When Jeremiah called for surrender and acceptance of the yoke of the king of Babylon, he knew that the people could no longer be purified and restored to the true path except through arduous sufferings involving the destruction of the Temple and the yoke of exile. It was no longer possible to “build and plant” without fulfilling the message of “to root and pull down, to destroy and overthrow.” (Jeremiah 1:10) The work of rebuilding could not be contemplated before the process of destruction and uprooting had been endured.
The people made a number of blunders, one of the worst of which had them utter the phrase נִתְּנָ֥ה רֹ֖אשׁ וְנָשׁ֥וּבָה מִצְרָֽיְמָה. “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.” (14:4)
Needless to say, we’ve been down this road before. Not only the “return to Egypt” line, but even worse, the “replace the leader” idea did not bode well last time. Don’t we remember the Golden Calf?
Moshe employs very similar tactics now, as he did at the time of the Golden Calf, in defense of the Bnei Yisrael, even calling attention to God’s Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, in hopes that God will stay His hand from striking down the seemingly ungrateful nation.
The problem with the Ma'apilim (the group that tried to go up without the Aron and Moshe’s support – see above, 2nd paragraph) is that they felt that their expressing a desire to go into the land, after the consequence had been imposed upon them, demonstrated Teshuvah. It wasn’t that at all! It may have been regret as in, “Our choice to follow the spies has made things worse.” It may have been remorse, “We’re stuck in the wilderness for the rest of our lives, and only our children will reach the promised land.” But it does not truly demonstrate Teshuvah. Teshuvah includes coming to the realization that God is at your side, and He has always and will always be with you. But it also includes the sentiment highlighted above in the quote from Nechama Leibowitz.
It was Kalev who said in 13:30 “Let us go up and conquer the land, for we can do it!” But he was immediately contradicted by the other spies who said “We can’t, for they are too strong.” When Yehoshua chimed in as well in 14:6-10, the people threatened to stone the two of them!
Moshe’s conversation with God produced the result that God would take the remainder of 40 years to have the nation die out, but it is only after the ten spies die in 14:37, and it is declared that Yehoshua and Kalev are the only two of the spies to remain (14:38) that the idea to go up to the land and conquer becomes an option in the hearts of those looking to do so. 14:40-45 features their decision, the warning against it, their attempt and their defeat at the hands of the Amalekites and Canaanites.
Is this real Teshuvah? How could it be? There is no process. There is no real regret of their actions. There is no real humbling of themselves to demonstrate the beginnings of undoing the damage they caused themselves.
As Nechama Leibowitz puts it, “Divine punishment is itself the cure for their ills, the path of repentance.”
It could certainly be argued that there is a difference between how we view things and how others (peoples of other faiths) view the concept of action, consequence, Divine punishment, or to use a school metaphor, when the student says “Why’d you give me a bad grade?” and the teacher responds with “I didn’t give you anything. You earned what you got, based on the effort you presented.”
We learn from the spies that there is a linear narrative to history. Perhaps there is action, reaction, consequence, but certainly human behavior influences what happens.
God is not to be easily fooled or swayed by an emotional reaction that, for all purposes, is fleeting. The people were not sincerely penitent for rejecting God, the Land, and the prospects of living in the Land, with whatever challenges they foresaw.
There are no shortcuts to getting to desired outcomes. If we want God to shine His Divine Grace upon us, we must have a relationship with Him, communicate with Him through prayer, whether formal or informal, declare our praises of Him, give thanks to Him regularly. And it can’t just be turned on when we finally find that we need God in our lives.
Speaking generally, there are no atheists in foxholes. People who believe in God but don’t put in the effort to have a relationship with God turn to Him when they have a dire need. Whether their own illness, that of a loved one, when some other kind of disaster strikes. But if the relationship wasn't there all along, one wonders how much God will respond with immediacy to those requests, contingent on need but not on a lifelong pursuit of a connection with the Almighty.
In other arenas, people make choices in terms of their behaviors, when relating to others in general, or to others who are suffering. Some people are extremely kind, gracious, generous, magnanimous, and some people pick and choose when and how. Obviously we can’t all support every person who is needy and every organization that does amazing work. But we can make the effort to have a kind word for others, to judge people favorably, to seek and find the good in others, and most importantly, as we give ourselves a pass for many of our own flaws and inadequacies, find the generosity of spirit to do that for other imperfect human beings as well. These are choices we make in the human-to-human realm, noting that while in life we can't have a relationship with everyone, we can nonetheless do chesed for others when opportunities arise, because that helps us grow and improve as humans in our own right.
One of the most important lessons of wilderness living was the weaning of slaves out of a slave mentality into a people ready to conquer a land and build it up for themselves, through appreciating the Divine gift the land was meant to be for the Children of Israel, while also looking out for one another, something a slave might not do as a slave might only be interested in one's own survival (there are many Holocaust tales of prisoners looking out for one another, leaving us to wonder what was more the "rule" and more the "exception"). Understandably, that would take time – the passing of a full generation. Maimonides writes that somehow this was actually part of God’s plan, for the people to be in the wilderness for 40 years. [There is plenty of evidence – see Shemos 16:35, and Rashi’s comment on the last verse in Parshas Shemos 6:1 for two examples…]
The immobile Ark was meant to remind people that you can’t be moving unless the Torah is part of your movement. The Torah is our guide, and informs what our relationship with God is supposed to be. The Ma’apilim missed this because they weren’t using the Torah as a guide, but were guided by emotions alone, in what turned out to be a failed attempt at overturning their fate.
For us, we are reminded that Teshuvah must be real, and that assuming Divine Grace without doing anything for it is a lesson in disappointment. May we merit to have a real relationship with God, and to be deserving of positive consequences for our good choices and actions.
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