Shelach – The Staff of Life

 Parshat Shelach

“The Staff of Life”

By: Rabbi Jeffrey H. Miller

 

Shelach tells the tragic tale of ten spies who fail miserably at their mission.  In the process, they doomed themselves and condemned an entire generation to decades of wandering in an inhospitable desert.

In the immediate aftermath of the fiasco, God Issues a surprising, non-sequitur of a commandment:

God spoke to Moses saying:	וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר ה אֶל־משֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר:
Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them, ‘When you arrive in the Land to which I am bringing you,	דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֖ אֲלֵהֶ֑ם בְּבֹֽאֲכֶם֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֛י מֵבִ֥יא אֶתְכֶ֖ם שָֽׁמָּה:
and you eat from the bread of the Land, you shall set aside a gift for the Lord.	וְהָיָ֕ה בַּֽאֲכָלְכֶ֖ם מִלֶּ֣חֶם הָאָ֑רֶץ תָּרִ֥ימוּ תְרוּמָ֖ה לַֽיהֹוָֽה:
The first portion of your dough, you shall separate a loaf for a gift; as in the case of the gift of the threshing floor, so shall you separate it.’	רֵאשִׁית֙ עֲרִסֹ֣תֵכֶ֔ם חַלָּ֖ה תָּרִ֣ימוּ תְרוּמָ֑ה כִּתְרוּמַ֣ת גֹּ֔רֶן כֵּ֖ן תָּרִ֥ימוּ אֹתָֽהּ:

[BaMidbar 15:17-20]

Why does God give a mitzvah now that will not take effect for a generation?  It seems premature, perhaps even cruelly timed.  It is like telling the convict who is about to begin his forty-year sentence at hard labor what he can expect when he is finally released from prison.

Counterintuitive as it may seem to me, Chazal interpret this mitzvah as an act of Divine Compassion.  Ibn Ezra and others note that the commandment to separate a portion of bread for the Kohen (called hafrashat challah) was intended to comfort the children of the generation of the desert Jews.  The key words “when you arrive in the Land to which I am bringing you…” was God’s assurance to these innocent victims of their parents’ faithlessness they would enter into Israel.

The question remains, though, that God could have assuaged the children with any number of commandments that are dependent upon living in Israel.  Why use this bread mitzvah?

* * *

There is a consensus in scientific literature that humans became “modern” beings when they abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and took up agriculture.  Two (relatively) recent, popular books bring this idea to the non-scientific masses: Guns, Germs, and Steel (by Jared M. Diamond) and Sapiens (by Yuval Noah Harari).  I finished the first and I am midway through the second.  Spoiler Alert:  Both books conclude that once our ancestors living in and around the fertile crescent decided to cultivate wheat, it was a predictable, inevitable, 10,000-year leap to iPhones and YouTube.

But newsflash!  This theory is not new.  Chazal long ago appreciated that bread – the ultimate product of farming – is the “staff of life”.  As much as we cultivated wheat, bread cultivated us and made us – in a very real sense – the spiritual human beings we are today.

It’s easy to miss the centrality that bread plays in Torah narratives.  Here is a very brief, non-exhaustive list of examples:

• As the door is swinging shut on Eden, HaShem tells Adam: בְּזֵעַת אַפֶּיךָ תֹּאכַל לֶחֶם, [Only] by the sweat of your brow will you eat bread.” (Gen. 3:19);
• After Avram rescues his nephew and frees the captives, Malchizedek (king of Shalem) makes a celebratory banquet with bread and wine. (Gen. 14:18);
• Avraham Aveinu offers bread to his three angelic guests. (Gen. 18:5);
• Yaakov ‘purchased’ the birthright from Eisav with lentil stew and bread. (Gen. 25:34);
• After Yaakov awoke from his dream of angels on the ladder, he prays to (or makes a deal with) God for bread. (Gen. 28:20);
• Yoseph’s brothers were breaking bread together when they noticed the travelling caravan of Ishmaelites to whom they would sell Yoseph. (Gen. 37:25);
• There was an abundance of bread in Egypt as a result of Yospeh’s stewardship of the Egyptian economy (Gen. 41:54) but there was no grain in Canaan as a result of the great famine (Gen. 42:1-3);

Remember, too, that on the way out from Egypt, the Jews ate matzah, which was a transformative experience that we relive annually.  Several reasons are offered by the Sages for this half-baked food but it is quite intuitive.  On its most basic level, the defective, poor man’s bread was the perfect symbol of the people’s evolution from slaves who are given their daily bread by their jailors to a ragtag nation who must learn to provide for themselves.

