“Send for yourself men, and they shall scout the Land of Canaan” (Bamidbar 13:2). By adding the word(s) “for yourself,” G-d was telling Moshe that He was not instructing him to send scouts, but that Moshe had permission to do so if he wanted (Rashi, based on Soteh 34b). However, since Moshe had asked G-d whether or not to follow the nation’s request to send scouts (see D’varim 1:22), this answer is rather puzzling. Why didn’t G-d answer the question? Was sending advance scouts a good idea or not? If so, why didn’t G-d tell him to send them (as opposed to just allowing him to)? If not, why didn’t G-d tell Moshe not to send them? What does it mean that Moshe can send them if he wants to, but doesn’t have to?

Even more puzzling is that Moshe seems to have known that it was a bad idea. 39 years later, when he recounted the incident, he told the nation that he thought the idea to send scouts was a good one (D’varim 1:23), implying that although he thought it was a good idea, G-d didn’t (see Rashi, again based on Soteh 34b). Additionally, Moshe changed Y’hoshua’s name hoping that G-d would save him from the bad intentions of the other scouts (see Rashi on Bamidbar 13:16); Moshe must have known that the scouts were up to no good if he asked G-d to protect Y’hoshua from them! Since Moshe was given the choice whether or not to send scouts, and he knew that doing so was problematic and that G-d didn’t like the idea, why did he agree to send them?

[These issues, and others that revolve around them, are discussed by many of the commentators –whether they be commentators on Chumash, on Rashi’s commentary on Chumash, on the Talmud or on Ain Yaakov — but I have yet to come across an approach that fully satisfies me. If anyone is interested in why I think the other approaches do not fully address the issues, or if anyone has come across an approach that they think does, please contact me by email (RabbiDMK at Yahoo dot com) or by commenting online (https://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/parashas-shelach-5775/).]

The original plan was to enter the Promised Land right away, but after the sin of the scouts, that plan was put on hold for about 40 years, until the generation that sinned died out. The common perception is that things changed after the scouts returned with their bad report and the nation accepted it. However, the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 16:17, Tanchuma Sh’lach 5/7, Yalkut Shimoni 742) paints a different picture. Explaining why G-d told Moshe to send scouts “for yourself,” the Midrash tells us that the idea didn’t come from G-d, as there was no need to send scouts. After all, He had already told the nation how good the Promised Land is, and He was going to show them exactly where to enter the land from (by leading them with His divine clouds). Rather, the request came from the people, who didn’t trust what G-d had told them or that He would miraculously lead them to victory. Rabbi Y’hoshua then compares this to a king who told his son that he had found the perfect wife for him, but the son didn’t trust him and wanted to meet her first. (Let’s put aside the issue of the king expecting his son to agree to marry anyone without meeting her first, and focus on how the parable helps us understand what happened with the scouts.) The king was upset that his son didn’t trust him, but realized that if he refused to let him meet her, his son would be convinced that there must be something wrong with her, and he was right for not trusting his father. Because the king was so upset, though, he decided that he wasn’t going to allow his son to marry her even if, after meeting her, he wanted to. So he let him meet her, but told him that he can’t marry her, only his son (the king’s grandson) can. Getting back to the scouts, the Midrash continues: “and G-d had said to Israel that the land is good but they didn’t believe Him, and asked to send scouts to investigate for [themselves]. G-d said, ‘if I prevent them from doing so, they’ll say that I didn’t show it to [them] because the land really isn’t good . Rather, they can see it, but I swear that they will not be able to enter it.” In other words, it wasn’t the bad report that prevented the nation from entering the land, it was the request to scout it.

Once we have established that G-d had already decreed that this generation would not be allowed to enter the land even before the scouts left on their mission, the question, partially answered by the Midrash, is why bother sending them at all. Although the Midrash says that G-d allowed them to send scouts anyway so that they shouldn’t think G-d was trying to hide anything, this only addresses part of the issue. Moshe would have to deal with a nation that had to remain on the eastern side of the Jordan River even if they wanted to cross into the Promised Land. Would letting them see the land they were not allowed to enter make things more difficult than if they were not allowed to see it? There are advantages and disadvantages to letting them send scouts even though they wouldn’t be allowed to enter the land afterwards, but letting them scout the land was not going to impact whether or not they could enter it, only how they would react to not being allowed to. And this was something Moshe, as their leader, would have to deal with, so G-d left it up to him.

Although G-d gave permission to send the scouts (so that they wouldn’t think He misled them), and giving His permission made it much more difficult for Moshe to say “no,” G-d had to position it as permission and not a commandment because He didn’t really want them to go. Once it was only permission and not a commandment, the ball was in Moshe’s court to either say yes or no. Moshe decided it was better to let them see the land for themselves, but, knowing that the request itself was problematic, prayed that Y’hoshua would not be adversely affected by going on the mission that resulted from that improper request.

The Sifre (D’varim 21, quoted by Rashi on 1:23) says that Moshe thought it was a good idea to give them permission to send scouts because once they knew they could, perhaps they would no longer want to. A comparison is made to someone who wants to buy an animal and asks the seller if he can test it first. After the seller agreed to allow the animal to be put through all the rigorous tests requested, the buyer said there is no need to actually test it, as the seller would not have allowed him to do so if he wasn’t confident that it would pass. It is therefore possible that Moshe was hoping that merely offering to let them send scouts would convince them that there was no need to actually send them. And if they changed their mind and decided not to send any scouts, perhaps he could convince G-d to change His mind (as it were) too, and let them enter the land. Or maybe he just thought that they would be better off knowing what they could have had than maintaining their doubts about the land, and, by extension, about G-d. Either way, Moshe thought that despite G-d having already decreed that the nation cannot enter the land, it was still a good idea to let them go. But it was only “in his eyes” that it was good (not G-d’s), because G-d had left the decision (whether or not to send them) to Moshe.

When the Talmud tells us (Soteh 34b) that the word(s) “for yourself” indicates that it was Moshe’s choice, it continues by asking “does any person choose a bad portion for himself?” The commentators understand this “person” to be referring to G-d, with the Talmud asking either whether G-d would really have told them to send scouts if it would lead to such a tragedy, or whether G-d would have chosen this as the Promised Land if it wasn’t good. Based on the above, it can be suggested that the “person” is really Moshe, with the Talmud asking (rhetorically) how Moshe could have chosen to send scouts if he knew it was a bad idea, answering that in Moshe’s eyes it wasn’t a bad thing. Rather than the proof-text (“and it was good in my eyes”) being used to show that G-d didn’t like the idea, so it must have been Moshe’s decision not G-d’s, it is brought to prove that even after G-d had told Moshe that He was upset that the nation wanted to send scouts, Moshe still thought it was a good idea to send them rather than letting the nation wander for 40 years without knowing what they had lost by requesting the scouts in the first place.