Parashat Shlach, Numbers 13:1-15:41

Haftarah: Joshua 2:1-24

Shabbat Mevarchim (Blessing the new moon)

Dear TBE Community,

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום from Camp Newman! And mazal tov,  מזל טוב to the Board of Directors on their installation!

I am very excited to be going into my first Friday night experience here at this Jewish summer camp so near and dear to our Temple’s hearts, and that I have already fallen in love with. I do miss celebrating Shabbat with you all but — or and: How lucky am I that I get to be here, and to bless the coming new moon of Tammuz together with this amazing community! Rosh Chodesh Tammuz begins this Sunday evening.

I have a longer d’var Torah for you today about an example of biblical criticism, and why I love it.

This week’s pairing of parsha and haftarah is a great example for how these two Shabbat readings can complement and mirror each other, as they often do: In the Torah, in Parashat Shlach, we’re reading about the twelve so-called “spies,” who were sent into the land of Canaan to scout it out. Famously, this reconnaissance trip goes south, because famously only two (Joshua and Caleb) of the spies reassure the people that it can be done, that the Israelites will be able to settle there.

But read closely what the text says:

Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.”  But the other men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of astonishingly great size; we saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites are part of the Nephilim—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” (Numbers 13:30-33)

One: I spoke about self-sabotaging in last week’s d’var Torah, and this is another clear case of that: We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves — and so we must have looked to the people in the land as well.

Two: The text only mentions Caleb. Where is Joshua, wasn’t he supposed to be there as well?

Let’s read on:

The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness!” “Why is God taking us to that land to fall by the sword?” “Our wives and children will be carried off!” “It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.” Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of Israelites. And Joshua son of Nun  — (Notice, he is back!) — and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If pleased with us, God will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us; only you must not rebel against God.Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our prey: their protection has departed from them, but God is with us. Have no fear of them!” As the whole community threatened to pelt them with stones, the Presence of God appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. (Numbers 14:1-10)

God is furious about the self-sabotaging that also threatens to sabotage God’s entire narrative: If they don’t want to go, they don’t want what I have to offer them! They can’t value my beautiful gift, the whole redemption narrative! They don’t trust me enough!!

And God said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and I will make of you a nation far more numerous than they!” (Numbers 14:11-12)

But Moses pleads yet again with God on behalf of the Israelites, reminding God of God’s attributes that God had proclaimed to him on Mount Sinai, begging God not to self-sabotage God-self. And God speaks the words that are, like the Thirteen Attributes, part of the High Holiday liturgy:

And God said, “I pardon, as you have asked.” (Numbers 14:20)

And that is when a few weeks turn into forty years. Because God grants forgiveness under one condition:

None of those involved—who have seen My Presence and the signs that I have performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tried Me these many times and have disobeyed Me— shall see the land that I promised on oath to their fathers; none of those who spurn Me shall see it. (Numbers 14:22)

None, but one. Joshua is absent again:

But My servant Caleb, because he was imbued with a different spirit and remained loyal to Me—him will I bring into the land that he entered, and his offspring shall hold it as a possession. (Numbers 14:24)

One? Or two? A few verses later it states:

None shall enter the land in which I swore to settle you—save Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. (Numbers 14:30)

Oops, here is Joshua again, who was conveniently absent when Caleb needed his support — but now shows up right in time to take credit as well. Deserved, undeserved; a long-planted seed or later edits, attempts to promote one candidate over the other?

We won’t go too deep into the weeds, but this happens several times in Torah and Tanakh: Where there was one name, suddenly there are two. Where there were two names, suddenly there’s only one. Scribal error or political agenda; sabotage, murder, or mere oversight?

Suffice it say that the one taking the glory ultimately is Joshua, not Caleb. There is no Book of Caleb that describes how Caleb leads the people across the Jordan, or how Caleb sends out spies to scout out Jericho. This happens in the haftarah of this week’s parasha, taken from the Book of Joshua. The haftarah recounts a different reconnaissance mission, a successful one that will bring down the walls of Jericho.

For many chapters, Caleb’s name is absent from the Book of Joshua, until it is time for the partitioning of the land among the tribes:

So Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and assigned Hebron to him as his portion. (Joshua 14:13)

I wonder, was Caleb annoyed, did he feel treated unjustly, or had he quietly ceded what might have seemed to him his rightful claim as Moses’ successor to Joshua? Was he inwardly furious when Joshua blessed him? Had he campaigned pointing to biblical emendations and later insertions into the chapters leading up to the incident of the spies, his biggest and most heroic accomplishment, telling everyone: Don’t you see it?! That guy Joshua just had the bigger superPAC and they just wrote me out of the story, or him into it!

Joshua, with his name connected to the root for salvation and changed by God, wins the electoral college.

We don’t know what Caleb thought, if anything. What is recorded however is that Caleb has a daughter by the name of Achsah and that daughter was quite a go-getter, maybe making up for what might have been her father’s acquiescence. This is how her story goes:

She is given into marriage to a man who is a relative, but that doesn’t bother her so much. What does bother her is that she inherits dry desert land. And like the daughters of Tzelochofad and, maybe, unlike her father, she is not content with her lot and portion. She approaches Caleb to ask for more:

She dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb asked her, “What is the matter?” She replied, “Give me a present; for you have given me away as Negev-land; so give me springs of water.” And he gave her Upper and Lower Gulloth. (Joshua 15/Judges 1)

Achsa petitioned for herself and made sure her descendants would have well-watered land in the desert, arguably another form of salvation.

Okay. I have strayed far from Santa Rosa and far from Parashat Shelach in this newsletter davar and dragged you well more than forty years through the desert into the promised land and the times of Joshua! Why?

Because biblical criticism is fascinating to me. While it arguably renders Torah’s origin less divine, Torah comes alive through it as a meandering document of people’s believes and aspirations, intriguingly human. It contains hidden and obvious agendas and schemes, inconsistencies, competition and compromises, sabotage and collaboration, winners who take it all, relenting fathers and demanding daughters, and there is a never-ending thread running through all these stories, connecting them in a way that feels mysteriously powerful, divinely inspired like an unrelenting source of water. Tracing this thread and its many subsidiaries is love and a passion that I enjoy sharing.

Shabbat Shalom, Mazal Tov, and Chodesh Tov Tammuz!
Rabbi Julia Knobloch