BS”D
RACHAV : REDEFINED ROLE
PARSHAT SHELACH
Shira Smiles Shiur
June 14, 2009/Sivan 22, 5769
Summary by Channie Koplowitz
Stein
Your Comments are Welcome!
The connection between Parshat Shelach and its Haftorah seems very clear. Both the Torah portion and the Haftorah relate the story of spies sent to reconnoiter Eretz Yisroel in preparation for
our entering the land. Parshat Shelach relates the
story of the spies that Moshe sent, their subsequent
sin, and the dire consequences of remaining in the desert for forty years before
we would again have the opportunity of entering the Land. The Haftorah, on the other hand, speaks of the spies Joshua
sent at the end of the forty years, their success, and their safe return with
the help of Rachav.
However, the connection is much deeper. When the spies that Moshe sent
returned and triggered the crying of Bnei Yisroel, all did teshuvah, yet Hashem did not forgive them. Yet Rachav,
who had been a prostitute for forty years, now did teshuvah
and Hashem not only forgave her, but also gifted her
with the merit of marrying our leader, Joshua bin Nun and having eight prophets
descend from her. The contrast in these two Divine responses to teshuvah makes for an interesting study.
Let us first try to understand the sin of the spies and why their sin was
not forgiven. Our first rationale would state
that their sin of loshon hora is a sin that destroys the entire world, and
therefore they put themselves beyond the pale of God’s forgiveness. But their
sin was not only in the loshon hora itself, but also in the root source of their
report. For most of their report, they truthfully answered questions that Moshe
posed to them regarding the land they were about to enter. However, toward the
end of their report, they interjected themselves
and their personal views into the report. It is with this failure at
self-divestment that they started the downward spiral of loshon hora, of
their evil spin in their description of the Promised Land.
These spies were emissaries of Moshe on behalf of Bnei
Yisroel, sent with Hashem’s
consent. Yet, by interjecting their own egocentric views, they subverted their
mission and were unfaithful to Moshe, Bnei Yisroel, and, most seriously, to Hashem.
In a similar way, we are all messengers and emissaries of Hashem,
sent to earth to fulfill whatever tasks He has set for us. It is our
responsibility to safely discharge our mission without interjecting our ego and
personal spin. Those who are truly faithful to their mission, who understand
that the task before them at this moment is the one they must do, and they
embrace it, are beloved by Hashem. They understand
that it is Hashem’s will and not their will that must
prevail. Yet the spies of Moshe’s day failed on this point.
Now let us turn to the spies Joshua sent and their “contact” in
How was Rachav’s teshuvah
different from the teshuvah of the generation of the
desert? Besides the fact that the sin of loshon
hora is almost impossible to atone for
fully, other factors also contribute to the differences. First, Bnei Yisroel had already
experienced the redeeming effect of teshuvah. After
the sin of the golden calf, they had done teshuvah
and their death decree was rescinded. That teshuvah
was whole-hearted because it came from a truly broken heart. This time,
however, the memory of Hashem’s forgiveness entered
the process, thereby at least minimally tainting it. They now
knew the formula, could apply it, and hoped to move forward with it.
Rachav, on the other hand, had never had a
spiritual experience. Her life was a completely physical life. Her body was her
god and her inn was her temple. Although her soul was one of the “lost sparks”,
it had never been activated to its spiritual potential. Now she willingly hid
these two men of her own volition. But the text seems to make a grammatical
error, saying she hid him rather than them. Our sages point out that this was
not an error, (C”VS); Rachav in fact hid only one,
Caleb. Pinchas invoked his high spiritual essence and
position as High Priest. He knew that the body is ephemeral in nature. If Hashem agrees that this body should become invisible, he
would be invisible and out of danger. In any case, neither of these two spies
was swayed in any way by Rachav’s incomparable
beauty.
For the first time in her life, Rachav encountered
a spiritual being, one whose faith invalidated the entire physical realm and
physical experience that permeated her life. At that moment, she had an
epiphany. She too could erase her previous life, could be born anew with her
pure soul restored to her. She could peel away the layers of filth covering her
inner, spiritual core and begin life anew. At that moment, she declared, “… For
Hashem, your God, He is God in the heavens and on the
earth below.” She understood that “nothing exists outside Him.” With that
declaration of Hashem’s Sovereignty and her
nothingness, she was transformed to a level of purity and holiness as high as
her depravity had been low, and she became a model of true teshuvah
for all generations.
It was this holiness that Joshua recognized in Rachav
and bonded to. Their marriage symbolized the connection between Bnei Yisroel and the rest of the
world. Joshua included her declaration of Hashem’s
unity in the Aleinu prayer he
composed soon after, a prayer we say daily that inspires us to cleave to Hakodosh boruch Hu, as she did. It should inspire us to be proactive in
strengthening this relationship by acting to make His Presence manifest in the
world through our words and actions, “… To repair the world in the Sovereignty
of Sha-kai,” as Rachav
repaired her own soul and helped bring about the fall of
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