Faith vs Effort – Man’s Paradoxical Misson

“If only G-d would give me a sign… such as, say, a large deposit in a Swiss bank account under my name…” (Woody Allen)

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Sam is unrelenting in his petition of Heaven. His unremitting prayer causes such an uproar above that G-d dispatches an angel to determine what it is that troubles this tenacious petitioner.

”It’s the lottery,” Sam tells the querying angel. “How big a deal is it for G-d to let me win the lottery?

“I’ll check with G-d and get back,” said the spirit.

“What has G-d to say,” Sam asked in anticipation, upon the Angel’s return.

“G-d said that in order to win, you will need to help Him out.”

“Help Him out? How can I help G-d out,” wondered Sam in utter dismay.

“You can start by buying a ticket,” came the sobering response.

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Abraham decides to upgrade the operating system on his aged PC. “Hold on pops,” cries Isaac incredulously: “There is no way Windows is going to run on your decrepit 386 dinosaur! Everybody knows you need a Pentium or Celeron chip with a minimum of 3 GB of RAM to run Windows…”

But the ever faithful Abraham is not in the least fazed: “Do not fret my dear son; do not fret. The Lord will surly provide the RAM, you can count on Him.”

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One of life’s perpetual struggles is where to draw the line between faith in G-d and the need for human intervention – when to step back and let G-d work His magic and when to step forward and take responsibility for the changes needed in our lives, via calculated action. Even after consulting Judaism and its vast theological text, the line tends to remain obscured.

The dissonance between the idea of Divine providence and the need for human effort, if any, is a prominent subject of this week’s Parsha, Shlach.

Fourteen months after their Exodus from Egypt, the Children of Israel found themselves poised to conquer the Promised Land, when, Moshe dispatched twelve scouts upon their behest, to survey the land and report back on its nature and strength. Our Parsha presents the episode of the twelve scouts and their ill-fated mission, in illustrious detail.

It describes how, on the fateful date of the Ninth of Av, the twelve men returned after forty days, sharply divided. Having unanimously lauded the land’s material abundance, ten of the twelve proceeded to denigrate it as “A land that consumes its inhabitants.”

The ten detractors – each a leader of his tribe – bewailed the fortified cities and the strength of its people; striking terror and doubt into the hearts of the people, leading to national hysteria.

Convinced that they had best remain encamped in the desert, the men incited the people to abandon their mission of conquering the Land. In their state of fear and consternation they did exactly that. They went as far as to demand a new leader who would return them to Egypt.

Only two of the spies – Calev from the tribe of Yehudah and Yehoshua from the tribe of Ephraim – were of the steadfast opinion that the Jews could and should proceed with the Divine instruction to enter the Land.

It remains to be understood what caused the ten scouts to sour and utterly unravel. Given their miraculous liberation from Egyptian bondage and the untold surrounding wonders, they inevitably had to believe that G-d was able to make good on His promise.

Is it possible that the G-d, who has turned water in to blood, split the Red Sea, obliterated the mighty Egyptian army and fed them Manna from heaven, has run flat out of steam? Could the Heavenly Master, who has transformed the sterile desert into a flourishing oasis, somehow lack the ability to prevail over the inhabitants of Canaan; powerful as they may be?

The fact that Moshe had personally handpicked these tribal leaders, so that that they might indeed act responsibly, only adds to the quandary. How could these great men have so patently defied G-d by denying His very ability to conquer the land of Canaan?

The answer, according to Chassidic interpretation, is that it was not G-d’s capacity that the men had called into question, but rather their own. What frightened these high-minded individuals was not the ability of the Almighty to get them into the land, but rather the perplexing role of the Israelite people in this life-changing endeavor.

For over a year they had experienced a wholly spiritual existence. Manna fell from heaven and water flowed from inside a rock; clouds of glory sheltered them from heat, cold, scorpions and enemy arrows, while guiding and paving their way through the desert. Free of all material concern, they set their aspirations on internalizing their newly acquired Divine relationship.

Having scarcely adjusted to their new idyllic state, they were already being asked to abandon it and embark on a complete opposite track – to raise an army, conquer and settle the land, and eke earthly bread out of its soil.

Here in the desert, they reasoned, sustained by the Manna from heaven and shielded from the corporeal and hostile world, our souls are free to ponder the depth of Divine wisdom and cleave to its heavenly source. There, we shall face political and economic distractions intrinsic to an earth-bound existence. Why abandon our celestial paradise for a life that involves subsisting off the land?

Even more troubling is the fact that the new plan seemed inconsistent with either of the two possible models to which they were able to relate. If model # 1 – their newly encountered spiritual existence – was not what G-d had in mind, then they were left with model # 2 – to construct an abode for His Divine presence in this material world based on human effort and physical proficiency. In that event, why would G-d hamper that very objective with impediments that undermine that process?

In other words, if G-d desired that they conquer and settle the land – to inhabit and transform the corporeal world – through natural human means, resulting from their human minds and physical abilities, than the actual circumstances should support, not contradict that ideology.

