Parashat Shelach THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION NUMBERS 13:1-15:41 תרפש לש ח ־ ל ך / Parashat Shelach In this week’s guide… This COMMENTARY from Rabbi Jason is going to challenge you. Have you ever struggled to step out and do something that God has called you to do? Have you ever made a decision that seemed good at the time, but failed to talk to God about it beforehand? If so, you’re not alone. AND…you should not despair! God is present to us, bringing wisdom and understanding to move forward in faith and trust. We follow a King who rebukes storms and walks on the waves. We don’t need to live in fear—a timely word for this season.................................................... ................1 In our NEW TESTAMENT TIE-IN we consider insights related to the tassels that the Lord prescribed for the Jewish people (to be worn as reminders). Why would they need reminding and what good could it produce? Ultimately, we need to consider not only the innate brokenness of the human condition, but the deeper meaning of obeying God’s commands. We may not wear tassels today, but we still need to be reminded that God wants us to live a certain way. Yeshua has given us the most powerful and effective reminder we could ever want!............................. ...................2 BY THE NUMBERS explores the phrase that is the sources the name of this week’s Torah Portion, Shelach Lecha/“Send for yourself.” The numerical value of this phrase points us to deeper truth (“There’s more…!”). We need to be strong in our faith and trust in the Lord. He keeps His promises. And our ultimate promise awaits us in the Age to Come—the Era of Messiah. This article will have you shouting with John the Revelator: “Amen! Come, Lord Yeshua!” (Rev 22:20).......................3 ________________________________________________________________ OVERVIEW Shelach is an imperative verb that means “send out.” This portion’s name comes from the first few words of its second verse: “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan” (Numbers 13:2). What unfolds, of course, is the tragic saga of ten spies spreading fear and discouragement by sharing a bad report of the Promised Land. The Children of Israel rebelled against the Lord, refusing to enter Canaan. As a result of their disobedience, God relegated that generation to wander in the wilderness for forty years. We are called to be a people who trust God, despite the circumstances, regardless of our feelings. After all, “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). FUSION GLOBAL WITH RABBI JASON תשרפ חלש ־ ל ך / Weekly Torah Portion – Parashat Shelach Numbers 13:1-15:41 COMMENTARY by Rabbi Jason Sobel “The L-rd spoke to Moses saying, ‘Send forth men for yourself, if you please, to let them spy out the land of Canaan that I will give to the Children of Israel; one man from his ancestral tribe shall you send, every one a leader among them’” (Num 13:1-2 / translation mine). The focus of this week’s reading is the twelve spies who were sent to scout the Promised Land for forty days. Ten of the twelve spies came back with a bad report and convinced the people that they could not take the Land. As a result, Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness. They spent one year wandering for each of the days of the spies’ mission until that adult generation (that came out of Egypt) died in the wilderness. Joshua and Caleb were the exceptions because they brought a different report of the Promised Land. Why did this scouting mission fail so horribly? Why was it doomed to failure? The reason is that it was rooted in a lack of faith and trust in the Lord. The Hebrew of Numbers 13:1 says, “Shlach lecha” or “Send for yourself, if you please.” The Lord did not tell Moses to send spies. It was the leaders of Israel who wanted to send spies. They wanted to make sure that they prepared their militarily. God gave them the option because He knew what was in their hearts. Moses instructed the twelve spies to come back with the following information: “See what the Land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of Land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the Land” (Num 13:18-20/NIV). This decision by Moses and the leaders of Israel disguised their lack of faith and trust in the Lord. They were not willing to rely upon the Lord and His promises alone. They wanted more assurance. They did not want to take God’s word at face value. They wanted to see for themselves. It seemed logical and sensible. But what seemed like a good idea was not God’s idea as Deuteronomy confirms, “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” (Deut 1:22-23 / NIV, emphasis added). (Overlooking the Jezreel Valley from Mount Precipice on our recent Rock, Road, Rabbi tour of Israel) The idea of the spies pleased Moses, which is an important point. Some things seem right in our eyes but are not pleasing in God’s. We must learn to discern between a good idea and a God idea. Discernment must accompany faith. Ten of the spies wanted to minimize and manage the risk, which was wrong because it was rooted in fear and a lack of faith. When God directly calls you to do something, you must go for it without making excuses and rationalizations—they only mask one’s fear. 1 The spies had faith in the Lord, but they lacked trust in Him and his promises. Faith knows the Lord is real, but trust is faith in action. Like the spies, many believers have faith but not trust. We could say the same thing about the disciples. There were twelve disciples in the boat when Yeshua came walking on the water. Only one of them had enough faith and trust to ask to step out of the boat and walk on the water with Him. Without faith and trust, we remain stuck in the boat, and similar to the spies, we will die in the desert without fully entering the Promised Land. We can’t live in fear of the future or fear of the Coronavirus. We must move from fear to faith and from faith to trust. This challenge was the essence of the failure of the spies who chose fear over faith and trust. They decided to focus on the problem before them (GIANTS) instead of focusing on the person and promises of God. Those giants were not meant to instill fear but rather breed faith. The ability to see the possibilities in our problems determines the level of our promotion. Don’t be like the ten untrusting spies; be like Joshua and Caleb. Don’t delay or you might die in the desert. God has made promises to you, but you must boldly step out in faith to possesses them. Now is the time for breakthrough! NEW TESTAMENT TIE-IN s this week’s Torah Portion comes to a close, we read: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all theA commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God’” (Num 15:37-40/ESV). While Yeshua and all of His disciples did wear the tzit tzit (tassels) called for in the Torah, the Jerusalem Council decided not to place this obligation on Gentile believers (see Acts 15:12-21). These tassels are not prescribed in the New Testament and the Jerusalem Council decided not to place this obligation on Gentile believers (see Acts 15:12-21). Even so, the Lord’s address to the problems related to our hearts and eyes are as relevant as ever. The human condition remains disturbingly “stable.” Whether Israelites in the Negev nearly 4,000 years ago or Americans living in 2020, we still follow after our compromised hearts (see Jer. 17:5) and are “inclined to whore after” what our eyes take in (1 John 2:16). This inclination is why the reality of what happens to our hearts and in our hearts when we’re “born again” is so crucial. To become a disciple of Yeshua is not merely a matter of embracing new ideas or changing our moral code. No—to say “yes” to the Lord is to become… - “new creations” according to 2 Corinthians 5:17 - “citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” per Ephesians 2:19 - “a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (also in Ephesians 2) In other words, while many religious types pursue behavior modification, God still wants us to be holy.