Look at the chief complaint of the newly freed B’nai Ysrael soon after they traversed the Red Sea:

The children of Israel said, “We wish that we had died by the hand of Hashem in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֲלֵהֶם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִי יִתֵּן מוּתֵנוּ בְיַד ה בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בְּשִׁבְתֵּנוּ עַל סִיר הַבָּשָׂר בְּאׇכְלֵנוּ לֶחֶם לָשֹׂבַע כִּי הוֹצֵאתֶם אֹתָנוּ אֶל הַמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה לְהָמִית אֶת כׇּל הַקָּהָל הַזֶּה בָּרָעָב

[Shemot 16:3]

God may have been disappointed by their lack of free spirit, but He was not angry with them for He appreciated that these people were simply not ready to care for themselves, to bake their own bread (or matzah).

What does He do?

So the Lord said to Moses, Behold! I am going to rain down for you bread from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather what is needed for the day, so that I can test them, whether or not they will follow My teaching.

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙ אֶל־משֶׁ֔ה הִֽנְנִ֨י מַמְטִ֥יר לָכֶ֛ם לֶ֖חֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם וְיָצָ֨א הָעָ֤ם וְלָֽקְטוּ֙ דְּבַר־י֣וֹם בְּיוֹמ֔וֹ לְמַ֧עַן אֲנַסֶּ֛נּוּ הֲיֵלֵ֥ךְ בְּתֽוֹרָתִ֖י אִם־לֹֽא:

[Shemot 16:4]

When the children of Israel saw [it], they said to one another, It is manna, because they did not know what it was, and Moses said to them, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

וַיִּרְא֣וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וַיֹּ֨אמְר֜וּ אִ֤ישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו֙ מָ֣ן ה֔וּא כִּ֛י לֹ֥א יָֽדְע֖וּ מַה־ה֑וּא וַיֹּ֤אמֶר משֶׁה֙ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם ה֣וּא הַלֶּ֔חֶם אֲשֶׁ֨ר נָתַ֧ן ה לָכֶ֖ם לְאָכְלָֽה:

[Shemot 16:15]

God becomes the Baker! We can now also appreciate why the Torah refers to the desert manna as “Heavenly bread”.  The Torah even uses the word הַבְּדֹלַח to describe it, which occurs only one other time in Torah – in describing Gan Eden.  Indeed, Sefer Chasidim relates that the proper blessing to recite on manna is a nod to the blessing over bread: על המן היו מברכים הנותן לחם מן השמים, “[Blessed are You, God,] Who Brings Bread from the Heavens”.

* * *

Among the tasks that the spies were given, they were to report וּמָ֣ה הָ֠אָ֠רֶץ הַשְּׁמֵנָ֨ה הִ֜וא אִם־רָזָ֗ה, “What is the soil like is it fat or lean?”  BaMidbar 13:20. This, according to Ibn Ezra, was a charge for the spies to confirm that there was ample wheat in the land, as God explicitly promises elsewhere:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill;	כִּ֚י ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ מְבִֽיאֲךָ֖ אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ טוֹבָ֑ה אֶ֚רֶץ נַ֣חֲלֵי מָ֔יִם עֲיָנֹת֙ וּתְהֹמֹ֔ת יֹצְאִ֥ים בַּבִּקְעָ֖ה וּבָהָֽר׃
a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;	אֶ֤רֶץ חִטָּה֙ וּשְׂעֹרָ֔ה וְגֶ֥פֶן וּתְאֵנָ֖ה וְרִמּ֑וֹן אֶֽרֶץ־זֵ֥ית שֶׁ֖מֶן וּדְבָֽשׁ׃

[Deut. 8:7-8]

But cultivating wheat was not foremost on the minds of these spies.  They may have traversed a beautiful countryside flowing with milk and honey (and wheat), but they were focused on the fierce looking native population.  They came back dejected and fearful.

Since the spies ignored their essential task, it was left to God to confirm that the land had ample grain.  He did this by commanding the children to donate a portion of their bread to the Kohanim, implying that there would be enough left over to share with, and support, their spiritual guides.

