Shelach
Numbers 13:1 – 15:41
Moses sends twelve spies to scout the Promised Land, and they return after forty days with a cluster of grapes so large it requires two men to carry. Ten spies deliver a terrifying report — the inhabitants are giants and the land devours its settlers — while only Caleb and Joshua urge the people to trust God. The nation panics and demands to return to Egypt, and God decrees that this generation will wander forty years in the wilderness until all adults perish. The parasha concludes with laws of offerings in the Land, the penalty for Sabbath violation, and the commandment of tzitzit (fringes).
Key figures
- Moses — Sends the spies at God's command, intercedes for Israel after their sin
- Caleb ben Yephunneh — Spy from Judah who urges the people to enter the Land
- Joshua bin Nun — Spy from Ephraim who supports Caleb, one of two adults who will enter the Land
- The ten spies — Deliver a fearful report that causes the nation to lose faith
Famous verses
- 13:30 And Caleb stilled the people toward Moses, and said: "We will surely go up and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it."
- 14:18 Hashem is slow to anger, and plenteous in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.
- 15:39-40 And it shall be to you for a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of Hashem, and do them; and that you go not about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you tend to go astray;
Haftarah: {'ref': 'Joshua 2:1-24', 'connection': "Joshua sends two spies to Jericho — a successful mission that contrasts with the catastrophic spy mission in Shelach — and Rahab's faith mirrors the trust that the original spies lacked."}
Total gematria 379,152 is divisible by 18, the number of life (chai).