Shlach Essay
The story of the spies travelling to Eretz Yisrael and coming back with an evil report is the turning point in Bnei Yisrael’s travels through the wilderness. From the moment they give their report, there is an irreversible decree, that none of the people from that generation will enter the Holy Land.
The words the Torah uses is the commandment of Shlach – send. This word has become synonymous with some people as their mission or shlichus.
The Sfas Emes explains a remarkable insight in this commandment. Indeed Bnei Yisrael had decided that they wanted to send spies and see whether the land was “good or not”. HaShem in His infinite kindness foresaw their mistake and preceded it with an offer. That offer was actually the commandment: “Send spies – Shlach lecha”. HaShem actually took their desire and made it into a mitzvah, a positive commandment to spy out the land. Now that it had become a mitzvah the spies were supposed to now spy out the land not because of their original desire to spy out the land, but rather to spy it because of the mitzvah that HaShem attached to it.
This therefore explains to us their grave error. Instead of doing their mission because HaShem commanded, they continued with their original selfish ideas, and caused the damage that we still suffer from.
There is however an amazing lesson that the Sfas Emes teaches us. We are all shlichei mitzvah. Our Neshama is sent to this world on a mission. To hear our mission we need to quieten down our own selfish desires. Every action we perform can be done in one of two ways, either it is what I want to do, or it is the opposite, I nullify myself to the will of HaShem.
This attitude now changes every action that a person does from a mundane everyday action, to a mitzvah. Furthermore the accountability of a shliach a messenger is just that he tries to perform his mission. The result is not his responsibility for he is just an extension of the one sending him.
This is the greatness of overcoming one’s ego. By putting aside one’s insecurities and personal desires, one is able to surpass all physical barriers and live a life that is constantly on a spiritual growth, going higher and higher
