Jesse Herdan – Year 8

This week’s parashah of Shelakh lekha begins with the well-known story of the spies who were sent by Moshe to survey the land of Canaan at the request of the people. The twelve spies returned and all but two, Calev and Yehoshua, stated that the people that inhabited the land were too fierce, and the cities were too fortified. However, Calev and Yehoshua believed that the Israelites people could overcome the challenge with the help of God.

But, the people ended up agreeing with the other ten spies. God got enraged at this and in turn, the spies (except for Yehoshua and Calev) and the generation of those taken out of Egypt were punished with wandering through the desert for 40 years, allowing for the next generation to be the group ready to enter and conquer the land.

After the episode with the spies, the Torah describes the mitzvah of taking Challah. The mitzvah is the removal of a piece of dough from the entire batch which is then dedicated to God.

The question that remains is why these two episodes are put next to each other in the Torah. What does dedicating a portion of challah have to do with the sin of the spies?

The reason that this generation was not ready or capable of entering the land of Israel was due to the fact that they did not understand their partnership with God. Despite the miracles of the ten plagues, the parting of the Reed Sea, the giving of the Aseret ha-Dibrot, and the Manna, , the Israelites were not ready to see themselves as being able to partner with God in their future tasks. The spies came back with beautiful fruit from the land, but their fear quickly took over as the reality of the task ahead became clear. They did not have the full trust that was necessary in order to be able to accomplish the task ahead with God by their side.

The Challah is a symbol of our taking the gifts of nature given by God, and fashioning them into something valuable, sustaining and beautiful. We are meant to be partners with God who doesn’t just hand us everything ready- made. In our “take –out” oriented society, we have begun to lose the pleasure and pain of productivity.

Thankfully, there are some trends today toward DIY (do it yourself) projects and the value of creating things on our own. When we put the necessary effort into our actions and mitzvot, then we are recognizing the creative power that we have to change the world together with God. The spies were not ready to see the riches waiting for them after the task of conquering the land. They were paralyzed with fear and not ready for the effort involved.

 The secret of challah is the challenge that we have in balancing our expectations from God together with our responsibilities in the world. The mitzvah of taking challah was to remind us that we need to be partners with God. We need to understand that even though life has challenges, we should persevere. We need to be reminded that our purpose in this world is Tikkun Olam. Like baking challah, God provides us with the raw materials and the tools and we are expected to be his partners in the creative process.