* * *

What is going on? We may have answered why God chose to deliver the mitzvah of hafrashat challah at this time, but we are still left wondering why hafrashat challah is primarily (though not exclusively) a women’s mitzvah.  Shall we dismiss it as halachic misogyny that the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (35:8) writes that מצות הפרשת חלה שייכה להאשה, “the mitzvah of separating the challah is the province of the woman of the house…”?  Even more draconian, the Mishnah (Shabbat 2:6) states that carelessness in performing this mitzvah causes a woman to die in childbirth!

I noted above that Adam is ‘punished’ for his sin by having to toil and sweat to make his daily bread.  This makes perfect sense if we accept the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda (T.B. Berachot 40a):

The tree from which Adam ate… Rabbi Yehuda states, was wheat.

כִּ רבי יהודה אומר: חטה היתה … אילן שאכל ממנו אדם הראשון

But Chava ate from the Tree first and then corrupted Adam to do so.  Her punishment was pain in childbirth.  The connection with hafrashat challah and the danger of childbirth now makes much more sense.

* * *

The sin of the spies must not be read in a vacuum.  It is best understood as a small slide in humanity’s never-ending quest for bread.  It was the desire to prematurely master bread that got Adam & Chava ejected from Eden.  For this sin, man and woman were both punished in a way that is intimately connected to the bread that they stole from God.

Since Eden, humanity has craved to return to Paradise by seeking out bread.  Bread, along with procreation, (which is also included in God’s expulsion from Eden decree) are the ultimate symbols of humanity’s cooperation with the Divine.  We partner with God to bring new life into being.  We partner with God to turn seeds into wheat into grain and into bread.  In each case, the process requires us to “hurry up and wait”.  As the dough rises and the baby gestates, we ponder the greatness of the Almighty.  We see the face of God in a child, and we see the Hand of Heaven in bread.  We feast on it ritually and socially.

It was at such a bread-laden feast that a plot was hatched to sell Yoseph into slavery.  As the victim of that sin, Yoseph was compensated with abundant bread in Egyot.  As perpetrators of that crime, his bothers were deprived of bread.  Divine Kismet.  It was that yearning for bread that forced these same brothers to journey away from Canaan to Egypt where they were reunited with Yoseph.  More Divine Comedy.  It was bread that Yoseph gave them, and bread that sustained them in Egypt during two centuries of slavery.  In yet another ironic twist, it was bread that had an unholy, magnetic hold on our ancestors, making it painfully difficult for them to completely sever their connection with their enslavers.

It was the defective bread that they ate when finally leaving Egypt that we still taste today, and it was Heavenly bread that nourished the bodies and souls of Am Yisrael in the Sinai desert.  It was a land of abundant wheat and barley and figs and pomegranates and olive trees and honey and milk that God promised them.  And us.

* * *

The mitzvah of hafrashat challah was/is not a punishment for women.  To the contrary, it was a great reward to them for a job well done.  It was to be eternally treasured; it remains a rabbinic edict law today even after we were exiled from Israel and the Biblical mandate ceased.  The punishment for its violation is great only because its symbolism is so profoundly great.

As explained by Kli Yakar, Moshe Rabbeinu’s big mistake was that he selected male spies for what is obviously a woman’s job!  Women would never have disparaged the land of Israel or felt that it was an unattainable goal.  Women would never have been frightened or intimidated.  They would never have lost faith in God and their warrior husbands, fathers, sons and brothers.

Women sustained their families in Egypt and throughout the Sinai travels.  They contributed their precious, few possessions to the building of the Mishkan.  One dozen righteous women would have certainly delivered a positive message to the nation that would have inspired the people to march forward.  At the very least, they would have stood up to an angry mob.

For these acts of quiet heroism, women were given the opportunity perform a miztvah, the essence of which is to recognize and publicize the fundamental truth of Torah (Devarim 8:3),

He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Hashem.

וַֽיְעַנְּךָ֮ וַיַּרְעִבֶ֒ךָ֒ וַיַּאֲכִֽלְךָ֤ אֶת־הַמָּן֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹא־יָדַ֔עְתָּ וְלֹ֥א יָדְע֖וּן אֲבֹתֶ֑יךָ לְמַ֣עַן הוֹדִֽיעֲךָ֗ כִּ֠י לֹ֣א עַל־הַלֶּ֤חֶם לְבַדּוֹ֙ יִחְיֶ֣ה הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֛י עַל־כׇּל־מוֹצָ֥א פִֽי־ה יִחְיֶ֥ה הָאָדָֽם׃

 

Shabbat Shalom!