כלב בן יפונה

Moshe sent twelve princes to scout the land of Canaan, and ten of them returned with a report of despair: the people are strong, the cities fortified, 'we cannot go up' (Numbers 13). The whole community raised its voice and wept that night, which became the night of Tisha b'Av for the generations.

Against the fear of the crowd one man stood and silenced the people: 'we can surely go up and possess it, for we are well able' (Numbers 13:30). Calev ben Yefuneh did not deny the difficulty, but recalled the One who had promised. Faith is not blindness, but memory.

From where did he draw the strength to stand alone? The Sages relate that Calev detoured on the way to Hebron, to the Cave of Machpelah, and prostrated himself on the graves of the patriarchs and prayed not to be swept up in the counsel of the spies. He armed himself with the merit of the fathers before the test.

Of that entire generation that left Egypt, only two entered the land, Calev and Joshua, 'because he had a different spirit with him and followed Me fully' (Numbers 14). The faith of a single moment determined the fate of a whole life.

At eighty-five Calev came to Joshua and asked for the mountain his foot had trodden: 'give me this mountain,' and inherited Hebron (Joshua 14), the very place where he had prayed in his youth. The prayer became an inheritance.

The Sages relate that Calev married Miriam, joining his image to hers: both symbols of the faith and courage that held the generation together.

Calev is the model of the individual who stands against the many. When everyone despairs, one voice of faith can preserve a whole future. He teaches that to stand alone for the truth is itself a form of heroism, and sometimes it is the difference between a generation that enters the land and one that remains in the wilderness.