The following is the front page of Torah Tidbits #424 produced by Phil Chernofsky, associate director, OU/NCSY Israel Center philch@virtual.co.il www.ou.org/torah/tt Shabbat Parshat Sh'lach Story-Mitzva Correlation My father my teacher z"l used to get very agitated on Shabbat Parshat Shlach and expressed his amazement at what seemed to him to be the gross ignoring of the lessons from the Sin of the Spies. How can Jews today, religious Jews, sincere Jews, continue to commit this most heinous of sins. If you want to boil down the Sin of the Spies to one trite but true expression, we can say that 10 of the 12 Meraglim returned from their "tour" of Israel with the following reaction: "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't like to live there." Look at how they were punished. Look at what happened to the whole generation (adult males) that panicked upon hearing their report and "recommendations". And then listen to how many people - good Jews, knowledgeable Jews, sincere religious Jews - say the same thing today. There are Jews who will proudly show you their passports with dozens of entry and exit stamps. I visit Israel two or three times a year! How about Aliya? Are you kidding?!? I would never go on Aliya. You have to be crazy... I've heard those words... more than once. And from communal leaders and prominent "Zionists", too. Not just from the average Jew on the street. A person might not be ready for Aliya, or have family commitments that prevent or postpone Aliya plans. Or it might be a PARNASA issue. Let's leave that aside for now. Let's focus on Parshat Shlach. The Meraglim were faulted for attempting to remove Aliya from the agenda of the Jewish People. They discouraged (to say the least) the people from wanting to fulfil G-d's will. That was Kalev's point: If this is what G-d wants, then of course we will be able to succeed. Let's look at the Sin of the Spies from a slightly different angle. We have everything we need in the Midbar to live a complete Torah life! We have miraculous manna that feeds us, we drink water from a miraculous well - our food and water were provided for by G-d in the instant before the first Shabbat. We have clothes that grow as we do and shoes that never wear out. We have climate control and all-purpose protection in the form of the Heavenly Clouds of Glory and Fire by night. What can be better than that? The answer, perhaps, comes in the form of the mitzvot that share the sedra with the Meraglim. We plow, plant, cultivate, reap, harvest, thresh, winnow, separate, grind - and then we have flour. That's hard work. And it takes time. To this flour we add water. Perhaps from a well we dug or a stream we found. At that moment - when flour and water mix, we have a mitzva to perform. CHALLA. Take the mundane, says G-d, and sanctify it by the fulfillment of mitzvot. THAT, we can answer the Meraglim, is better than miraculous food. The flour we produce is no less miraculous than the manna was. The miracles are just more subtle. Some people call them Nature. But if we learn by the mitzva of Challa that G-d wants us to live in this world and in this Land, and He wants us to make that world heavenly and spiritual, then that is our answer. Life in the Midbar was not normal. It was necessary during the infancy of our Nation, but it isn't the norm. And what's better than clothes that miraculously grew with you? The answer is, clothes that you shear sheep for their wool or prepare cotton for its fibers and you spin and you weave and you sew - and you sanctify by putting Tzitzit on the four corners of the garment, the mundane, down-to-earth garment. We had to mature a bit before we were ready for the real challenges of a Torah Life. It took 40 years.