The imagery we have in our mind, from yet a young age, of the sin of the Meraglim, is that of eight spies carrying a huge אשכול, cluster of grapes. There were two other porters as well, one bearing a pomegranate and the other a fig.
The Torah elaborates about this ‘cluster’ without any apparent reason why.
Firstly, it reports that the region they traveled to cut the fruit from was, נחל אשכּל, the Valley of Eshkol.
The next verse then states: למקום ההוא קרא נחל אשכּול על אדות האשכּול אשר כרתו משם בני ישראל (במדבר יג כד), They named that place the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes that the Children of Israel cut from there.
Why is this detail so emphasized and what relevance is there in that information?
Furthermore, why does it say in the second verse that is was thus named the Valley of Eshkol ‘because of the cluster of grapes they cut from there’, when the previous verse relates that they arrived at the place known as, the ‘Valley of Eshkol’ yet prior to their cutting it from its vine?
The Midrash enlightens us by revealing that actually this location was already identified as the Valley of Eshkol, yet from the days of Avraham Avinu. One of his three ‘beloved friends’ who lived in Chevron, the hometown of Avraham, was a man named Eshkol, who owned that territory. The Midrash refers to the verse that describes the Almighty as the One who ‘tells the end from the beginning’, having orchestrated from on high that Eshkol should be so named because of the events that would take place there many generations later.
So, although up until the episode of the spies it was a region named because of its association with Mr. Eshkol, only after the cutting of the cluster of grapes did it take on new meaning as the valley that would memorialize this tragic episode in referencing the spies intention of presenting the oversized cluster to the masses.
Fascinating history, but why is this important?
Eshkol was quite the hero. When Avraham hears that his nephew/brother-in-law, Lot is taken captive in the War of the Kings, Eshkol, together with Aner and Mamre, take up the battle together with their dear friend, Avraham, and handily defeat the four kings, retrieving Lot.
This was a remarkable testament to the loyalty and allegiance of friends, who were willing to risk their lives for one another.
History is not merely an event that once happened, no longer relevant to the present. Times and places represent lessons for future generations. These events must be contemplated for the lessons they teach and the inspiration it provides.
The great Hungarian rabbinic figure and teacher, Rabbi Eliezer Zusman-Sofer,in his Yalkut Eliezer writes:
It is most natural that when a person comes upon a place where a historical event took place, especially one that has been recorded for posterity, and hears of the impact that episode had in ancient times, that he should react with amazement, visualizing those events in his mind.
Whether it is a tale of an officer who valiantly sacrificed his life for his king or nation, that inspires the observer to exhibit similar allegiance to the causes important to him... or if one stands before a monument that attests to a covenant of friends, to their unbreakable bond of brotherhood, it must arouse within oneself a commitment never to raise a hand against his fellow...
Behold, the place where these scouts’ fealty to their brethren became undone, was the very place, the Valley of Eshkol, at that location they should have been impressed of the loyalty of a gentile to the one he admired and loved, Avraham, the rock we are hewn from. The One ‘Who calls the generations from the beginning’, expects us to be inspired, but their ears were too heavy to hear the stirrings of their inner emotions, initiating a tragic cutting off from their destiny...
The Vilna Gaon points out that first time the spies came upon this spot, the word אשכּל, is written without a ו. In the next verse where it states that they called it the Valley of אשכּול, a ו, is added.
This he claims represents a conscious decision on their part to change the connotation from its original intention and rename it in light of their current fear of the enormity of its size and its intimation of the impossibility to conquer this land.
This wasn’t then just a resistance to remembering a heroic act, it was a witting departure from the legacy of their forefather Avraham, who inspired a world to live by a faith in the One G-d that makes it all happen, that one can overcome the impossible.
The spies lived within the present, unwilling to place themselves along the graph of history, inspired by the legacy of our past that we bear.
Immediately following the episode of the spies and the dire consequences of their actions the Torah commands regarding the bringing of נסכים, wine libation, to accompany personal animal offerings.
One of the Tosafists, Rabbeinu Shimshon of Cucy, says this is so that the fruit with which they sinned, grapes, shall attain its atonement through its own produce, יבוא הבן ויכפר על אב, let the son come and atone for his father, יבוא ניסוך היין ויכפר על האב האשכול, let the libation of wine atone for its father the cluster of grapes.
Perhaps it is the lesson to never forget from where we came. Never may we be oblivious to lessons of our history. The day we do, we are guilty of the same sin of the spies, who wallowed in their own limited possibilities, by detaching ourselves from the legacy of our fathers who taught us that anything is possible.
באהבה,
צבי יהודה טייכמאן
