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

The Shluchim: A Redemption Story

Poetic notes on parashat Shelach*

Twelve Shluchim 

Twelve sent out 

to scout out

Heaven on earth

Recon soldiers for the army of Heaven

Officers of twelve camps of thousands

They went out as sent and did their job

“The Land is greater than Gan Eden

Gan Eden could cause to live or die

This Holy Land can eat its inhabitants alive

if their holiness fades or wanes

either in spirit or body!

Does it do this for us?

To prepare for us?

And will it not do this to us?

When we fall

will it not be the giants of this land

who stand over us to judge us?

It is a most bountiful land

with a promise of the world to come

But heed our apocalyptic warning!”

As if Caleb’s God could not hear them

As if Joshua’s God would be silent

The knees of the people shook

from a well-founded fear of the Holy Land

The Temple stones   

shook with fear 

within the living bones of Israel

On the anvil of fear

faith would be hammered out like steel

and made true like the living sword of God

Their faith was untempered

They saw the land of God with a scandalous eye

And this is why

after just 40 days

they accused the land of scandal

They were called to the witness stand of truth

But a testimony was denied to them

They were taken from the courtroom

from the trial of the nations

For forty years they were hidden in a private place

A place prepared for them in the wilderness

Just forty years 

But it seemed to stretch until the end of time

The foundations of their faith were repaired

No one repents without a foundation

No one conquers the Holy Land

without repentance

without corrections

without Menachot corrections

without Challah corrections

without Shabbat corrections

without corrections of the eye

and corrections of the tongue

learned from Miriam the tzaddik

In the spirit of Moshe Mashiach

she was not afraid to be corrected 

for the thoughts of her children

A daughter was kidnapped from the Sabbath

by a great rogue

What father would not run after her?

Praying he would save her

in the eye of judge and jury

within the holy bounds of Sabbath

But what if fearful eyes were offended?

One could think, the Rebbe said,

the Torah could have been written

so as not to offend 

even the eye of an offender

Thus he elevated the holy lesson of Miriam 

Which it may be the Saturday Rogue cannot learn

But the eye studied in Torah learns

That the righteous are corrected openly

To save the sinner 

from uttering an unpardonable offence

Righteousness is veiled a little with grace

It blinds only the scandalous eye

The Holy Land is trampled by the nations

until the fear of the children

is hammered into faith

like the hardened steel of a two-edged sword

To see it is the quiet joy of the Torah

as she prepares twelve renewed Shluchim 

twelve emissaries to carry her spirit in

to greet the Holy Land in wedded love

*Being a meditation on a Torah class based on parashah Shelach, delivered by Rabbi Baitelman of ChaBaD Richmond, B.C., based on the series, Torah Studies, by Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. Neither Rabbi Baitelman nor the JLI have reviewed or approved of the content of this post.