12/06/2026
📣📣 Parshat Shlach, Elana Max, HANC
Iשלח לך - Send for thyself. As רשי terms it, “according to your own judgement.” Yet, how do we form such judgements? How do we know that what we choose is right and just? This year, we have been taught to hear Torah as it speaks to us, to see ourselves in the texts, and to understand the fluidity and all-encompassing nature of Halacha. We have been taught that Torah is ours. We have spent the year forming and challenging our ideology, our days deliberating how we want to live our lives, and our moments wondering about the nature of our growth. Here and now, we are leaving Midreshet Lindenbaum, stepping out into the world, and leaving the comfort of our philosophical incubator. We are nervous and excited, apprehensive and anxious. We are on the cusp of whatever comes next. Suddenly, searching for what comes next seems especially relevant. How are we to know what challenges face us, what worries are worth their weight, and what sacrifices we may have to make. We are paralyzed by the very same emotions that likely engulfed the Jewish people as they nearly entered the land of Israel. Life is about to change.
Unfortunately for the Jews in פרשת שלח, it does not change for the better. The spies that they choose to send, the ones they request from Hashem, report back that the land of Israel is full of strongmen they cannot defeat. As ספורנו says, “to the giants of the land, the spies seemed like grasshoppers, or even less significant. They did not bother to harm them as they did not think they represented any threat.” The Jews, upon hearing such disheartening news, spent the night mourning and hoping to return to Egypt. As punishment, בני ישראל are cursed to wander the desert for forty years. Those who sinned will no longer be able to enter the land of Israel and will all die over the following four decades. The Jews, once on the cusp of entering Israel, have now entered a period of stagnation. They begin to despair and lose hope in the promised land.
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