Kadesh stood as a crossroads of destiny — a place where the name of God could be powerfully sanctified or profoundly profaned. For the Israelites, it became the stage of a hard-earned lesson etched into their spiritual journey.
HaRav Shmuel Eliahu is Chief Rabbi of Tzfat.
At Kadesh, the devastating Sin of the Spies occurred when the people rejected God’s command to dwell in the Land of Israel. It was a terrible desecration of God’s name.
Kadesh is a place that can be the scene of a great sanctification of God’s name – or of a great desecration. At Kadesh, the conquest of the Land was supposed to begin with the sending of the Spies, which would have been a tremendous sanctification of Hashem had they returned and encouraged the Jews to journey onward into the Chosen Land.
However, the Israelites sinned there and God decreed upon them to wander in the desert for forty years. The delay in entering the Land was a desecration of God’s name as Moses points out:
“If You put this entire people to death at once, the nations who have heard about You will say: ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the Land He promised them, He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’”
Therefore, Moses pleads for God to bring Israel into the Land so that His name will not be disgraced amongst the nations. “Now may the power of my Lord be great, just as You have declared…” (Numbers 14). When is God’s power great? When He brings them into the Land that He promised them.
Israel’s Entry into the Land of Israel – Sanctification of God’s Name
Similarly, the prophet Ezekiel repeatedly states that exile is a desecration of God’s name:
“And they came to the nations to which they came, and they profaned My holy name, when it was said of them: ‘These are the people of the Lord, yet they have gone out of His land.’” (Ezekiel 36).
Even if the Jews act in an upstanding fashion in foreign lands, their mere being there is a disgrace to God’s name, indicating that He lacks the power to keep His Chosen Nation in the Land He gave them (Rashi, there).
Therefore, God declares that He will redeem the children of Israel for the sake of His holy name:
“I had concern for My holy Name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went.”
Ezekiel continues:
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. And I will sanctify My great Name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.’”
The sanctification of God’s Name takes place through the inheritance of the Land by the children of Israel. From this we learn that when the Jews dwell in the Promised Land they sanctify God’s Name. The opposite also accurs; when Jews choose to live in Chutz L’Aretz amongst the goyim, this is a disgrace to them and to Hashem.
The Sin of the Spies Continues
The Talmud in Tractate Avodah Zarah (5a) teaches that the Israelites sinned in the wilderness through ingratitude toward God. It also teaches that the sin of ingratitude began with Adam. Instead of admitting his sin, he blamed God, saying:
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
The problem, Adam implied, was not with himself but with the woman, and with God, who gave her to him. Instead of expressing gratitude for the woman, who according to the Torah is his helpmate, Adam denies the goodness of God.
The Talmud says the children of Israel continued Adam’s ingratitude and denied the great good they received from God. Thus Moses said to Israel:
“Ingrates, children of ingrates! God has done so many favors for you in the Exodus from Egypt, and yet you deny His goodness?”
So much good did God do for you, and yet you say that God hates you?
This ingratitude is seen in the Sin of the Spies, when the people failed to recognize the great goodness God had done for them in the Exodus from Egypt:
“And you said, ‘Because the Lord hates us, He brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us’” (Deuteronomy 1:27).
They did not see the good of the Exodus from slavery to freedom, nor the promise of a Land flowing with milk and honey, nor the ten plagues on Egypt, nor the splitting of the Red Sea that saved them from certain death. They forgot the joy of seizing great spoils in Egypt and at the sea, forgot the Clouds of Glory that made their journey pleasant in the desert, and forgot the food provided daily through the quail and the manna.
The Punishment
Moses reminds them, in the Sin of the Spies, of God’s great love for them, like a father for his son:
“And in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.”
But the reminder of God’s goodness does not help, and when they continue to complain and speak evil against God, He swears:
“Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good Land that I swore to give to your fathers.”
Those who will receive the goodness are the children, who do not yet know good from evil. Therefore, they have not sinned in this ingratitude and are able to enter the Land of Israel in the future:
“And your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there, and to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.” (Numbers 14:31).
At Kadesh, the Sin of the Spies Is Rectified
At Kadesh, the Israelites repent and began to rectify the Sin of the Spies committed by their fathers. This begins with the account of the red heifer – the ritual purification of Israel. Thus we read in the Haftarah for the portion of the red heifer the prophecy of Ezekiel, which speaks of the purification of the entire people of Israel in the time of Redemption:
“For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.” (Ezekiel 36).
Rectification Must Occur Where the Sin Was Committed
That purification occurs precisely where the sin was committed. As we know, the Sin of the Spies took place at Kadesh. The Israelites arrived there in the second year after the Exodus:
“It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-Barnea” (Deuteronomy 1:2).
Kadesh is in the Negev on the border of Edom. From there the Israelites sent the spies, and there the spies returned after forty days. It was there they wept their “weeping for nothing,” and there the decree was issued that they would wander forty years in the desert.
Out of those forty years, the Israelites stayed in Kadesh for nineteen years. For another nineteen years, they circled Mount Seir:
“And we turned and journeyed into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord spoke to me, and we compassed Mount Seir many days.” (Deuteronomy 2:1).
At the end of those wanderings, they returned again to Kadesh to rectify the transgression where it had originally occurred (See Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:1).
So writes Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen in Tzidkat HaTzaddik:
“When a person rectifies what he has sinned, then God arranges for him the same situation, in the same place, so that he may achieve complete rectification.” (Section 73).
God brought the Israelites back to Kadesh so they could correct the damage caused there. At the beginning of the fortieth year, they still appeared caught in the serious sin of ingratitude:
“And the people contended with Moses, and spoke, saying: Would that we had perished when our brethren perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die there? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for seed, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink.” (Numbers 20).
They still did not recognize the good that God had done for them in the Exodus:
“The great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders. Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out upon you, and your shoes have not worn off your feet” (Deuteronomy 29).
The Transformative Crisis – The Fiery Serpents
The turning point for Israel occurs during the crisis of the fiery serpents. The story begins like many others during the forty years: the people face difficulty and complain about the Exodus from Egypt:
“And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loathes this worthless bread.’” (Numbers 21).
The punishment comes through the fiery serpents:
“And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.”
Why specifically fiery serpents? Because the serpent is the ultimate ingrate in all of existence. God created it wise and clever like man, placed it in the Garden of Eden, and it incited mankind, claiming that God hated man and thus forbade him to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
The people of Israel realize through the plague of serpents the great mistake they have been making with their ingratitude toward God:
“And the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.’ And Moses prayed for the people.”
God tells Moses that this understanding must not be a fleeting realization – they must see it and remember it daily:
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.’ And Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon the pole; and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked unto the serpent of bronze, he lived.”
We all remember the Mishnah which teaches that it was not the serpent that killed or healed, but rather that when Israel looked upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they were healed.
They Sing and Give Thanks to God
After the story of the serpents, the people of Israel look at the water they possess as a great miracle and sing to God a song of praise for the gift of water. They thank God for the wonder of the water as if it were a tremendous miracle. Most people view water as a basic natural element, feeling no need to give thanks for it at all.
But the Israelites learned to give thanks even for this fundamental blessing. This gratitude and other expressions of gratitude which followed is a major rectification of the Sin of the Spies who denied the goodness of God.
