This week marks my 205th blog—yes, I’m counting. Over time, I’ve tried, when possible, to connect the parsha with something personal or political. After all, as the saying goes, “the personal is the political,” a phrase popularized during the feminist movements of the 1960s. That era challenged many assumptions, including marriage itself. When I read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique a few years after its publication, it was a wake-up call—one I largely ignored at the time, being married in Israel with a child. That was an era that challenged institutions like marriage. Today, it feels as if everything is being challenged again—only now the stakes are far higher: war, internal fracture, and a steady erosion of trust in leadership that is supposed to safeguard this country.

Parshat Shelach Lecha opens with what we would today call an intelligence mission. Moses sends twelve leaders to scout the land of Canaan: assess the terrain, the people, the defenses. In other words—gather intelligence before acting.

See what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And you shall muster strength וְהִ֨תְחַזַּקְתֶּ֔ם  to bring back some of the fruit of the land” (Numbers 13:17–20).

There is something striking in the instruction to “be strong” וְהִ֨תְחַזַּקְתֶּ֔ם when taking from the fruit of the land. Is it the fruit that is heavy or the enterprise that requires physical and perhaps mental strength? Sforno writes on the phrase והתחזקתם ולקחתם מפרי הארץ:

Do not be afraid that the local inhabitants will notice your taking some produce and will attack you on account of that. 

He is one of the commentators who suggest this may hint at resistance—after all, the land is inhabited. This is not an empty promise waiting passively to be fulfilled. It belongs to others.

The Report of the Spies

After forty days, the spies return. Their report is mixed. The land is indeed “flowing with milk and honey,” but it is also populated by powerful nations and fortified cities. Giants, even. In other words: this is not a land one simply walks into and claims. Thus, ten of them conclude: we cannot go forward. Caleb—and later Joshua reject this caution and insist with confidence........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)