פרשת שלך

פרשת שלך
...ויקרא משה להושע בן-נון יהושע
...and Moshe called Hoshea Ben-Nun Yehoshua

        This week's פרשה speaks about the sending of the מרגלם into ארץ ישראל and how they spied out the land for the rest of the Jews. There is an interesting question based on the פסוק above.  Why is it that משה רבינו changed יהושע's name? What is the significance?  רש׳׳י answers that משה changed his name because he wanted to protect יהושע from the influence of the others, therefore he added ה׳'s name to the beginning of הושא's name. Ok, but then why didn't משה daven for the rest of the men? Why was יהושע the only one? He could have at least, davened for כלב בן יפנה! 

       The מהר׳׳ל answers that the reason משה didn't daven for anyone else, was because יהושע was the main תלמיד of משב רבינו. If יהושע came back with a negative report of the land, like the others did, it would have made משה look like a liar, and that would not have gone over too well.

      Ok, so the first thing that comes to my mind after hearing that answer is... WHAT?! משה רבינו, our leader, the man who talked to ה׳ on a regular basis; the same משה who led us out of מצרים, was worried about his image?! I REALLY have a hard time with that answer!! We need to clear this up!

      Let's think about it for a minute. First of all there is absolutely no chance that משה was doing it for his own personal gain. The Jews were coming out of a monumental time period. They had just received the תורה.  The man who brought the תורה down from הר סיני was none other than משה. To the Jewish people, משה רבינו was the symbol of the תורה, therefore he was symbol of ה׳. The reason משה davened for יהושע and added part of ה׳'s name was because he knew that if יהושע would have come back and been like the other מרגלם, the people would have started to look badly upon the תורה and ה׳. 

      Now we still wonder why he didn't daven for the other spies. In this world there is only one thing that is not from שמים, that is ׳יראת שמים׳. There is no point in davening for someone to do the right thing or to make the right choices, because EVERYONE has free will. We can choose how we want to act and live. At the end of the day it is up to each individual person to choose if they are going to right or wrong. We choose whether we act according to the תורה or not. Even if משה would have davened for everyone else it would have not changed THEIR minds, only they could do that.

Have a Great Shabbos
Yoni Spigelman
With Help From: Rav Moshe Beigelman