The Dual Nature of Halachic Decision-Making
This article examines Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin's (the Netziv) revolutionary interpretation of the sin of the spies in Numbers 13-14, demonstrating how his 19th-century reading challenges conventional understandings of faith, religious idealism, and engagement with worldly responsibility. While classical commentators from Rashi to Abarbanel interpret the spies' sin as faithlessness, fear, or political manipulation, the Netziv presents a radically different analysis: the spies were deeply religious individuals whose error lay not in rejecting God but in rejecting history, nationhood, and the challenges of ordinary life.