FROM THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION – SH’LACH-L’KA:

Faith or no faith? It is entirely up to you – but you may be sure that YHWH is ALWAYS true to His Word.

“And Moshe sent them to spy out the land of Kena’an, and said to them, ‘Go up here into the South, and go up to the mountains, and see what the land is like, and the people who dwell in it, whether strong or weak, whether few or many, and whether the land they dwell in is excellent or evil, whether the cities they inhabit are in camps or strongholds, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are forests there or not. And you shall be strong, and shall bring some of the fruit of the land.’ Now the time was the season of the first-fruits of grapes. So, they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Tsin as far as Rechov, near the entrance of Chamath. And they went up through the South and came to Chevron. And Achiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anaq, were there. Now Chevron had been built seven years before Tso’an in Mitsrayim. And they came to the wadi Eshkol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes. And they bore it between two of them on a pole, also of the pomegranates and of the figs. That place was called the wadi Eshkol, because of the cluster which the men of Yisra’el cut down from there. And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. And they went and came to Moshe and Aharon and all the congregation of the children of Yisra’el in the Wilderness of Paran, at Qadesh. And they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they reported to him, and said, ‘We went to the land where you sent us. And truly, it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. BUT the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are walled, very great. And we saw the descendants of Anaq there too. The Amaleqites dwell in the land of the South, while the Chittites and the Yevusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains. And the Kena’anites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Yarden.’ And Kalev silenced the people before Moshe, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are certainly able to overcome it.’ But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.’ And they gave the children of Yisra’el an evil report of the land which they had spied out, saying, ‘The land through which we have gone as spies is a land eating up its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. And we saw there the Nephilim, sons of Anaq, of the Nephilim. And we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes...’”

YHWH didn’t ask whether or not the people of Yisrael should go up to war against the people of Kana’an. He simply told them to go spy out the land and bring back a report prior to doing that. The decision to go to war had already been made by Him, and He didn’t ask their counsel about it. They were to do so with complete faith in Him for their victory, as He had already promised.

As it was for them, so should it be with us – when YHWH has instructed you to do something, whether verbally or through His written Word, just do it. Don’t second-guess Him. Have faith.

“...And the men whom Moshe sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing an evil report of the land, even those men who brought the evil report about the land, died by the plague before YHWH. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Yehoshua son of Nun, and Kalev son of Yephunneh remained alive.”

The plague here in this passage was, of course, tzara’at – leprosy, because the spies had brought back an evil report. As we have seen consistently in past Torah portions, the penalty for lashon hara (evil speech) and rechilut (gossip) is always the same.
Whether they might be true or false, consider your words.