“Revealing Hidden Praise”[1]
Parshas Shelach 5782
לרפואה שלימה אסתר תהלה בת אריאל ציפורה
Based on “Erev Shabbos Parsha Inspiration” by Rabbi Phillip Moskowitz[2]
Written by Rabbi Dani Staum
The story of the Meraglim is of the most calamitous debacles mentioned in the Torah.
Hashem had long promised Eretz Yisroel as the Chosen Land to us. He spoke of its greatness to the Avos and to the nation while they were still enslaved in Mitzrayim.
As a final preparation before they were to enter the Land, Moshe and the nation dispatched twelve of the nation’s leaders as meraglim to scout out the land and report back to them. After weeks away, the meraglim are seen in the distance returning while holding samples of the fruits of the land. There’s an excitement and anticipation that sweeps through the camp. The nation excitedly gathers to hear what the 12 leaders have to say about G-d’s Chosen Land.
The Meraglim begin by saying that it is indeed a great and powerful land. But then they shock everyone by emphatically announcing that they have no chance of conquering it. לא נוכל לעלות – we are unable to ascend. They inform the nation that all the messages of conquest they had been told until then were unfounded. It was an absolutely crushing scene. All the excitement was quashed in a moment and replaced with national deflation, despair and sorrow.
In that gloom, Calev arises with conviction to counter the negativity. He is able to silence the despairing masses. We expect that he would assume the role of lawyer to defend the Land from his companions’ aspersions. But he doesn’t do so at all. In fact, he doesn’t address anything that they said. He simply says עלה נעלה וירשנו אותה – we will ascend, and we will inherit it.
What kind of defense is that?
The Piaseczner Rebbe in Aish Kodesh explains that Calev was not denying the logical veracity of their arguments. Indeed, the odds were against them. The land was too powerful, the cities impregnable, and their armies were filled with giants and warriors. There was unmitigated uncertainty as to how they would be successful, and they didn’t have any answers. Yet, despite all that, one thing was certain – they would go up and they would be successful, because G-d promised them that they would!
Calev didn’t undermine their arguments because he essentially agreed with them. Yet, עלה נעלה, despite the daunting tasks, they would proceed beyond natural limitations.
“Such must be the faith of the Jew. Not only when he sees an opening and path to his salvation… but also at the time that he does not see, heaven forbid, any reasonable opening through the course of natural events for his salvation, he must still believe that G-d will save him, and he is thereby strengthened in his faith and trust.”[3]
No idea greater captures the mantra of the Jewish people during the last two thousand years than these two words – עלה נעלה. It might not make sense, but we will do it anyway.
If you told someone a hundred and twenty years ago that we will create a Jewish state in the Arab Middle East, they would have told you fifty reasons why it was impossible, and all their points would have been true. Yet, we have done it anyway. Throughout the exile, conqueror after conqueror eventually gave up on the hostile and barren country. We proceeded anyway and since our return the Land has become stunning. We have developed desalinization plants, an explosion of agriculture, and have become the startup nation. Most significantly, after the Holocaust the world said Torah Judaism couldn’t confront modernity. When everyone said לא נוכל לעלות the Jewish people repliedעלה נעלה . We have survived and thrived on an unprecedented level.
When the Ponovezher Rav arrived in B’nei Brak and Rav Aharon Kotler in Lakewood and declared עלה נעלה – we will build Torah institutions in barren spiritual deserts, they too proclaimed עלה נעלה when everyone else said לא נוכל לעלות.
The greatness of the Jewish people has always been that where others see insurmountable challenges and odds we declare עלה נעלה and proceed. Those two words symbolize our eternity.
- Hidden Praise is the loose meaning of Esther Tehilla, for whose refuah these divrei Torah were written. ↑
- Taken from “Time to Take Responsibility” June 19, 2020. Posted on YUTorah ↑
- Aish kodesh contains the rebbe’s discourses given in the Warsaw Ghetto during the years 1939-1943. They were miraculously discovered in the rubble of the ghetto after the war and have been reprinted.
This particular lecture was given in July 1940 when the Third Reich was at its highest point of seeming invincibility, soon after they overran France. In a time of hopelessness, the rebbe encouraged the Jews in the ghetto with this timeless message. ↑