From Sarah to Joshua

This week’s Torah reading contains the episode of the spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan.

G‑d spoke to Moses saying, “Send out for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. You shall send one man each for his father’s tribe; each one shall be a chieftain in their midst.”

So Moses sent them from the desert of Paran by the word of G‑d. All of them were men of distinction; they were the heads of the children of Israel . . . (Numbers 13:1–3)

Ten of the twelve spies returned with disparaging reports about the Land, and instilled fear and discouragement in the heart of the nation. The Jewish people’s reaction was despair and faithlessness in G‑d, which was punished by a decree to remain in the desert for forty years. The generation who did not want to enter the Promised Land would die in the wilderness.

A person’s Hebrew name has immense spiritual significance and power The nation’s cry of despair occurred on the ninth day of Av. G‑d said, “They are weeping now for nothing, but I will fix this day as an occasion for weeping for generations.”1 The effect of their sin reverberates throughout Jewish history, as this day has repeatedly been marked as a day of mourning, sadness and destruction.

Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua (“Yehoshua” in Hebrew) did not join in the negative report of their fellow spies, but attempted to encourage the nation not to lose heart.

Before sending off his close disciple, Moses added the Hebrew letter yud to his name, changing it from Hoshea to Yehoshua.

“And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Yehoshua.” (Numbers 13:16)

“Yehoshua” is compounded of the words “May G‑d save you,” and by changing his name, Moses was thus praying on his behalf that “G‑d should save you from the counsel of the spies.”2

A person’s Hebrew name has immense spiritual significance and power. That is why, when someone is seriously ill, it is customary to give him or her an additional name—such as “Chaim” (meaning “life”), “Refael” (“G‑d shall heal”), or some other name suggesting longevity or blessing. By adding a name, we hope to add a new channel of spiritual, lifegiving energy. Moses, too, was hoping to supply Yehoshua with additional spiritual powers to withstand the counsel of the spies.

The Talmud explains that the yud added to Yehoshua’s name originated in the name of our matriarch, Sarah, and was thus representative of her spiritual powers. In Genesis 17 we read how G‑d changed Sarah’s name from Sarai to Sarah by replacing the letter yud at the end of her name with the letter hei. The yud that was taken from Sarah’s name fulfilled its function generations later, in providing Yehoshua with the courage to refrain from sinning with the spies.3

What aspect of Sarah’s special powers assisted Yehoshua in his challenge?

The Midrash tells us that while the spies’ negative report influenced virtually the entire male population, the women retained their faith in G‑d and His promise, and did not participate in the sin of rejecting the Land.4

The twelve spies sent by Moses were all, by the Torah’s attestation, “men of distinction” and “princes of each tribe,” specially selected by Moses for this task. How could these great men provide such a slanderous report of the land of Israel and be so fearful of conquering its fortified cities, especially when they were constantly surrounded by G‑d’s protective miracles? What were the calculations of these great men of distinction, princes of their tribes, which caused them to err so profoundly, and which Moses feared would be powerful enough to sway his faithful disciple Yehoshua? And what did the women of Israel intuitively understand that kept their love for the Land so strong and steadfast?

Chassidic teaching5 explains that the spies were animated by their fear of spiritual defeat. In the wilderness, the nation’s needs were provided miraculously by G‑d. There were “clouds of glory” that protected them from the rough elements, the manna provided physical sustenance, the “well of Miriam” traveled with them as a constant source of water, and their clothes did not even need repair. The nation’s time was spent in the spiritual pursuit of Torah study. Once they entered the Land of Israel, however, they would face an entirely new existence; the miracles would be replaced by physical labor. The spies feared that being occupied by working the land would leave them with little time and energy for their divine service.

“It is a land that eats up its inhabitants,”6 was the spies’ fearful cry. They meant that their preoccupation with the materialistic world would “eat up” and consume all their energy for G‑dly endeavors. In their mind, spirituality could flourish only with the protection and withdrawal from the needs of our physical world.

The spies were mistaken in their approach. G‑d desires a relationship with us here within the physical world, not removed from it. G‑d is not outside of our world, but found within the dimensions of our world.

The women, whose role is specifically to work from within physical reality to find the divine, intuitively grasped this. This knowledge was a part of their spiritual heritage, passed down from mother to daughter, derived from our matriarch Sarah’s example.

Throughout Sarah’s life, three miracles took place in her home: a protective cloud hovered over the entrance of her tent, her Shabbat candles would burn from one Shabbat to the next, and a blessing was present in her dough.7

Sarah transformed her physical home into a spiritual sanctuary, by using it to positively influence her surroundings. The clouds represented G‑d’s presence and demonstrated how she had infused the physical reality with an awareness of G‑d. Her Shabbat candles burned brightly for an entire week, demonstrating how she brought a glow of spirituality into the darkness and mundanity of the weekday. The blessing of satiation in her dough represented how even (and especially) within physical needs she brought a spiritual recognition and sensitivity.

The mitzvah of challah teaches that Judaism does not confine G‑d to the realm of spirit The message radiating from Sarah’s tent was the unlimited potential of the Jewish home. Her descendants, the women of the generation of the wilderness, absorbed her message and were eager to put it into practice in the lives that they would establish in their own land. They eagerly awaited the moment when they, too, could transform their physical abodes into spiritual sanctuaries infused with G‑dliness, spreading holiness throughout the world.

Unlike the spies, the women recognized that spirituality is not self-contained, but that our responsibility is to change and elevate our world. Mitzvot use physical, natural reality to make our world a dwelling place for G‑d.

This was the spiritual heritage that the women of Israel received from Sarah—and which she imparted to Yehoshua by gifting him a letter from her name.

Perhaps the Torah is reinforcing this with the mitzvah of challah commanded at the end of this week’s Torah portion, in the wake of the incident of the spies.

“From the first of your kneading bowl, you shall lift up a dough-offering (challah) to G‑d.” (Numbers 15:20)

The mitzvah of challah is to separate a portion of dough each time we mix flour and water to make bread. In the time of the Temple, this dough would be given to one of the priests. Today this small portion is burnt, and may not be eaten by anyone. Although both men and women may perform the mitzvah of taking challah, women have traditionally been responsible for carrying out this mitzvah, and it is considered one of their special mitzvot because they are so intuitively connected to its underlying message.

By “lifting up a dough-offering to G‑d” we direct our physical foods, needs and urges to a spiritual purpose. The very dough takes on a new “life”—one that becomes consecrated for holiness, directed and hallowed for a greater purpose. We are thereby accomplishing a merger of the physical with the spiritual.

The mitzvah of challah teaches that Judaism does not confine G‑d to the realm of spirit. Mitzvot involving physical activities make G‑dliness the focal point of our lives. Challah reminds us that even within the world of the material, even while kneading together the most basic bread of physical life, we must suffuse creation with its G‑dly mission of making our physical world into G‑d’s divine home.

By separating the small piece of raw dough, we negate the basis of the spies’ mistake and we are reminded of the message of Sarah’s life, attesting that there is no corner of earth devoid of G‑d’s presence.