Thinking Torah Blog

In this week’s Torah portion, we encounter the most consequential moment the Israelites have in the desert. Moses sends spies to scout the land before they enter, and 10 of the 12 spies return, saying they cannot defeat the people living there. God punishes the Israelites for their lack of faith by ensuring they wander in the desert for 40 years until a new generation of Israelites can take the leadership of the community. When the scouts return from scouting, they also bring some of the fruits they gathered, showing them and saying to the Israelite community in Numbers 13:27, “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.” One might wonder, why bother bringing back the fruit of the land if they know that they will tell the community that they cannot conquer the land anyway? Rashi answers this question by saying, “They stated this because no fabricated statement in which one does not say at least some true words at first can, in the end, be maintained.” All lies contain at least some truth in them. This fact was as true for the ancients as much as it is still true for us in our country today.