Recently, I was sitting near the caravans outside Alon Shvut. As I was taking in the panorama, I was struck by two thoughts: 1) This is really beautiful, and 2) It is amazing how much has been built in my eighteen years living in Gush Etziyon. We, Debbie, Rachel, Tamar, and I visited the Gush on a pilot trip in August 1982. There was no Efrat or Neve Daniel, and Elazar was a struggling cooperative moshav with two dozen families. We moved to Moshav Elazar, October 15, 1983. Efrat had no paved walkways and one pay phone for all the fifty or so families that lived there.

In some way I was fated to live in the Gush. Debbie spent some time here in the summer of 1972, and fell in love (with the Gush, I was a separate issue). I had never been to Eretz Yisroel before that pilot trip, and had never considered myself particularly Zionist. In 1982 we decided that it was soon going to be time to leave the Atlantic City area where I was teaching, because it was not the environment we wanted in which to raise our children. I thought we'd move to one of the Golden Ghettoes around New York City. I even had a job offer to become assistant principal at a prestigious day school in New York. Debbie had a different idea. She said, "If we want to move for the sake of the children, what place is better to raise children than Eretz Yisroel?" She had God and the Torah on her side, so who was I to demur.

So, off we went. It was not long before I became an ardent Zionist. Touring the land, settling the land, protecting the land (okay, in my own feeble, almost comical, way) became a central focus in my life. Soon the joys of the growth and the sorrows of the losses (on a recent visit to the cemetery in Kfar Etziyon I was amazed at how I knew so many of those interred) firmly attached me to this small patch of territory. Its glorious and tragic history has become my adopted roots. Therefore, it is so hard for me to dislodge my family from here to spend a few years in the United States, but that is in fact happening. The reasons are many and personal and reasonable, but that does not make it easier.

This is perhaps the best of weeks to contemplate this temporary (Please, God!) transfer. I feel the need to analyze the sin of the spies in this week's Torah reading to assuage my conscious. I do not feel traitorous to my Homeland, but I want to clearly delineate what they did and sharply focus on the difference between that generation and the Walk family.

There are many ways to understand how these leaders of the Jewish nation could turn their backs on the divine command to enter Israel. We will examine two types of approaches to the problem.

In the first method of investigation, the twelve leaders were the real difficulty. They overstepped the boundaries of their assignment, and that led to the downfall of the rest of the nation. But the hoi poloi of the nation were victimized by these leaders and their plans. Their guilt came from choosing these princes over Moshe Rabbeinu. There are two ways of looking at this issue. Perhaps these leaders weren't so bad, in that they did it for positive but mistaken spiritual reasons. The Malbim explains that they didn't want to give up the supernatural existence of the desert. In Israel they would have to work, farm and graze, while in the desert they could sit and learn all day. They missed the point of 'tov Torah im derech eretz (Torah is good together with the way of the world)'.

The Mei Hashiloach (Izhbitz) says that they were in the special category of 'aveira lishma (a sin done for the sake of heaven)'. They were trying to keep Moshe alive and leading the nation, because they somehow knew that Moshe would die upon entrance into Israel. This is interesting, but problematic. The normal idea of aveira lishma is viewed in a positive light by our sages and, we believe, by Hashem. Not so in our case. Here we have arguably the worst deed ever perpetrated by the Jewish nation. This not only led to the forty year exile in the desert, but to the creation of the day of national mourning, Tisha B'av. I just wish the Izhbitzer would have said that this was an attempted aveira lishma, not the real thing.

The Noam Elimelech (Reb Elimelech of Lezhinsk) says the whole enterprise was doomed from the start. Moshe Rabbeinu called them 'nasi'im' (princes) because the word means to lift. They were supposed to lift the nation to new spiritual heights. They thought the name implied 'exalted'. Moshe told them 'latur' the land, by which he intended them to bring Torah into the Eretz Yisroel. They thought it meant for them to search out the land critically. The true goal of this expedition was to reinforce the role of the Zadik (in this case Moshe, but to Chasidim the implication is to their own Rebbe), but instead he was challenged for leadership. All of these ideas are important and instructive, but ultimately don't address the issue of our relationship to the land.

The other way of understanding the sin does not make it the sin of the spies, but the sin of the generation of the desert (in our traditional literature both expressions appear). The issue was lashon hara (evil gossip) against the land. The people were ready to accept uncritically denigration of Eretz Yisroel. Of course, this was a lacking in their faith in Hashem, but it was more severe. It demonstrated a more fundamental flaw. It undermined not just an isolated precept, but the central position of Eretz Yisroel in our religious system. The Jewish people can go a long time without performing certain mitzvot, but we can't go a day without acknowledging our connection to the Land. It is not just that a few times a year we passionately express our yearning for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It is our orienting ourselves toward the Holy Land when ever we pray. It is the content of our most often recited prayers, focusing on Israel and Jerusalem. It is the daily, almost hourly, mention of these places in mouths of traditional Jews which cements our relationship to the Land.

The Slonimer (Reb Shalom Noach Barkovsky in Netivot Shalom) says that the spies made the most basic of errors in their report. They reported on the land as if it were any old place. They missed the most important feature of Eretz Yisraoel. It is a supernatural location. It exists on a different plane somewhere between this world and the spiritual realm. The Land shines with a glow emanating from Hashem. It was the simple faith in this tenet that they missed. Lacking this belief they were transformed from spies into traitors.

This is the sin of the spies and that generation. They could see and report nice things about the Land, perhaps, even mentioning its advantages as a vacation destination or place to spend a year learning, but they missed the real point. This sin gets repeated. Many generations have failed to recognize the miraculous nature of Eretz Yisroel. Failed to understand that this is where Jews are supposed to live. Missed the symbiosis of land and people.

That sin I haven't committed. I know that this is where we belong, and even before departure, await our return. IY"H we'll do the things we are going to accomplish, and come home.

Comments, ideas, questions? Send Rabbi Walk a note at:rwalk@yhol.org.il

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