the generation that died in history of the Jewish people, and world history. The letters of the
the desert (the males between the ages of twenty and sixty, except Torah represent the building blocks of creation and the fabric of
for Joshua and Caleb) and continued with their children’s generation, history as it unfolds. Our actions create harmony and redemption or
which had to wander for forty years in the desert until the time came dissonance and disaster; their consequences may be felt immediately
to enter the Promised Land. Furthermore, God could be stating that or sometimes only generations later. Even now, millennia later,
the majority of the Jews in the future would repeat the same error. we are still trying to rectify the failings of the spies. Even now the
There would be many times in the future when the Jewish people prayers of Abraham and Moses are assisting us in ways we do not
would have the opportunity to return to Israel, but only a minority fully comprehend.
would grasp the opportunity and have the faith to actually return.
For example, when Cyrus presented the Jews with the opportunity
to return to Israel and rebuild the Second Temple, only a pitiful few
returned to Israel. The majority of Jews remained in Babylonia.
(This story is recounted in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). This
same opportunity has arisen today, as the Zionist enterprise has
encouraged Jews to return to Israel for over one hundred years.
While this time almost half the Jewish population of the world has
returned, the majority of Jews still resides outside of Israel.
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