From Promise to Possession, The Birth of Jewish Title to Eretz Yisrael

 

Let him grant me the Cave of Machpelah, which belongs to him and is located at the edge of his field. Let him sell it to me for its full price, in your presence, so I can make it into a family burial ground.” - Bresheet 23:9

At the onset of this week’s Parashah, “Chayei Sarah,” (the life of Sarah), we are told about the death of Sarah, Avraham’s wife, in Hevron. Pursuent to her passing, Avraham purchases the Cave of Machpelah and the surrounding field in Hevron, from its owner, Ephron, the Hittite and buries her there.

One of the questions that is begging to be asked, upon reading these verses, is, if G-d has already promised the Land of Yisrael to Avraham and his descendents (“To your offspring I will give this land,” Bresheet 12:7), why must Avraham purchase a burial site, at Machpelah, for Sarah?

G-d’s promise to Avraham and his posterity gives the land spiritual legitimacy. Avraham’s purchase gives it political legitimacy. In order to establish sovereignty. Both are needed. The Divine Covenant establishes eternal rights. Avraham’s actions and deeds establish worldly recognition. Divine promises do not replace human action.

Furthermore, Avraham insists upon paying “full price” for the land, as the verse above points out, despite the offer to accept it as a gift. He wants an indisputable legal claim to ensure that no one could later challenge Jewish presence as illegitimate or dependent on any foreign entities. He knows that a Divine promise carries spiritual authority, but not necessarily a recognition in the human legal system. He understands that sovereignty is established through moral and lawful means. By paying “full price,” Avraham secures a deed that no one can contest. The negotiations with Ephron become the first legal translation of Jewish lawful ownership setting a precedent for the Jewish People’s historic and moral claim in the Promised Land.

Avraham’s insistence on  paying full price, refusing a gift, parallels other, later, key biblical passages. In 2 Samuel 24:24, king David explicitly purchases land with money, land that is connected to the legitimate ownership and future sanctity of the site he was about to procure. There, he says to Araunah, the Jebosite who offers it to him for free, " 'No, I will buy it from you for a price;I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my G-d that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the Oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”  This site, as we later find out, becomes the future Temple Mount in Yerushalayim, “Then David said,’Here shall be the house of the Lord G-d and here the altar of burnt offering for Yisrael.’” 1Chronicles 22:1. Both these pieces of land, Sarah's burial sites and the Temple Mount were legally purchased for eternal possession, thus fulfilling the Divine promise to Avraham and his descendents. 

One of the most striking and meaningful features of Parashat Chayei Sarah, (the Life of Sarah), is its paradoxical title which opens with Sarah’s death yet gives us no further details about her life. What, on the surface, seems like a contradiction preoccupied our sages. Many of them, however, view it not as a contradiction but rather as a deep truth about life's legacy and continuity.

Midrash Rabbah expands on this idea. “Why is it written, ‘After the life of Sarah?’ To teach us that the righteous are called alive even after death.” (Bresheet Rabbah 58:1). Sarah’s legacy and her spiritual influence continue beyond her physical existence. 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch reads the name Chayei Sarah as a theological statement. The life of Sarah, he believes, is the life that Sarah set in motion. Her death sets off Avraham’s first act of acquiring land in Canaan. Until that point Avraham is a resident alien, a ger vetoshav toshav, promised the land by G-d but not yet owning even a small piece of it. Sarah’s death gives birth to the first foothold of the Jewish nation in its promised land. Her burial place becomes a national symbol and a spiritual anchor linking future generations to the patriarchs and matriarchs buried there.

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks builds on the same concept. In his essay Chayei Sarah (Covenant and Conversation) Sacks offers a beautiful and deeply philosophical insight into the paradoxical title of Parashat Chayei Sarah. His assertion is that in order to understand a death, one has to understand a life.  In the Torah, believes Sacks, life and death are not opposites. Those who live a life of faith, whose values and influence last beyond their days, never die. Sarah’s life, as Sacks sees it, continues through the continuity of the Covenant. Her legacy gives life to the Jewish People.

To praphrase the interpretations of our sage, Sarah’s death forces the promise of DivineInheritance, the guiding principle that dictated the journey of her life, to translate into human and legal reality.

Her death, in this sense, becomes the womb of Jewish rootedness, out of which arises Jewish life and permanence.

From Scouts to Spies

 

“The Evil Inclination appears at first like a guest, then like a master.”                       Bereisheet Rabbah 9:9

This week’s Parasha, Shelach Lecha, begins with G-d’s directive to Moshe, “Send for yourself some men, and let them tour (vayaturu) the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Yisraelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders” (Bamidbar 13:2).

