The Sense of Hearing and Seeing
The story of the spies in the desert, who went on a reconnaissance mission to assess the habitability of the Land of Israel is detailed in the Torah portion of Shelach. Their trip, which happened over the entire month of Tamuz and ended tragically upon their return to the camp on the ninth day of Av, lasted a total of forty days. It was on the disastrous day of their return that ten of the spies reported that the Israelites were not strong enough to conquer the various peoples living in the land, thus causing the people to cry to return to Egypt. God was so offended by the people’s lack of faith that he said in response: “You wept needlessly that night, therefore I will establish it as a night of weeping for future generations” (Ta’anit 29a); hence, all of the tragic events that have befallen the Jewish people on the 9th of Av, as commemorated by our collective day of mournful fasting.
According to the Sefer Yetzirah, the “sense” of the month of Tamuz is sight, while the “sense” of the month of Av is hearing. The spies’ faculty of sight was only able to see the Land of Israel on a superficial level, while the people’s hearing was blemished by their willingness to listen to the negative report of the spies and then accepting it at face value, without question. It is clear in both cases that the spies were not seeing deep enough, and the people’s hearing lacked true discernment. From this perspective, it is clear that the rectification for the episode of the spies is for each of us to learn to see much deeper than just the surface of reality, as well as to listen in a much more penetrating manner in order to truly understand the implications of what we hear.
One place where sight and hearing come together in a very profound way is when saying Shema Yisrael, “Hear O Israel.” We want so much to see truth and God in a real way, we not only close our eyes when reciting this passage, but we cover them with our hand as well. The closer something is to us the more we have to close our eyes to see it. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach taught that is why when we kiss our beloved, we intuitively close our eyes, as if to say — “I don’t want my physical eyes to blind me to the true vision of our inner love and unity.” The same dynamic applies when we say the Shema, for at that moment we want to unify with God, our ultimate beloved. The ‘hearing’ of the Shema is not only physical hearing, but even deeper, understanding on a deep soul level that the full implication of the oneness of God is not just that God is one, but that all reality is essentially one.
The connection of seeing and hearing in a deeper manner is as we have seen connected to both the Shema and the sin of the spies. This is one of the reasons why the passage about tzitzit, the ritual fringes on a four cornered garment, is placed at the very end of the portion of Shelach which describes the sin of the spies. It also helps to explain why the passage of tzitzit was added by the Sages as the third and final passage in the daily recitation of the Shema.
“And God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to attach a thread of blue on the fringes of each corner. They shall be to you as tzitzit, and you shall look upon them and remember all the commandments of God and fulfill them, and you will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray – so that you may remember and fulfill all My commandments and be holy to your G-d. I am God, your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your G-d; I, God, am your G-d” (Numbers 15:37-41).
Here we see that the message of tzitzit is a tikkun, a rectification for the spies following after their hearts and after their superficial sense of sight which caused them to forget God’s promise to bring them successfully to the land. In regards to the Shema, the passage of tzitzit and its emphasis on not being deceived by one’s eyes is reflected in the custom mentioned above about closing and covering one’s eyes while reciting the Shema.
There is yet another connection between the Shema, tzitzit and the episode of the spies and that is the Land of Israel. Tradition dictates that when reciting Kriyat Shema in the morning we gather the tzitzit from the four corners of our tallit (prayer shawl), and hold them in our left hand throughout the three passages of the Shema, leaving the right hand to cover our eyes for the first verse of the Shema. We do this in the blessing before the Shema when we reach the words: “Bring us in peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land”.
This alludes to the importance of the Land of Israel in the bigger scheme of tikkun olam, rectifying the world, and preparing it for the revelation of God’s Oneness. It further relates to the final letter dalet of the word echad, proclaiming that God is one [echad]. This intimates the need to spread the knowledge of the One God to the four corners of the earth. Paradoxically, the Jewish people can only accomplish that when gathered once more from the four corners of the earth to the Land of Israel.
Gathering the four corners of the tallit and the tzitzit while reciting the verse describing our ingathering to the Land of Israel also alludes to the phenomenon that the three letters of the word echad are the same three letters that begin the words “a land of milk and honey,” eretz chalav dvash. This realization takes on a more immediate meaning today when the ingathering of the Jewish people has been under way for well over a one-hundred and forty years.
Due to the sin of the spies and the men who believed them, Israel ended up spending a total of forty years in the desert till a new generation untainted by this disastrous incident was ready to enter the land. The sin of the spies was to not trust God and to not value the Land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Today, even with all the challenges entailed in returning to Israel from the four corners of the earth, the ingathering of the Jewish people is happening with eyes open wide.
