Parshat Shlach: G-d's Names-פרשה שלח

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Aaron L Raskin’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

In the portion of Shelach, we speak about the sin of the spies. 10 spies came back from Israel with an evil report stating that it's a land that consumes its inhabitants. And there's no way that the Jewish people will be able to conquer the land of Israel. And the Gemara goes on to say in the tractate of Sotah 35A that the spies said "Kaviyochol eino yochol lehotzi kelav misham." yochol lehotzi kelav misham." That even God himself, who is the baal habayis, which means the owner of the house of Israel, of the world, he cannot take out his own vessels from there. And then God gets very angry at the Jewish people because the Jews begin to believe these 10 spies instead of listening to the two positive spies, Yehoshua and Calev. The Jews listen to the 10 evil spies. So The Jews listen to the 10 evil spies. So God tells Moshe Rabbenu, "I'm going to destroy all the Jewish people." Moses begins to pray and says God, don't do that. On the contrary, "V'ata yigdal na koach Adonai ka'asher dibarta lemor." On the contrary, he says, "Please, almighty God, let's enlarge the power of the name of Adonai as you have spoken." So the question comes to mind, why does Moshe Rabbenu invoke the name of Adonai, which is God being the master of the universe, if Moses wants to transform this judgment into kindness and mercy, he should have said the name of Havaya, the Tetragrammaton, which is the name of God's kindness. The Yud Kay Vav Kay. And yet the Torah specifically says

Jump to a moment

1. 0:05In the portion of Shelach, we speak about the sin of the spies. 10 spies came…
2. 1:10The Jews listen to the 10 evil spies. So God tells Moshe Rabbenu, "I'm going to…
3. 2:40which means to enlarge, we find a letter Yud that is large, a big letter Yud.…
4. 4:11Furthermore, in the desert, we have no problems. We don't have to worry about making a…
5. 5:11There was no taxes on water. So, it was very easy to live. So, now God…
6. 6:44Israel. So, what were they thinking? And Hassidus explains that they meet at the academy. And…
7. 8:17the Jewish people who were slaves for all these years cannot conquer 31 kings. And even…
8. 9:18And the Rebbe goes on to say that the reason for this insult and this sin…
9. 10:48That the Jew can survive in the everyday world, and can prosper, and yet the Jew…
10. 12:21because the Tetragrammaton, the Yud Kay Vav Kay also begins with a Yud. And the name…

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