Or HaChaim on Numbers 13:26/אור החיים על במדבר י״ג:כ״ו

1 וילכו ויבאו, they went and they came, etc. Why did the Torah have to tell us that the spies "went" when we have already been informed of their going on their way in at least three verses? Our sages in Sotah 35 say that the Torah wanted to compare their return to their departure. Just as they returned with wicked advice their departure had already been marked by with evil intent." Why was the Torah interested in informing us of this detail? All that mattered was the advice they came back with!

2We may understand the verse better when we keep in mind something we learned in Kidushin 39. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Yaakov as saying that when we find a מצוה written in the Torah and its reward is spelled out, the reward is paid only after the resurrection, i.e. a considerable period of time even after one's death. This explained the famous incident when a father ordered his son to climb a tree and take the young chicks and the son fell off the ladder and was killed. This occurred in spite of the fact that he had been in the process of fulfilling both the commandment of שלוח הקן and the commandment of honouring his father at one and the same time. In both instances the Torah promised long life for the fulfilment of this commandment (Deut. 5,16, Deut. 7,22) To the question of what happened to the fulfilment of the Torah's promise of longevity, Rabbi Yaakov answered that the Torah referred to a life which by itself was long, i.e. that the fulfilment of that commandment assured one that one would be resurrected in due course. The Talmud adds that Rabbi Yaakov was an eye witness to the occurrence mentioned. To the question that perhaps the son who climbed the ladder had sinful intentions at that moment, the answer given is that G'd does not punish someone for mere sinful intentions when these intentions have not yet been translated into practice. The Talmud then questions that idolatrous intentions are punishable even if they had not been carried out. The Talmud answers that Rabbi Yaakov also made the following statement: "should you believe that there is a reward in this life for מצות performed, then why did the fact that the son was involved on a sacred mission not at least protect him against this mishap? Do we not have a rule enunciated by Rabbi Eleazar that people engaged in the execution of a sacred duty do not suffer mishaps either on the way out or on the way home from such a מצוה?" The Talmud answers that the ladder in question was not stable and under conditions of obvious hazard Rabbi Eleazar's dictum does not apply. There is another difficulty here and that is that the Talmud in Sotah 21 comes to the conclusion that being involved in the performance of a מצוה does protect the person involved against a new hazard though it does not save him from an existing hazard which he had been aware of at that time. In view of all this, what proof does Rabbi Yaakov have to offer that the מצוה did not protect the son in the example he witnessed against idolatrous thoughts while he climbed the ladder The Talmud in Sotah quotes the opinion of Rav Yosef that the act of performing a מצוה protects that person against hazards as well as against becoming guilty of a culpable sin. His opinion is refuted by the example of Doeg and Achitofel whose immersion in Torah study did not protect them against the sin of bad-mouthing David so that they both became heretics in the end. Seeing that Rav Yosef's theory has been refuted, how can the Talmud in Kidushin 39 justify refuting the opinion of Rabbi Yaakov? [The author appears to mean: "what other alternative is there to explain the phenomenon Rabbi Yaakov had witnessed?" Ed.]

3Some scholars make distinctions between the performance of different categories of מצות. According to these authorities the example in Sotah where the Talmud said that even being engaged in the performance of a מצוה does not protect one against the evil urge dealt with someone who did not perform the מצוה לשמה, for the sake of performing G'd's bidding but for an ulterior motive. When the Talmud asks why being engaged in the performance of a מצוה should not protect such a person against committing a sin (inadvertently) the question referred to someone who performs the מצוה לשמה, for the sake of Heaven. This distinction is nonsense. If there were some substance to that distinction the Talmud should have rejected the query arising from the boy who fell off the ladder by merely stating that he did not perform the commandments in question for the sake of Heaven. This would have been a far more plausible scenario than the forced explanation that he might have entertained idolatrous thoughts at that moment. Such an answer would also have forestalled the question why the deed did not at least protect the son against the wiles of the evil urge. Performance of a commandment for ulterior motives certainly could not be presumed to protect such a person against the evil urge.

