Shlach

[8] At the wadi Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes so large that it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them, as well as some pomegranates and figs.

Rabbi Jacob ben Dostai said that it is about three miles from Lod to Ono, and once he rose up early in the morning and waded all that way up to his ankles in fig honey.

The Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer told that after the incident of the Golden Calf, Moses foretold that he would behold God's Glory and make atonement for the Israelites' iniquities on Yom Kippur.

Similarly, God loved Israel, bringing the Israelites to Mount Sinai, and giving them the Torah, but after only 40 days, they sinned with the Golden Calf.

[78] And the Mishnah deduced further from Numbers 14:22 that those who speak ill suffer more than those who commit physical acts, and thus that God sealed the judgment against the Israelites in the wilderness only because of their evil words at the incident of the spies.

[72] Reading Numbers 14:26, a midrash taught that in 18 verses, Scripture places Moses and Aaron (the instruments of Israel's deliverance) on an equal footing (reporting that God spoke to both of them alike),[79] and thus there are 18 benedictions in the Amidah.

[93] The Mishnah told that when Hillel the Elder observed that the nation withheld from lending to each other and were transgressing Deuteronomy 15:9, "Beware lest there be in your mind a base thought," he instituted the prozbul, a court exemption from the Sabbatical year cancellation of a loan.

[100] The School of Rabbi Ishmael taught that whenever Scripture uses the word "command (צַו‎, tzav)" (as Numbers 15:23 does), it denotes exhortation to obedience immediately and for all time.

To support the proposition that the Torah does refer to the resurrection of the dead, Rabbi Eliezer cited Numbers 15:31, which says, "Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off (הִכָּרֵת תִּכָּרֵת‎, hikareit tikareit); his iniquity shall be upon him."

The Gemara reported that according to Rabbi Judah ben Bathyra, Zelophehad was among those who "presumed to go up to the top of the mountain" in Numbers 14:44 (to try and fail to take the Land of Israel after the incident of the spies).

[112] In the Mishnah, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah argued that Jews must mention the Exodus every night—as one does when one recites the third paragraph of the Shema, Numbers 15:37–41—but did not prevail in his argument that this was a Biblical obligation until Ben Zoma argued that Deuteronomy 16:3, which commands a Jew to remember the Exodus "all the days of your life," uses the word "all" to mean both day and night.

[119] The heart speaks,[120] sees,[121] hears,[122] walks,[123] falls,[124] stands,[125] rejoices,[126] cries,[127] is comforted,[128] is troubled,[129] becomes hardened,[130] grows faint,[131] grieves,[132] fears,[133] can be broken,[134] becomes proud,[135] rebels,[136] invents,[137] cavils,[138] overflows,[139] devises,[140] desires,[141] goes astray,[142] is refreshed,[143] can be stolen,[144] is humbled,[145] is enticed,[146] errs,[147] trembles,[148] is awakened,[149] loves,[150] hates,[151] envies,[152] is searched,[153] is rent,[154] meditates,[155] is like a fire,[156] is like a stone,[157] turns in repentance,[158] becomes hot,[159] dies,[160] melts,[161] takes in words,[162] is susceptible to fear,[163] gives thanks,[164] covets,[165] becomes hard,[166] makes merry,[167] acts deceitfully,[168] speaks from out of itself,[169] loves bribes,[170] writes words,[171] plans,[172] receives commandments,[173] acts with pride,[174] makes arrangements,[175] and aggrandizes itself.

Thus Moses did not receive any revelation when he was in a state of depression that lasted from the murmurings of the Israelites upon the evil report of the spies until the death of the warriors of that generation.

Maimonides reasoned that Abraham taught the people, brought many under the wings of the Divine Presence, and ordered members of his household after him to keep God's ways forever.

But in the Divine plan, prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by every person, as can be the wearing of tzitzit (Numbers 15:38) and tefillin (Exodus 13:9, 16) and similar kinds of service.

"[196] Maimonides taught that techelet refers to wool dyed light blue, the color of the sky opposite the sun on a clear day.

[200] Maimonides taught that a garment to which the Torah obligates a person to attach tzitzit must have three characteristics: (1) it must have four or more corners; (2) it must be large enough to cover both the head and most of the body of a child who is able to walk on his own in the marketplace without having someone watch him; and (3) it must be made of either wool or linen.

The Sefer ha-Chinuch interpreted this negative commandment to prevent one from dedicating one's thoughts to opinions that are antithetical to those on which the Torah is built, as that may lead one to apostasy.

The expression evoked a general sense of the bounty of the land and suggested an ecological richness exhibited in a number of ways, not just with milk and honey.

[214] In 1950, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism ruled: “Refraining from the use of a motor vehicle is an important aid in the maintenance of the Sabbath spirit of repose.

[217] Baruch Spinoza wrote that because religion only acquires the force of law by means of the sovereign power, Moses was not able to punish those who, before the covenant, and consequently while still in possession of their rights, violated the Sabbath (in Exodus 16:27), but Moses was able to do so after the covenant (in Numbers 15:36), because all the Israelites had then yielded up their natural rights, and the ordinance of the Sabbath had received the force of law.

[221] And similarly, Terence Fretheim argued that tassels, worn by royalty in the ancient Near East, were to be attached to each corner of everyone's garments, with a blue/purple cord on each, as a public sign of Israel's status as a holy people and a reminder of what that entailed.

Forcing people to put a special blue tassel on their clothes, ancient interpreters suggested Korah must have argued, was an intolerable intrusion into their lives.

But this question, ancient interpreters implied, was really a metaphorical version of Korah's complaint in Numbers 16:3: "Everyone in the congregation [of Levites] is holy, and the Lord is in their midst.

In other words, Korah asserted that all Levites were part of the same garment and all blue, and asked why Moses and Aaron thought that they were special just because they were the corner thread.

In saying this, Kugel argued, Korah set a pattern for would-be revolutionaries thereafter to seek to bring down the ruling powers with the taunt: "What makes you better than the rest of us?"

[228] Some Jews read how the generation of the Wilderness tested God ten times in Numbers 14:22 as they study Pirkei Avot chapter 5 on a Sabbath between Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

[247] The spies returned to the Israelite camp and told Joshua all that had happened, saying that surely God had delivered the land into their hands and the inhabitants would melt away before them.

[260] A midrash deduced from Joshua 2:4 and 1 Chronicles 4:22 that Rahab lied to the king, and was prepared to be burned to death in punishment for doing so, for she attached herself to Israel.

[262] Reading Joshua 2:9, a midrash noted that Rahab, like Israel, Jethro, and the Queen of Sheba, came to the Lord after hearing of God's miracles.