Shlach Lecha- Reminders

…v’amarta aleihem v’asu lahem tzitzit al kanaf bigdeihem l’dorotom vnatnu al tzitzit hakanaf p’til t’cheilet. V’hayah lachem l’tzitzit ur’eetem oto uz’chartem et kol mitzvot Hashem va’asitem….

…and say to them, “And you will make for yourselves fringes on the corners of your clothes for all generations, and place in these corner fringes a thread of blue.” And you will look at these fringes and see them, and you will remember all God’s mitzvot and do them.

A cherished idea in Judaism is free will. Without free will, we could not be human.  Whatever you think of the place of animals in our world, in Judaism it is this idea, that knowingly we can choose a negative path, that makes us human, and therefore separate from the animal kingdom.

Parashat Shlach Lecha begins with a reminder that we can act as independent beings. We had been following for so long, first as slaves in Egypt, then following (or trying to) instruction from God or Moshe, this idea may come as a surprise. Shlach lecha, send for you, for you and not for me, or send if you wish. God is giving Moshe and the people a chance to choose for themselves.

Whether this choice was clear to Moshe, or whether a people raised for generations in slavery were ready to make an informed choice is lost from our text. We know only that the scouts are sent out with instruction and the charge “v’hitkhazaktem” be of good courage. Perhaps they were not ready, for this piece of instruction they could not follow. They were “like grasshoppers in their own eyes, and so in the sight of the Canaanites.”

A new generation had to be raised up to take possession of the Land, a new generation that would understand and be fully informed of the choices to be made. It is a story repeated through our history. We have accepted our wanderings with hope that the new generation we raise is the generation that will triumph in whatever challenges God sets before us. To keep this idea of informed choice alive in every generation we make tzitzit, fringes on our clothes. The fringe is the ultimate string around our nation’s finger, reminding us of the mitzvot we should choose to follow.

And if there is ever a question as to why, we add a thread of t’cheilet, royal violet-blue, to remind us that we are a special and chosen people, taken from slavery to freedom, and there is a responsibility that goes with the privilege.