Spies, Faith, and Flight Delays

We were supposed to be making aliyah next week.

We were supposed to load a van, drive to the nearest El Al hub, print matching T-shirts, stack suitcases, fret about our pet cats, haul binders of paperwork and carry-ons of snacks. We were supposed to fly and land, walk off the plane, get processed, and receive our first taste of Israeli bureaucracy right there in the airport.

We were supposed to be tired, hot, and sweaty, maybe misplace a duffel or two, and have a few hiccups, but we were supposed to be in Israel, declaring our intent to settle in the land, to stay, to claim it as part of our heritage.

Instead, as the war with Iran broke out and missiles rained down, it became clear that we are not flying next week. The future became murky and unclear. We are making aliyah, eventually.

I cannot help but draw a parallel between our predicament and this week’s parsha, Shelach. The Jewish people were supposed to enter Israel and possess the land. Everything was going smoothly, until the spies returned, slandered the land, and “turned the heart of the people”. Once mass hysteria took hold, the nation sat and cried. Nothing that was said to them, no reassurance, seemed valid.

Famously, Hashem responded with anger and declared that due to this slander, the punishment would be 40 years of wandering in the desert, until this generation dies out and a new generation comes in its stead. Each year was in response to the day that the spies spent in the land. Each of those days, the spies could have chosen to see the positive. Instead, they returned and focused on the pitfalls: the giants, the fortified cities, ending with a hyperbole that the land is consuming its inhabitants.

I have seen and heard of the Jews deplaning in Israel and bending down to kiss the ground. But nowadays, when we arrive through the air-conditioned halls of Ben Gurion, where is the appropriate place for such an expression? Is it as you first enter the terminal, many meters off the ground? Is it past passport control, between the luggage carousels? Is it when you exit the airport and are hit with the mixture of bus exhaust, melting asphalt and Mediterranean body sweat?

More seriously, how often do we declare confidently, echoing the words of Calev and Yehoshua: The land is very exceedingly good! Instead, we use caveats and asterisks, hemming and hawing, saying it’s complicated, it’s relative, there are always two sides, it depends on the perspective… While all of the above can be true, what do those words reveal about our core values? Do we really believe that the land is good–with just a few imperfections? Or do we see it as quite ordinary, maybe even burdensome–land to be used, traded, endured, like any other?

Jewish marital relationship is built on the bedrock of trust. If the wife declares that she is ritually impure due to experiencing a menstrual flow, she is believed by her husband who abstains from having contact with her, based solely on her words. Under certain circumstances, the woman is able to retract her claim. It is then up to the husband, based on the claim and the conduct of the woman, to discern whether she said the truth the first time around, or the second.

I marvel at this psychological insight. Sometimes, the couple is not on the same page. Sometimes, a partner needs an excuse to create distance. And sometimes, the couple is so out of sync that an actual niddah-like separation is required in order to use other means of communication to resolve their differences.

In the words of the Prophets and Midrash, the relationship between the Jewish people and G-d is often likened to that of a husband and wife, with G-d being the masculine partner. Interestingly, the rupture caused by the Golden Calf–where idolatry is likened to adultery–rincurs a milder punishment than the sin of the spies. Why would the punishment for fear be greater than the punishment for idol worship?

Adultery is often occasioned by boredom and desire for novelty, passion, change. It reflects more on the party that strays rather than on the betrayed partner. A repair is possible, if both parties recommit to focus solely on each other.

But the sin of the spies reflected a deeper, systemic rupture: the lack of trust. When trust is broken, it is not just about an isolated failure–it is a reflection of how one partner fundamentally views the other. There is no longer certainty whether the spouse has the other’s best interests at heart. This kind of breakdown can happen with omission as much as with commission. It can come quietly, when one simply stops turning toward the other.

When the Jewish people sent the spies, that was the first inkling that they were not trusting G-d about the goodness of the land. When the majority of the spies correctly read the nation’s mood and chose to focus on the negative, they underscored the level of betrayal: See? G-d is leading you to a place that is not good for you, just as you suspected. This is the reason why the cries of Calev and Yehoshua fell on deaf ears. G-d, seeing this level of mistrust, surmised that the relationship can no longer continue in its current form. The retraction issued by the Jewish people and their subsequent desire to go into Israel no matter what, was not considered substantially valid. Only a break of 40 years would make room for a new attempt at reconciliation.

I certainly hope that our family’s aliyah delay is shorter than that. In the meanwhile, I will redouble my efforts to proclaim the goodness of the land. And we do finally fly, I will find a patch of land–a real, solid patch–and I will kiss it. With longing, with joy, and with trust.