פָּרָשַׁת שְׁלַח

Parshat Shlach tells of the twelve tayarim (tourists/scouts) who are sent out to spy the land of Israel and prepare for entry. They return as meraglim (spies), the sin that keeps a whole generation out of the Land of Israel, and the mitzvot given for the day their children enter it. Moshe sends a leader from each tribe to scout the land of Kenaan (Canaan). After forty days they bring back a cluster of grapes and report that the land flows with milk and honey, but that its people are powerful and its cities fortified. Kalev ben Yefuneh says, "We will surely go up and take possession of it," but the other scouts spread an evil report: a land that devours its inhabitants, with giants beside whom they were like grasshoppers.

Bnei Yisrael (the children of Israel) weep all that night and want to return to Mitzrayim (Egypt); when Yehoshua and Kalev plead that Hashem is with them, the congregation talks of stoning them. When Hashem says He will destroy the people, Moshe pleads with Hashem's own words, "slow to anger and abundant in kindness," and Hashem forgives. But the generation that tested Him will die in the wilderness during forty years, a year for each day of scouting; only their children, with Kalev and Yehoshua, will enter the land. The scouts die in a plague, and those who then go up without Hashem are defeated.

Perek 15 looks ahead to life in the land: the flour, oil and wine that go with the offerings, challah from the dough, and offerings for sins done by mistake. A man who gathers wood on Shabbat is stoned. The parsha ends with tzitzit, fringes on the corners of a garment that remind Bnei Yisrael of all the mitzvot, so that they do not stray after their hearts and their eyes (15:37–41 is the third paragraph of Kriat Shema). The Torah uses the same verb, latur, for the scouting of the meraglim and for the straying of the eyes.