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Weekly Davar - People Need To Make Mistakes

Torah Portion                                                        

This week’s portion focuses on the story of the spies who are sent by Moses to check out the land of Israel. They return with a negative report – it is a land that eats its inhabitants. It cannot be conquered. A land of giants…… While the women, as usual, stand strong and insist on entering Israel nevertheless, then men are terrified. In spite of the miracles they have witnessed, they are unwilling to put their trust in God. God responds that they are most welcome to spend another 40 years in the desert instead. Only their children will inherit the land. This is not a punishment, merely a granting of that which they wanted – that they should not have to enter the land of Israel. Very rarely does God punish. He just leads us in a way that we have chosen.

The portion talks of other bits and bobs, but the spies’ story is the main event. 

Davar Torah

When the spies were sent to the land of Israel, Moses pulled aside Hosea, his student, and renamed him Joshua, which means ‘God should save you’. The Rabbis explain that Moses was praying, ‘God should save him from the terrible deed that these spies are about to do’. But if Moses knew the spies were going to return with an evil report about the land of Israel, why did he send them in the first place? Why send them knowing they were going to make a mistake?

I believe that the answer to this question touches the essence of the issue of human freewill. God allows us to make our mistakes – and sometimes we have to allow those around us to do so as well. 

We would love to be able to control the lives of those we love. We’d love to ensure that they always make the right decisions, always do what is good for themselves and always choose the best path in life. But we have no right to do so.

It’s easiest to talk about this with regards to children but it applies further than that. We can guide, we can assist and we can educate our children – but we cannot coerce or manipulate them to do what we see as being right. Hard as it might be for us to accept, our children have their own choices to make and sometimes, painful as it might be, we have to allow them to make the wrong choices if they wish to do so.

We don’t educate and create independence by making sure our children always do the right thing. Sometimes they have to be able to make a choice and see for themselves that it didn’t work out. If my child is eager to see what a hot cooker feels like, I can tell him a thousand times not do so and he might listen to me – but he will still want to touch it. But if he touches it just once – and he will never choose to do so again. 

I’m not advocating that we let our children run into the road or sample heroin. There is always a cost benefit analysis to be made. But shielding our children – or anyone else – from the mistakes they could make might save them from something harmful in the short term, but will not teach them how to avoid those mistakes in the future.

The Jewish People did not trust God that Israel was a good land. They did not have confidence that He would assist them in conquering it. Moses could have glossed over that and led them into the land nevertheless. But it would not have solved the problem. Over and over again, Moses had tried to teach the Jewish People and it had not worked. It came a point that he had to let them make their mistake and learn from it. There was no other way.  

It’s a fine balance to educate and yet respect the independence of others at the same time. It’s much simpler to control. But if we care about those around us and genuinely want to help, it’s a balance that we have to find.

Shabbbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt

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