20 Elul: Shorten the way

Rashi expresses surprise when the spies come back from the land of Israel in just forty days. After all, he points out at Number 13:25, the land is 400 by 400 parsa’ot, and it should have taken many times longer to make their way through all the land from sea to river and north to south. Rather, God enabled the spies to jump the path – to be led along miraculous shortcuts that would “shorten the way”.

Shortening the path is normally something that happens to rebbes and Chasidim in Chasidic stories, so that they can arrive someplace special to perform righteous acts that will redeem the world. Since the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, are seen as wicked, talking badly about the land, planting bitterness in everyone, why would they merit having their path shortened? If anything, they deserved to have obstacles block their path.

The reason, Rashi explains, is that God knew they would destroy the will of the people and ruin the chance to enter the land. And God knew that God would have to decree that the Israelites wander in the desert one year for each day that the spies wandered in the land. God shortened their path so that the desert exile could also be shorter.

In a time when the wicked seem to prosper, fomenting wars and destruction, killing the innocent, tearing down democracy, undoing laws that protect the earth and her species, torturing immigrants in prisons and concentration camps that violate human rights, may this teaching be a lesson about what is happening. Perhaps the journey of the wicked is being sped up so that they can be ushered off the world stage sooner, before it is too late to undo their damage.

As the psalm for Shabbat (92:8) says, Bif’roach r’sha’im k’mo eisev, yatsitsu kol po’alei aven, l’hishamdam adei ad – “When the wicked bloom like grass, the workers of iniquity blossom, is it to destroy them forever.” So may it be.

Rabbi David Seidenberg is the author of Kabbalah and Ecology and creator of neohasid.org. David’s writing focuses on Jewish thought in relation to animal rights, human rights, and ecology. He was ordained by JTS and by Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi. David is also known for his liturgy and translations, and for activism on climate and human rights issues. David is also an avid dancer and a composer of classical and Jewish music.