If Hashem says, “Don’t go,” then there’s no mitzvah to go

“And they defiantly went up the mountain top, but the Aron Bris Hashem and Moshe did not move from the camp.”

(Bamidbar 14:44)

T

he spies sinned by giving negative reports about Eretz Yisrael. Now, on the heels of that sin, came the “maapilim,” a group of people who insisted they were going up to Eretz Yisrael even without Hashem’s permission. They claimed they were rectifying the spies’ sin, saying, “The spies didn’t want to ascend to Eretz Yisrael, so we’ll go with even greater self-sacrifice than was demanded earlier! They didn’t want to go to Eretz Yisrael even with the Aron of Hashem and Moshe Rabbeinu, but we’ll travel to Eretz Yisrael even without the benefit of being accompanied by Moshe Rabbeinu and the Aron!” (Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl, shiur delivered Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh)

Pick up the phone! Just pick up the phone! I stood there, staring at the old-fashioned, push-button, corded phone we’d plugged in just for this specific scenario. I knew that halachah mandated that I pick up this phone this early Shabbos morning and call my doctor and an ambulance to get to the hospital to give birth. But my fingers refused to cooperate. My brain knew that this was the correct thing to do, but my body had a mind of its own. It was fighting a lifetime of Shabbos observance. I had to force my hand to pick up the receiver and push those buttons, all the while my brain was screaming, Shabbos!

At first glance, it would appear that the maapilim were great tzaddikim, great baalei teshuvah who wanted to correct a sin.  As the Rambam (Hilchos Deios 2:2) advises us, the best way to rectify a bad trait is to go to the opposite extreme.

Moshe, however, wasn’t impressed and rebuked these maapilim in the Name of Hashem. Why was Hashem angry with them? 

It’s been close to 20 years since that birth, but I was reminded of it as my daughter was approaching her due date, and we were faced with a two-day Shabbos–Yom Tov, a rarity for Eretz Yisrael.

“Make sure you pack a Shabbos bag,” I warned my daughter on Thursday. “But only what you need for those two days.”

Yet when I asked my husband what I could pack for myself — I’d be accompanying my daughter to give birth — the answer was… nothing.

“Nothing?” I was surprised “Why not?”

“Because we live outside the techum. So the laboring mother can bring whatever she needs, because she’s considered to be in a position of pikuach nefesh, but you can only bring something that’s pikuach nefesh for you.”

“My pillow?” I asked, wondering if I was even joking. Two days in the hospital with nothing?

In my humble opinion, not only did the maapilim not rectify the sin of the spies, but they actually repeated it! What exactly was the spies’ sin? They didn’t understand that if Hashem chose Eretz Yisrael and it was His desire to bring Bnei Yisrael there, then it’s obviously possible to enter it. They neglected to rely on the word of Hashem.

What did the maapilim do at this point? They were guilty of the same sin, from the opposite angle. They wanted to make the journey to Eretz Yisrael, even though Hashem told them not to go. They too neglected to rely on the word of Hashem. If Hashem says, “Don’t go,” then there’s no mitzvah to go.

The pasuk tells us (Devarim 8:3): “Not by bread alone does man live, rather by everything that emanates from the mouth of Hashem.” Bread on its own has no value — its value stems from the fact that it’s the will of Hashem that it nourish us.

The spies didn’t value Hashem’s promise that Bnei Yisrael would conquer Eretz Yisrael. And the maapilim also didn’t value Hashem’s word when they attributed independent value to Eretz Yisrael and assumed they should travel there even though Hashem didn’t want them to.  This is the reason for Hashem’s great anger at them.

I flashed back to that other birth so many years ago, when it was so hard for me to follow halachah and do what I was supposed to do — make a phone call on Shabbos.

And here too, I needed to follow halachah and do what I was supposed to do for Shabbos — take nothing.

In both cases, it didn’t matter what my emotions were screaming. Halachah dictates and that’s it.

So, I packed … nothing.

And chasdei Hashem, the baby was born on a Thursday!

 (Originally featured in Family First, Issue 798)