Rashi famously scans the first two words (after the initial “And God said to Moses, saying”) of Parshat Shelach, Shelach Lecha, Send yourself, l’da’atcha, to your own wisdom. Traditionally, we always explain this to mean that God leaves it up to Moses’ initiative whether he wants to send the spies. If that was really the intention, though, wouldn’t Rashi have said l’ratzon’cha, to your will?

Rather, let’s explore that Moses was directed to use his wisdom and experience, the products of his inspiration (and who in our history has been even close to Moses’ inspiration?), Chochmah and his highly trained analytical skills, Binah, which regularly produce our wisest conclusions. Not offered a choice to send the scouts if he wanted to, but rather to send them with the greatest intellectual skills he could impart to them so that they will be able to honestly and accurately assess the nature of this holy land and to report back with deepest insights just how we would be able to enter, conquer and become one with this land.

Eretz Yisrael isn’t a mundane chunk of land like any other. Nor is Am Yisrael any old people and our mission to live here even goes beyond establishing an ideal society here, a model for all mankind (although that is both mandatory and important for us to do. The entire mystical narrative, uncovering deeper levels of meaning of Torah, focuses on the processes of Creation, which included almost from the very beginning, the concept of Shevirat HaKelim, the Shattering of the Vessels, the very matter of the universe exploding and scattering throughout Creation.

Rather than seen as a great tragedy, an unsolvable problem which will eternally curse mankind, we actually see it as the great gift it is, Mankind’s opporunity to directly and personally engage as we partner with The Creator to complete Creation by bringing it to it’s highest potential.

The methodology that this side of our tradition developed involves Netzutzot HaKodesh, Holy Sparks. Bits and pieces of primal reality, directly formed, as it were, by God’s own Hands, physical reality not degraded by coming into contact with any sort of spiritual impurity. Although they’re the shattered bits of a fuller perfection, and they’ve been cast into the earth, as it were, this is not by anyone’s misdeed, but part of God’s primal intention in creating only good, U’vatuvo M’Chadesh B’Kol Yom Ma’aseh Breishit.

Each of us, each of the primary 600,000 Jewish Souls, combined and recombined, comprising an entire Torah, reflecting back to The Creator His very own perfect essence, is assigned a set of these Netzutzot. Our job is to first identify them, to somehow extract them from their surroundings and, finally, to bring them to their own ideal essence where they are, by definition, united with all the other Netzutzot in perfect harmony and unity, uniting in love, just as does an ideal couple, to create the future.

Our assigned tool is Da’at, which is more than just intellect, more than just inspiration, more than just analysis. It also combines the major poles of consciousness, Ahava, Love and Yirah, structure, Love and Respect, Male and Female, enthusiasm with restraint, the extreme opposites which make up our souls and give us the ability to be, to become, fully human.

And that is our task, those of us fortunate at this time to actually live in Eretz Yisrael, and those of us who will, in the future, be drawn here to life the fullest lives we can. To set patterns, to serve as examples and inspirations to all mankind of what we are capable when we operate at our highest consciousness, our deepest and most burning love.

Shabbat Shalom