Sh'lach L'Cha: HaShem rubs their noses in their sin
No sooner has HaShem finished telling the former slaves that they're going to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until all the adults die because they lacked the faith to believe that they could conquer the Promised Land, than He turns around and tells them what they--or rather, their children--are supposed to do once they enter The Land. Nasty.
posted by Shira Salamone at 7:28 PM
3 Comments:
interesting take on it... the traditional take i've always heard was that it was a consolation prize to the kids, "don't worry, i'm sure you won't mess up, and here i'll prove it by trusting you with these mitzvot"
your reading is more ḥarif... and tricksterish!
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a yeshivah mechanech/educator is a one-person education squad--every time you post, I have to haul out my Hebrew-English dictionary. :) (Keep up the good work.) Harif, per the Zilberman paperback: "sharp, acrid, acute, hot." Come to think of it, isn't there a spicy Israeli sauce called "harif," or do I have the wrong name for it?
Maybe that's "harissa" sauce?
Some consolation prize. Most of the kids were probably too young to understand it anyway, at the time. So nice of HaShem to address the "at-risk" teenagers. (Insert roll-eyes emoticon here.)
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