HASHEM spoke to Moshe saying, “Send (SHELACH) for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Children of Israel. And you should send (SHELACH) one man each for his father’s tribe; each one shall be a chieftain in their midst.” So, Moshe sent (SHELACH) them from the desert of Paran by the word of HASHEM. All of them were men of distinction; they were the heads of the children of Israel. (Bamidbar 13:1-3)
What went so terribly wrong with these “men of distinction?” How do we keep from falling into such a trap ourselves? That is the question!
I can think of nothing more humbling, and at the same time and powering as this statement from the sages, “SHLUCHO SHEL ADAM K’MOSO” – The messenger of a person is like him.” On a pedestrian level, it informs us that there is something called “power of attorney”. However, it also implies that we take the power and proportion of the one who is sending us. So, the question becomes, “Who is sending us? Who do we represent?” When a kid will come into my office with a defiant look, I’ll ask him, “Who is the boss here?” He will usually look up at me sheepishly and mumble, “YOU!” I then tell him, “HASHEM is the boss and I have to obey His orders just like you have to obey Him!” When we do what HASHEM wants us to do, there is nothing more humbling and nothing more empowering.
The Sefas Emes quotes the Medrash that says: There is nothing more-dear before The Holy One Blessed is He like a messenger that is sent to do a mitzvah, and he gives his soul that he should be successful in his mission”. He then writes in the name of his grandfather, the Ciddushei HaRim, “All of us are messengers that are sent here to do Mitzvos. Our mission is from Hashem in this world to fulfill His Mitzvos. There is no action that does not have within it a Mitzvah. Only before doing anything, a person has to remind himself of his mission…he should gather together all of his desires, and nullify them only to fulfill the lofty desire of HASHEM. With this he will be successful even with material actions. The main thing is that he should desire to manifest the Honor of HASHEM and that he uncovers the hidden light in everything.”
Maybe it’s a sign that we’re getting older or maybe it’s a sign that we’re getting younger. My wife and I fill up a birdfeeder in front of our house and we are tickled by the beauty and the pageantry and the sheer variety of types and stripes and colors and sizes of the birds that come to visit us. Each one is an elegant sample of the artistry and the endless genius of the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Maybe it’s a sign we are getting older or maybe it’s a sign we are getting younger, or maybe it’s a sign we are really timeless.
There is nothing as sublime as time. It can be measured but cannot be held. The Arvei Nachal offers a spatial representation of time. Imagine an opaque window with a one inch by one inch window open to a glowing globe on the inside. The square inch that is exposed is the present and when the ball on the outside rotates, that space is covered, and it becomes the past. The square inch that is about to be exposed is the future. When the outer shell is removed, then everything is revealed in the world of the ever-present HAYA-HOVE’-YIHEYEH. The good news and the bad news is that everything we do is forever. Such is the beauty of Teshuvah!
The ultimate remedy offered is, “Do not follow after your eyes and after your heart”. How does that help us remain true to our mission? I remember that kids with glasses were teased with the name, “Four eyes!” The truth is, everybody has four eyes. Two physical earthy eyes that look on the world and are blinded and confused by the reflection of so many material things. Then there are the two spiritual, inner eyes. The impressionistic artist Gagnon, said “I only begin to see when I close my eyes”. When you ask a wise person a question, you might notice sometimes, that before he answers, he closes his eyes. We close our eyes when declaring HASHEM’s ONENESS! With eyes wide open we are vulnerable and liable to be distracted by the vanity of vanities but when we close our eyes, even temporarily, we are able to perceive the profundity of profundities.