Timeless Torah

Barely fourteen months after the Exodus from Egypt, the fledgling Jewish nation stood poised to enter the land of Israel. Twelve spies were sent to scout the Holy Land. Upon their return, ten of them were adamant that the Jews had best remain in the desert, as any attempt to conquer and settle this land would be doomed to failure. "True," they admitted, "The land flows with milk and honey. But the cities are fortified and we saw giants there."
Only two of the spies, Caleb from the tribe of Judah and Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim, insisted that the Jews could proceed with the Divine imperative to enter the land. "If G-d delivered us from Egypt,” cried Caleb, "and if He rained down manna from the heavens to sustain us, can He be stopped by fortresses and giants?"
At this point, the ten spies delivered their coup de grace, "No, we will not succeed. It is a land that consumes its settlers. We saw there the Nefilim, the descendants of the giants, the fallen ones."
But is it then possible to imagine that these ten handpicked scouts personally chosen by Moses would doubt the strength of G-d? Did they think Him powerful enough to humble the mighty Egyptian Empire and split the Sea, but unable to split open a few giants' heads? And who exactly were the Nefillim, the fallen ones that they produced such hysteria?
In response to the last question the Midrash relates that in the years before the Flood, when crime and promiscuity pervaded the earth, two angels, Shamchazi and Azael, pleaded before the Almighty, "Allow us to dwell among humans and we shall sanctify your name!" But no sooner had these two heavenly beings come in contact with the material world, then they too were corrupted. It is of these fallen angels and their descendents that the Torah speaks of when it says, "There were the fallen ones and giants" who laid to waste the world. The celestial missionaries, who came to redeem mankind from earthly evil, themselves fell prey to its enticements and they played a major role in the disintegration of their adopted society. These are the same giants who resurfaced some nine hundred years later as the scouts arrived in Israel.
The spies did not doubt G-d's ability. By His word they had witnessed seas splitting, fortresses crumbling and giants fleeing. What they doubted, was their own ability. For over a year now, they had been living a wholly spiritual existence. Bread from heaven sustained them, a miracle rock yielded their water and clouds of glory shielded them from the harsh desert elements. Free of all material cares, they immersed themselves in the pursuit of the Divine.
Now they were being asked to leave their desert paradise behind and settle the land to eke earthly bread out of its mundane soil. And who do they meet there, in this land of material milk and honey, but the fallen angels - angels who survived the flood but did not survive the land.
"It is a land which consumes its settlers," argued the ten spies. If these heavenly beings could not survive the plunge to the realm of the mundane, what could be expected of us mortal and fragile men?
But men are not angels. Wholly spirit, the angel dissolves on contact with earth. But the human being, hewn of spirit and matter, is a synthesis of the celestial and the animal. Thus man is uniquely qualified and empowered to make heaven on earth, to make the word "holy" an adjective of "land."
Man, and not the supernal angel, is the crown and apex of G-d's creation. And it is he who realizes G-d's purpose in fashioning, "A G-dly abode from a dwelling below." It was precisely this that was argued by Joshua and Caleb, "Don't be frightened by the giants' inability to tame the land and construct a spiritual home; for it is we, comparative pygmies to the Nefillim, who will succeed where they failed.”