It is one thing to leave behind the superhuman security of the desert – provided by the Manna from heaven and Clouds of Glory – in exchange for a material existence dependent on earthly bread and civil armies, it is a complete other thing to do so in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

It is fathomable for G-d to require us to apply our own intellect and prowess in achieving our life mission, but not to obstruct that very effort with obstacles that are beyond our control. He could not possibly want it both ways, for that is paradoxical.

“G-d as it were,” to paraphrase the argument of the ten scouts, “Either wants us to live in the shelter of His embrace, or by the sweat of our own brow. He either wants a world where man is beholden to the mercy of his Divine maker for every move and turn, or a world governed by self effort and reliance, but not both at the same time.”

Yet the spies erred in doubting the value of a mission aimed at realizing the land’s potential by means of human toil, in the face of abnormal obstacles and challenges for which they would need G-d’s intervention every step of the way. They could not grasp a universe where faith and realism are interdependent – a world in which faith requires realism and realism requires faith, for that appears to be neither realism nor faith.

As a result of this blunder, Israel’s inheritance of the land of Canaan was postponed for forty years, until a new generation, prepared to take on the challenge of the land, had reached maturity.

The tragic debacle of the twelve scouts – the source of much strife and struggle in Jewish history – contains many a profound lesson, not the least of which is the fact that life, as G-d meant it to be, is a partnership between man and his Heavenly maker. We must hence recognize our own role and potential within the greater Divine scheme and the Divine role in every nuance of our life.

These two ideals; trust in G-d and in our G-d given potential, provide the necessary framework for a proper and holy existence. This is where the spies have erred; they believed that it was either one or the other.

There are those who seek to perpetuate the scouts’ miscalculation: “Sure,” they say, “There are times in life when we must put our fate in the hands of G-d – situations that are completely beyond our control – but there is no need to inject G-d into areas of life where we seem to have a good grip on the situation ourselves.

We must, of course, pray to the Almighty and give him credit for the things that are beyond our control – the ‘Big stuff,’ but not necessarily for that which appears to be the product of our own doing – the ‘Small stuff.’ After all, we are surely entitled to our own ‘Four cubits of space’ in this world. We are surely deserving of credit for the matters of own doing. We ought to recognize the separation of G-d and self.”

Comes our Parsha and reminds us that this was precisely the fatal logic of the ten scouts who heaped tragedy and disaster upon the nation of Israel for generations to come. The notion that there is any space, object, entity, phenomenon or existence, big or small, which is outside of G-d and his purview, is idolatrous.

The paradoxical ideology, upon which the Almighty insisted, as a means of conquering and entering the land for the first time – an event that encapsulates and symbolizes man’s relationship with the physical world as well as its Divine maker – contains the Jewish mindset towards faith Vis-à-vis human effort. On the one hand man must view all of life’s events and occurrences as a direct product of the Creators doing. And yet he must not adopt a fatalistic approach to life either.

Lest one espouse that if G-d is in all things and in all places, there is no need or room for man’s effort, for of what use can it possibly be, we are reminded that the desert paradise was not where Israel was meant to remain, but rather in the “Land” of political, social and economic challenges and distractions, intrinsic to an earth-bound subsistence in which constant effort must be made by way of “vessels” for the Divine blessing.

Avoiding this Divine ordained responsibility and order, can only result in disaster, heaven forbid, as was the case with the subjects of our Parsha.

The short of it all is, that it is a partnership with man that the Almighty sought by creating this world. It’s obviously not that He needs man’s help or effort; it’s rather that He desired it. He desired it so that man can earn reward and punishment through his actions and that he does not exist on “Bread of shame.”

This notion is farther reiterated in the opening verse of our Parsha: “Shlach lecha anashim, send for yourself people,” Rashi, bothered by the seemingly unnecessary insertion of the word “Lecha”- for yourself, interprets G-d’s response to Moshe as Shlach “l’daatcha” – send them by your own volition, I am not commanding you to do so. So why then did Moshe proceed to send scouts after receiving this inscrutable response from G-d?

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that Moshe saw this as a unique opportunity granted by the Almighty to the Jewish people. He perceived it to be G-d’s way of allowing Israel to reach an even higher level in their Divine service via human effort and participation; the human effort that is initiated by man himself.

In G-d’s acceptance of this type of human initiative and effort, according to the Rebbe, Moshe perceived an even higher level of human partnership in the heavenly creation and hence a rare gift from G-d. In a brilliant observation the Rebbe ties together the beginning of the Parsha and the end, which dictates the laws of Tzitzit, which is also preformed out of a sense of volunteerism.

In summation, our Parsha contains a clear and fundamental lesson regarding man’s partnership with the Almighty in His purpose for creation. It teaches the Jewish approach towards faith and realism and the critical need for vessels- effort to receive Divine energy and blessing.

By taking to heart this important message we will surely help bring to fruition the true purpose for creation with the coming of the righteous Moshiach BBA.