This text-based class on Likkutei Sichos vol. 23 Shlach was presented on Monday, 18 Sivan, 5784, Parshas Shlach, June 24, 2024, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

Something very disturbing emerges during the story of the spies. When G-d tells Moses He will annihilate the entire nation, Moshe argues that this will cause the Egyptians to claim that G-d was incapable of bringing the people into the Promised Land. Could Moses not find any other rationale to influence G-d not to annihilate an entire nation of some three million people, men, women, and children, save the fact that it won’t look good for the neighbors?!

Moshe should have said: “These are Your creatures, which you created. These are Your children, Your nation, which You have taken out of Egypt and chosen as Your people! Have compassion for them!” This is exactly what he said at a previous disaster when the nation constructed the Golden Calf, and G-d wanted to annihilate them.

At the Fabrengen of Shabbos Parshas Shlach 5740 (1980), published in Likkutei Sichos vol. 23 Shlach, the Lubavitcher Rebbe offered a paradigm shift in understanding rewards and punishments in the Torah.