4I believe that the correct answer to our problem is that the eventual conclusion which the Talmud accepts is the viewpoint of Rav Yoseph that while a person is engaged in the performance of a מצוה it does both protect him against hazards as well as save him from giving in to his evil urge. This is the reason that Rabbi Yaakov raised the whole problem when he witnessed the death of the son who was engaged in the performance of not only one but two מצות at the time. This son was still engaged in the performance of the מצוה when he descended the ladder in order to bring the chicks to his father. Since we find that the Talmud in Sotah rejected the viewpoint of Rav Yoseph based on the fact that neither Doeg nor Achitophel were protected by their immense amount of Torah study against the wiles of the evi urge, this is not a satisfactory refutation of Rav Yoseph's approach to the subject. The Talmud in Chagigah 15 states that the Torah study of both Doeg and Achitophel had never been for the sake of Heaven. They had always entertained ulterior motives so that their Torah study had always been flawed. The fact that they fell victim to Satan's urgings therefore does nothing to undermine the theory that the performance of a מצוה protects the doer against hazards and saves him from the evil urge. According to Tossaphot both Achitophel and Doeg had been guilty of sins before they accumulated the merit of Torah study. Their Torah study was more important to them than their reverence for G'd the Lawgiver. No wonder that their מצות did not protect them against the evil urge.

5Furthermore, even assuming that we would accept at face value the opinion which refutes Rav Yoseph's approach basing itself on the fate of Doeg and Achitophel, all this would prove is that the merit of תורה does not protect such a person at the time when he is not actively engaged in studying Torah. At the time Doeg and Achitophel fell victim to the evil urge they had not been engaged in Torah study. Rav Yoseph had only claimed that the protective powers of מצוה performance are in force at the time the person in danger is actively engaged in the performance of the מצוה. The Talmud never tried to refute this aspect of Rav Yoseph's theory as expounded by Rava. [Anyone studying the text in Sotah 21 will find that Rav Yoseph considers the protective powers of Torah study as superior to the protective powers of the performance of any other category of מצוה. Ed.] Although Rava is forced to reconcile a statement in the Baraitha by explaining that the difference between the protective power of the merit of Torah study-vis-a vis the merit of performing any of the other מצות is like the difference between נר מצוה ותורה אור, that a single מצוה is like a candle and can only protect against forthcoming hazards, whereas the Torah is like the source of light itself, his words are not compelling. We can safely say that an ordinary מצוה has the power both to ward off hazards as well as save one from the evil urge during the period the endangered person is actively engaged in performing the מצוה. When a person is not engaged in the performance of a מצוה, the protective powers of the last מצוה he did perform are non-existent. As far as the merit of Torah study is concerned, however, such merit protects both against hazards as well as against the evil urge while one is engaged in such Torah study. When one is not engaged actively in Torah study the merit of one's previous study provides protection against hazards but not against the evil urge. When the Talmud there discusses what kind of merit protects the wife suspected of infidelity against the lethal effects of the מים המאררים, the cursed waters, the merit of Torah is one such factor though women are under no obligation to study Torah. They are protected by the Torah study of their husbands in accordance with the view expressed in Sotah 21 by Ravina. When we follow this approach Rabbi Yaakov proved from the incident with the ladder that even being engaged in the performance of a מצוה does not protect the person performing it in this world.

6Furthermore, when we examine the whole subject more profoundly we can even understand the Talmud in Kidushin according to the view expressed by Rava in Sota 21. We had a difficulty, namely that even if the person performing the מצוה had been guilty of harbouring idolatrous thoughts at the time, at least he should have been saved from physical danger even if his merit did not protect him against the evil urge, just as it does protect (for a limited period) the Sotah, the woman suspected of infidelity who drank the cursed waters. In that instance we speak about a woman who most certainly is guilty of a major misdemeanour and yet her merits provide protection for her even according to the viewpoint of Rava. In our instance (Rabbi Yaakov's witnessing the death of the son who was actively engaged in the performance of both honouring his father and sending away the mother bird before taking her young) the merit was immediate and yet it did not help. In order to answer how this could have happened to the son the only answer is that he was engaged in idolatrous thoughts at the time he carried out his father's bidding. Such thoughts made him the equivalent of a total heretic and stripped him of all protective merit he had ever accumulated. He had made himself equivalent to a Gentile in all respects so that no מצוה performed previously could act as a shield for him. Alternatively, we may say that when one is engaged in idolatrous thoughts the מצוה one proceeds to perform in such a state of mind does not confer any kind of protection. Rabbi Yaakov counters all questions by saying that if we would asssume that the promise of reward in the Torah applied to our lifetime, the promise of the Torah of longevity would indeed have protected the son against becoming guilty of a sin which brings disaster in its wake. Even Rava who holds that the merit of the מצוה protects against disaster, accepts that this includes protection against committing the kind of sin which brings disaster in its wake.

