All human beings, even the greatest and most knowledgeable, are subject to error and fault. In fact, the Torah goes out of its way to praise those leaders who recognize their errors and attempt to atone for them. The Torah records that even Moshe, the greatest of all humans and scholars, admitted error regarding his opinion in the instance of the requirements of mourning after the death of Aharon’s two sons. And Rashi states that Moshe’s greatness was that he was not ashamed to admit his mistake. It is the rare leader that can emulate Moshe in this regard.

There is unfortunately no Temple rebuilt yet in our days and thus the technical aspects of this Torah law regarding mistakes that sweep the entire Jewish people are not practically relevant. But the moral and spirit of the law of national error remains cogent and vital for all of us today. Unfortunately, the past centuries are witness to great national errors of the Jewish people. Popularity rarely is wisdom and wishful thinking never matches reality. One would therefore think that by now the Jewish people would recognize and admit their national errors.

Marxism, secularism, nationalism per se, assimilation and self-ghettoization all have had their day. A realistic view of our current situation, politically, spiritually and physically, would lead the logical and honest person to say that we have lost our way and have committed grievous and dangerous errors. But no one is willing to easily confess that this is the case. Thus the same old mistaken mantras and policies are pursued as though nothing has really happened to change our collective minds and beliefs for the better.

A people that remain blind to its past errors will undoubtedly repeat them. Usually this leads to sad if not even tragic consequences. The lesson of the Torah reading is that human beings err, that they need to recognize and react to this and seek redress spiritually and practically to prevent further error and likely disaster. I think that this is the connection of this subject to that of the spies in the Torah reading of the week. Errors should be eliminated not justified and continued.

Shabat shalom.

Rabbi Berel Wein

Rabbi Berel Wein- Jewish historian, author and international lecturer offers a complete selection of CDs, MP3, audio tapes, video tapes, DVDs, and books on Jewish history at www.rabbiwein.com.