Shlach,  שְׁלַח-לְךָ  "Send Out!"  Numbers 13:1-15:41

The Shluchim: A Redemption Story

Poetic notes on parashat Shelach*

Twelve Shluchim*,

twelve leaders of Israel… 

sent out to scout out the land of heaven on earth

Twelve reconnaissance soldiers for the army of heaven,

sent to survey the land that humans called Canaan, 

but that God called his own land,

the place of God on earth

God promised the land of heaven on earth to Abraham,

to Abraham and his offspring

And God desired to personally come up with them 

to his place,

to ascend with them out of the land of Egypt,

out of the world built in the day of Adam’s death,

to walk with them hand in hand into a holy land, 

a land of redemption for his people

No star accomplishes only its own purpose

A star shines from its furnace

against the gravity of the vast darkness,

not anticipating that a certain blade of grass,

growing in the Holy Land of God,

will take comfort in its light

Twelve officers of thousands stood before Hashem

Twelve tribes of Hashem stood inside the gate to the land, 

the gate facing north, 

facing the evil inclination of the world

Twelve tribes stood like twelve small children 

who reached out to take God’s hand,

to enter the covenant land, 

to conquer and take possession of the world,

But some of them wavered

Even the sun wavers when it shines according to its own wisdom

and does not know that it shines especially

for the sake of the poorest soul 

for the poorest soul that was enslaved on the day of Adam’s death,

the poorest soul of life chosen by God

But the twelve tribes knew,

though they were like young children

They knew when they went out to scout out the land 

that it was Hashem’s covenant land,

that it was the land of eternal redemption 

They knew that eternal life 

awaited their taking possession of the covenant land,

that it was waiting for Hashem to rule there

Why then did some waver?

There is freewill in love

But there is freewill only in love’s faith

There is no freewill in fearful disobedience to the voice of Hashem

Fail in love and be corrected in love

Fail by obeying fear as your god 

and you will not learn when chastizement’s loving hand comes to teach you

The way of correction for willful rebellion against the voice of Hashem

is a long and very hard journey

For willful rebellion creates slavery, 

destroying love, destroying freewill

The twelve tribes knew

that creation would end and begin again

when their feet took full possession of the land

Were the children of Israel

to carry Creation itself on their shoulders?

Some of them feared — ten tribes feared

When we fall short of Hashem’s glory,

will we not face giants and demons?

Joshua and Caleb said,

“The land cleanses itself by its holy spirit,

as when it cleansed itself by the floods of creation!

Will it not do this for us?

It is certainly in order to prepare a place for us

that the Holy Land cleanses itself!”

But the ten who feared said,

“Will it not cleanse us also when we fall short of the glory of Hashem?”

Then no one spoke

As if Caleb’s God could not hear them…

As if Joshua’s God would be simply silent…

Then the people said,

Is it not with a well grounded foundation 

that we fear the Holy Land?

Then all the Temple stones 

and all the Jewish bones shook together

For it was on the anvil of this quorum of fear

that faith would in time be hammered out like steel,

until, in the end, Israel’s faith 

would be made like the living sword of God!

At first her steel faith was untempered

She feared the land

instead of having complete faith in the land

Therefore she was taken into the wilderness

She was hidden there in a place prepared for her

It was just for forty years

Though those years seemed to stretch to the end of time

There in the wilderness heart surgery is done

A heart transplant is performed

Doubt is transformed into visions and revelations

Childish recklessness is converted into a discipled repentance

No repentance is ever accomplished

without a firm foundation

No one conquers God’s Holy land

without pure repentance,

without holy corrections,

without Menachot corrections,

without Challah corrections,

without Shabbat corrections,

without corrections of the eye,

and corrections of the tongue,

without having learned from Miriam the tzaddik,

in the spirit of Moshe Mashiach

She was not afraid to be corrected from the errors in her thought,

to perfect the thoughts of her children

A divine daughter was kidnapped

from the threshold of the Sabbath rest

by a great lying rogue

She was taken captive and enslaved

Just as she was about to step onto her own property

she was captured

What father, seeing her from the window of his own house, 

would not run after her?

Praying as he went

that Hashem would save her legally

in the eye of judge and jury…,

and that he would not be left

to take the law into his own hands

in order to try to save his daughter?

The king trusted his prayer to rule his heart,

as he ran into the wilderness after his daughter

There is no knowledge except in love

There is no knowledge but eternal knowledge

Knowledge that is fleeting is not knowledge 

but merely a passing thought

There is no eternal knowledge 

but knowledge built on the knowledge of Hashem

As time begins to reach its goal,

all knowledge increases exponentially,

both temporary knowledge and eternal knowledge

The knowledge in love begins to build the temple of repentance

The thought that is called knowledge but that passes with time

falls out of love and becomes destructive

The Holy Land purges it like waste

All thought that remains in the Holy Land remains in love

Adam knew Eve in love

That knowledge will be redeemed in the Holy Land

for the sake of all the children of Adam

All knowledge will be redeemed in the Holy Land

And from Jerusalem the knowledge of Hashem shall fill the earth 

as the waters fill the seas

One could think, the Rebbe said,

the Torah could have been intended

not to offend even the eye of an offender

The Holy land is trampled by the nations,

Until the harvest of the nations is ripened

Then the fear of the children of Israel will be readied,

having been hammered with the soft and gentle blows of grace,

fashioned with tender love and justice into faith,

faith like the hardened steel of a two-edged scythe,

a scythe of just and righteous mercy of much greater power

than the power of the dark water waster,

that God created with the power to destroy galaxies and worlds

To see Israel’s faith is the quiet joy of the elders of the Supernal Torah

They watch her prepare twelve renewed Shluchim,

twelve emissaries of Hashem, 

to carry the Holy Spirit in the march of the omer,

to greet the Holy Land in wedded love