7We have established that according to the view of Rav Yoseph a person is protected from the evil urge during the time he performs a מצוה. Rava also agrees that such a person is at least protected against the evil urge leading him into a sin which by itself leads to disaster for him in this life. This is why our verse here has to provide the answer to the question why the מצוה the spies were engaged in did not protect them against falling victim to the evil urge to commit a sin which would lead to immediate disaster? After all, the Torah has written explicitly that they went at the command of G'd through Moses. This fact should have protected them from the disaster that overtook them. In order to explain this the Torah wrote וילכו ויבאו, "they went and they came back," i.e. that their departure was not motivated by the desire to perform a מצוה, just as their return was not motivated by a desire to be שלוחי מצוה, men who had been delegated to perform a מצוה. On the contrary, their whole mission was one in which they they were engaged in being sinful. As a result the so-called מצוה the spies were engaged in by carrying out Moses' mission did not protect them against disaster.

9Looking ot our verse from a moral/ethical point of view, the words וילכו ויבאו may be understood in connection with something we have learned in Sotah 3. Kabbalists interpret the statement in the Talmud that one does not commit a sin unless a רוח שטות, had taken possession of the prospective sinner first to mean that if an outstanding personality is faced with the temptation to commit a sin he does not fall victim to such temptation until after his soul has left him and has been replaced by an inferior soul called רוח שטות, a sense of folly or madness. Seeing that our verses bear testimony to the fact that the spies had been outstanding personalities, Princes of Israel, the Torah testifies that when they returned to Moses with an evil report הלכו, they had just departed, i.e. their former spirit had departed from them and been replaced by an inferior, foolish one, and it was in this new capacity that they "arrived," i.e. came back.

10The word וילכו also hints that this trip the spies took to the land of Canaan was their only and final one. They would never again come to that land. It was what we call הליכות עולם, something final, absolute. The words ויבאו אל משה explain why they did not already die on the way seeing they had perverted their mission. G'd honoured Moses who had despatched these spies by allowing them to return to their commander-in-chief. Had they died on the way, Moses would have been accused of all kinds of things. Under the circumstances, the fact that the spies had been able to traverse the land for forty days without one of them coming to any harm was in itself proof that they had been under G'd's protection all the time. Their very safe return should have strengthened the people's faith in G'd's ability and willingness to help them defeat the powerful people inhabiting that land. The whole episode is a prime example of Hoseah 14,10: ישרים דרכי ה׳ צדיקים ילכו בם ופושעים יכשלו בם, "the paths of the Lord are smooth; the righteous can walk on them while the sinners will stumble on them."

11אל מדבר פארן קדשה, to the desert Paran at Kadesh. Why did the Torah not mention the place קדש at the time when Moses despatched these spies? Perhaps the word קדשה is an allusion to the fact that the Israelites stayed there for a long period due to the negative report of the spies and its acceptance by the people. We are told in Deut. 1,46 that the people stayed at Kadesh a very long time (19 years according Rashi). It took another 19 years for the people to reach the borders of the land of Canaan after their departure from Kadesh. Seeing that we were told that Kadesh was near the border of the land of Canaan, the spies were responsible for the Israelites having to remain in that general area for 38 years.

12וישיבו אותם דבר, and they brought back word to them (to Moses and Aaron). At this juncture the Torah glosses over the evil nature of their report and merely describes it as "a report." The Torah makes it a principle not to divulge the evil people perpetrated unless it became necessary to do so. One of the outstanding examples of that principle is the failure of the Torah to report that Chur was murdered on the day the people made the golden calf. Avodah Zarah 4 claims that even the sin of the golden calf itself was only recorded in detail to teach that if Israel were to sin again collectively, the memory of the sin of the golden calf would serve as proof that repentance would result in atonement of even such a severe sin. [the author's interpretation of that passage. In fact the Talmud says that the sin had only been committed in order to teach this lesson, Ed.] Similarly, in our instance; as long as the Israelites had not voiced a wish to return to Egypt (14,4) and had thereby rebelled against the Lord the Torah did not need to tell us what precisely had been the catalyst that prompted such a reaction by the people. Once the people voiced the wish to return to Egypt, however, the Torah had to reveal that the spies had slandered ארץ ישראל. The Torah had to tell us why the Jewish people had to remain in the desert for forty years.

13ואת כל העדה, and to the whole community, etc. This means that the spies chose to report to Moses and Aaron when the latter were together with the whole community. They did not deliver their report in the privacy of Moses' office as would have been appropriate. Their intent was to embarass Moses in the eyes of the Jewish people.

14Alternatively, the words וישיבו אותם דבר could have been meant to refer to the report the content of which the Torah is about to reveal. The Torah merely tells us that they first reported what they had to say to Moses. Immediately afterwards they told the people directly.

15A third possibility is one which takes into consideration what we explained on verse one i.e. that the Israelites understood the spies' mission as having quite a different objective from what Moses intended the mission to be. The spies reported to Moses and Aaron according to their understanding of the mission; subsequently they reported to the people at large according to their understanding of the purpose of the mission.