Leaving the Desert: The Two Stages of Serving Hashem

Opening “It is a land that eats up those who live in it.” That is what the spies, the scouts Moses sent ahead, reported when they came back from the land. There is a well-known question here. These men were the leaders of the Jewish people. They were the great men of their generation, and they stood on a very high spiritual level. How could people like that say something that sounds like plain fear? Their fear was surely not the fear of a coward. It was something deeper. It is also something that touches us. The Foundation We need to understand that serving Hashem has two stages. The first stage is the desert. In the desert, everything came down from above. There was manna, bread from heaven. There were the clouds of glory, and there was protection on every side. The Jewish people sat and studied, and Hashem took care of everything. This was an “awakening from above.” Everything moved from Hashem down to us. It is like a young man before his wedding. His job is to study, and he does not yet carry the weight of earning a living and running a home. This was holy. Hashem was building a people through Torah, through receiving, and through shaping the soul. But that was not the end. The second stage is the Land of Israel. As the Book of Psalms says: “When you eat from the work of your own hands, you will be happy, and it will be good for you.” Here a person goes out to the field. He works the land, builds a house and raises children. Into all of these he brings the Torah he has learned. This is an “awakening from below.” Now the person takes the first step. He is the one who brings holiness down into the physical world. This is the purpose: to make a home for Hashem in this lower world. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains this idea. What the Spies Really Did Wrong Now we can understand how deep the spies’ mistake was. They were not afraid of the people who lived in the land. They were afraid of the change: going from being a young man in study to being a family man with a job. The desert was comfortable. There was Torah without distraction and spirituality without physical effort. Life was protected, like living in a greenhouse made by heaven. And what did the Land of Israel ask of them? Hard work. Responsibility. Labor with their own hands. They would have to take everything they had received in the “school of the desert” and bring it down into the actual soil of the land. When they said, “It is a land that eats up those who live in it,” they were telling the truth. The land really does “eat.” It wears you down. It challenges you. It asks for all of you. But that is exactly what makes it great. Light that comes out of darkness has a special advantage. It is precisely the struggle with the physical world that reveals a light that could never have been revealed in the desert stage alone. The spies chose to stay children. Because of that choice, they cried for no reason. Our Sages teach that this crying for nothing became a crying for all generations. The Point for Your Inner Work My friend, maybe you are standing at a crossroads. Maybe you are leaving full-time Torah study, either as a student or as a young married man, and stepping into a world of earning a living and getting things done. Know this: it is not a step down. This is the second stage of your mission, and it is the main one. The Torah you learned is your food for the road and the vessel in your hands. Now the moment has come to put it into action. Hashem does not want us to stay in the desert forever. He gave us a time of preparation so that we could go out and act. Moses gave the Torah, and Joshua, his student and successor, brought the people into the land. Both are necessary. But without Joshua, you stay in the desert forever.