

Parshat Sh'lah L'kha
This is one of Shabbat Mom's all-time favorites, the story of the twelve spies whom Moses sends to "scout the land of Canaan". The spies scout the land for forty days, at the wadi Eshkol"... (cutting) down a branch with a single cluster of grapes--it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them--and some pomegranates and figs." Upon their return, 10 of the spies declare, "...'The people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large..A