The men leave on their expedition. It lasts forty days.

When they come back, they show Moshe, Aharon and the community the fruit of the land which they describe as “flowing with milk and honey” (Bamidbar 13:27). “However,” they resume their report, “the people who inhabit the land are mighty; the cities are fortified and huge; and we even saw there the sons of the giant. The Amalekites dwell in the south land; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountainous region; and the Canaanites dwell on the coast and alongside the Jordan River” (Bamidbar 13:28-29). The experience results in their loss of faith in G-d and distrust in their leaders.  Worst of all, though, they have committed a great sin for they have libelled and spoken ill the land that G-d promised their ancestors.

The punishment for that transgression will be forty years of wandering in the desert. This sin is what has come to be known as “The Sin of the Spies.” The men that partook in this episode are referred to as meraglim (spies) at least from the time of the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:3).

Oddly enough, the Parasha never refers to them as “spies”.  Neither is their mission described as “spying.” Rather, the Torah uses the verb latour, which means “to tour” or “to scout, to explore,”  which is often used in a more neutral or positive context.  “To spy” – leragel, on the other hand, is generally used with negative connotations, involving secrecy, deception or betrayal.

The question that is, therefore, begging to be asked is, why are these twelve men commonly referred to as “spies” and their affair, as the “Episode of the Spies” in Jewish tradition?

Rabbi Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) suggests that they “produced bad reports,” that is, something that never happened. The “bad reports,” according to him, were not just bad, they were false. Rabbi Obadia Sforno (1470-1580) agrees with Ibn Ezra and emphasizes that the scouts were framing their reports in a way that discouraged the community. They added subjective, fear inducing interpretations, devoid of spiritual trust which revealed their lack of faith in G-d.

 Such deceptive reports tainted their reputation and turned them from scouts into spies. Their act which is truly a sinful act warrants a severe punishment. Am Yisrael is doomed to wander in the desert for forty years.

 It is important to note, at this stage, that there is another version of the same event which is recounted in Deuteronomy 1:22-23. There, Moshe says to Am Yisrael, “Then all of you came to me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.’ The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.”

Jewish scholars have tried to reconcile apparent contradictions between the two versions. Rash”i  (1040-1105) is one of them. His suggestion of harmonizing the texts is that while in Numbers, G-d initiates the idea of sending people to Canaan, in Deuteronomy, it comes from Am Yisrael and G-d merely grants His Divine permission to their wish. In other words, as Rabbi Sacks interprets Rash”i’s suggestion, “G-d does not stop people from a course of action on which they are intent, even though He knows it may end in tragedy. Such is the nature of the freedom G-d has given to us. It includes the freedom to make mistakes.”

Rabbi Sacks elaborates on the essence of granting “Divine permission.” In his brilliant essay, entitled, Freedom and Practice, Sacks asserts that G-d “wants human beings to construct a society of Freedom. Sacks further explains that “it takes more than a few days or weeks to turn a population of slaves into a nation capable of handling the responsibilities of freedom.” Sacks bases his claim on Ramba”m (1138-1204) who contends that it is irrelevant who sent the men nor the verdict of this episode. What is important, states Ramba”m, is that “another generation rose during the wanderings that had not been accustomed to degradation and slavery” (Guide for the Perplexed III:32). To teach Am Yisrael the meaning of freedom, “G-d had to deprive them of the very freedom He wanted them to create,” in Sacks’s words.

Ramba”n  (1194-1270), likewise, claims that G-d granted and allowed a tour of the land. However, Ramba”n believes that G-d never intended for those who toured or scouted Canaan to return with a negative, verging on evil, report.

The sin, so it seems, originated from those “scouts” who turned into “spies” and not from the act of sending them on the mission. This is the consequence of human nature, as the quote from Bereisheet Rabbah, above, states. When the “evil inclination” abuses the free will awarded to former slaves, it drives them to the illusion of control, of being the masters.

Judaism offers many deep insights into the idea that something initially positive can become negative, depending on intent, misuse, or moral failure. It can convert an innocent "scout" to a sinful "spy" with an ensuing severe punishment. Fortunately, this episode turns into a hard yet great and hopeful lesson. This is the central theme of the episode of “The Spies.” It tells us that the tragedy of the generation that left Egypt was that they were not yet ready to be free and master their own fate. “But their children,” concludes Sacks “would be. That was their consolation.”

Shabbat Shalom