Moses understood that spirituality is not meant to be a selfish affair, and that one cannot leave the community behind – but that is easier said than done.
By FRANCIS NATAFArt by Pepe Fainberg(photo credit: PEPE FAINBERG)
WHEN MOSES reached the end of his life, did he think of himself as a success or as a failure? He accomplished more than any human being before or after. Yet he failed to accomplish his goal of leading a model Jewish state in the land of Israel. One thing is clear: Moses went to the grave with serious regrets. And among those regrets, the greatest was likely directed at himself.The main reason for Moses’s disappointment seems to revolve around the watershed spy incident – the report that discouraged the Jews from wanting to conquer the land and caused them to wander and die in the desert for forty years (Num. 13-14). Just by noting its central place at the beginning of Moses’s very first speech (Deut. (1:22- 26), we come to appreciate just how great its impact was on his consciousness. In this recapitulation of what happened, we find that Moses not only agreed to the popular suggestion to scout out the land, he was directly involved in its implementation as well (Deut. 1:23). True, God also agreed to the plan, meaning that Moses did not just go ahead without receiving Divine approval.Nevertheless, whereas God did not give a reason why He allowed the plan to proceed, Moses’s agreement was expressly because “it found favor in his eyes.”On the face of it, the request for spies to scout out the land was not radically different from other events that had come before it. The establishment of junior leaders under Moses and a successful popular petition regarding a second celebration of Passover had shown the benefits of diffusing responsibility.So when the people came to Moses asking him to send spies, it could have been just another welcome step forward – now even more people were taking responsibility for their future. Unfortunately, such optimism was premature. If Moses hadn’t yet realized that the process of empowering others needed to be gradual (and perhaps never quite complete), the spy incident certainly shook him out of any illusions.Given that Moses could not but admit ownership of the plan, he had to shudder at how it unfolded before his very eyes: The report was not what he expected, and the reaction of the people even worse. One can imagine his shock and disorientation at what he saw.And then suddenly… Moses had no words as he realized that he completely misjudged the very people he was meant to shape. Clearly, he knew that they were capable of backsliding, but he did not realize to what extent the central plan to conquer the Land of Israel had never completely taken root among the people. On some level Moses had made the mistake of his life.In retrospect, Moses understood that it was he that failed. He viewed the land as holy, and scouting it a spiritually enriching experience. Had the spies gone out with that same vision, they would have seen very different things. First and foremost, they would have seen God’s presence. Instead they saw giant-sized produce, strong men and fortified cities. Granted, Moses asked them to evaluate the produce, the people and the habitations, but this could not have been at the center of his plan, could not have been why sending spies “found favor in his eyes.” Such details were to be secondary to the main report, which he later summarizes as “good is the land that the Lord our God gives us.” Good in the full, spiritually charged meaning of the word – especially as it is “the land which God gives us.” It later became clear, however, that such a vision was simply not what most of the people could access.Moses was correct in his assessment of, and disappointment in, the Jews. But he was also wrong. He was right to look at everything through a spiritual lens. But he was wrong to think that most people could comfortably do the same.From Moses’s regrets, we see one of the great challenges for those who take a higher path – or really for anyone who has attained even a modicum of spiritual awareness – is not losing sight of everybody else. Moses understood that spirituality is not meant to be a selfish affair, and that one cannot leave the community behind. But that is easier said than done, especially for someone as great as Moses. The higher the precipice, the farther one is from those standing at the bottom.Difficulty notwithstanding, a spiritual leader must keep his finger on the pulse of the people, even as he tries to bring them forward and take a more active role in their own development.Certainly, the ideal is – as Moses puts it – for everyone to be prophets. But an ideal can only happen one step at a time. Rabbi Francis Nataf (www.francisnataf.com) is a Jerusalem-based educator and writer. He is the associate editor of the Jewish Bible Quarterly, a frequent contributor to many publications, and the author of the Redeeming Relevance series of contemporary commentary on the Torah.
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