Freedom needs patience. Whose idea was it to send the spies? According to this week's Parashai, it was God. The Lord said to Moses, sent some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites from each ancestral tribes and one of its leaders. So at the Lord's command, Moses sent them out from the desert

of Paran. But according to Moses in Deuteronomy, it was the people. Then all of you came to me

and said, let's send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring us back a report about the

route we're to take in the towns we will come to. The ideas seem good to me, so I selected

12 of you one man from each tribe.

Rashi reconciles the apparent contradiction. The people came to Moses with their request. Moses asked

God what he should do. God gave him permission to send the spies. He didn't command it. He merely

did not oppose it.

Where a person wants to go, said the rabbis, that is where he is led.

Meaning, God doesn't stop people from a course of action on which they are intent,

even though he knows that it may end in tragedy. Such is the nature of the freedom God has given us. It includes the freedom to make mistakes. However, Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed offers an interpretation that gives

a different perspective to the whole episode. He begins by noting the verse with which the Exodus begins.

By Heba Shalach Paro at the arm, when Pharaoh let the people go,

God didn't lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter for God,

said, if they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt,

so God led the people around by the desert road toward the Reeds Sea.

Maimonides' comments, Here God let the people about,

away from the direct route he had originally intended,

because he feared that they might encounter

hardships too great for their present strength.

So he took them by a different route

in order to achieve his initial, his original object.

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