The majority of our Parshah is, of course, taken up with the sin of the spies. The rest of the Parshah is concerned with various mitzvot concerning libations of sacrifices, hallah and tzitzit. All this can seem quite mundane following the dramatic events that came before. Maybe the Torah thought we needed a dramatic pause before the next instalment? A different explanation can be gleaned, however, from the transition between the two sections of the Parshah. After the disastrous defeat at hormah, the Torah then begins with ‘when you come into the Land’. On this Rashi comments ‘this promises them that they shall enter the Land’. In another words, to a people on the verge of despair, the Torah offers the promise of ultimate redemption. Yet we can maybe see how this idea applies not only to the opening sentence of the mitzvot section of the Parshah but also to the mundane details that follow. The Torah is showing us a way of carrying on in the face of tragedy. It is tempting in such circumstances to despair, fall into lethargy or depression, and simply give up. Yet there is another way. We can rebuild our lives by concentrating on the eternity of the Torah and its mitzvot. Political and economic circumstances fluctuate and even the Divine promise of the Land is conditional and has been largely aspirational. Yet the Torah is eternal. By concentrating on the daily mitzvot: sacrifice or prayer, taking hallah, tzitzit, we can bring stability, holiness and even joy into our lives irrespective of outside circumstances. This is the Torah’s prescription for dealing with tragedy and this is the path followed by generations of Jews throughout the generations. The Jews who on the death trains or in the concentration camps lit Shabbat or Hanukah candles or secretly learnt, were not simply being brave or defiant. They were articulating a basic Jewish response to tragedy. It was thus, also, that the survivors refused to give themselves over to despair. People who had lost all their families raised new ones, teachers who had seen their institutions and pupils wiped out, built them anew in America or Israel. That is the lesson the Torah gives us by instructing us about mundane, everyday, mitzvot directly after one of the worst catastrophes in Jewish history. Land, political power, security and prosperity, can all be removed from us. Only the Torah is always with us.

 ALIYAH BY ALIYAH SYNOPSIS 

Rishon	Moses sends spies to reconnoitre the Land.
Sheni	The spies report that the people of the Land are too strong to overcome.
Shelishi	The people refuse to go forward. G-d is annoyed and swears that they will not enter the Land.
Revi’i	The people must wander forty years in the wilderness till that generation has died out.
Chamishi	The drink offering to be offered with sacrifices.
Shishi	The law of Hallah and the communal sin offering.
Shevi’i	The individual sin offering and the law of Tzitzit.
Haftorah	Joshua 2;1–24: Joshua sends spies who report that the inhabitants are terrified of the Israelites.

 Sidra Statistics

Parshat Shelach

·               has 119 verses;

·               is the  4th  in Numbers,  37th  in the Torah

·                5th  longest in Numbers,  19th  longest  in the Torah  

·                has 3 pos + 1 neg =  4 mitzvot.