Another Look at “Lo Taturu” (Column 657)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

In the past I’ve dealt more than once with the commandment of “lo taturu” (“do not stray”) and argued that it cannot be used to derive a prohibition against examining arguments and alternative worldviews (see Columns 6 and 576). On Shabbat Parashat Shelach I spoke in shul about the sin of the spies and “lo taturu,” and about the connection between them, and—unsurprisingly—I found further support for that claim.

The parashah describes the story of the spies. They go to scout out the land and return with tales of horror and deep despair. The verb “latur” (“to scout/seek out”) repeats dozens of times, and it is clearly the thread running through the entire story. It is no wonder that at the end of the parashah, in the section of Tzitzit, we are commanded: “and you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes.” This is apparently some kind of correction of the sin of the spies, who “scouted” improperly. The lesson is that we must not scout in that way (or perhaps not scout at all). Many have already noted the connection between these two passages; here I will present another facet of it.

The Spies Narrative and the Difficulties It Raises

Commentators encounter a basic difficulty regarding the spies (Numbers 13–14). Seemingly, they were sent to scout the land and report what they saw—and that is exactly what they did. They saw giants and men of great stature, ominous fortifications and strongholds, and that is what they reported to those who sent them. So why were they castigated, and why were they punished? Did anyone expect them to lie? Were they supposed to be preachers rather than spies? Were they meant to bring only information filtered through the desired “position”?

This is precisely the question posed by Ramban there (13:2):

“Furthermore, what did the spies do ? Moses said to them (v. 18): ‘See the land—what is it; and the people who dwell in it—are they strong or weak, few or many?’ And he said to them (v. 19): ‘And what are the cities in which they dwell—are they open or fortified?’ In any case they were required to answer what he commanded them. What was their transgression and their sin when they said to him (v. 28): ‘But the people who dwell in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified and very great’? Did he send them in order that they testify falsely to him?”

Many explained in response that they should have looked at the land with a favorable eye, and that was their sin. Thus Rashi brings Chazal’s midrash on “a land that eats up its inhabitants” (13:32):

“It eats up its inhabitants—wherever we passed we found them burying their dead; and the Holy One, blessed be He, did this for good, to preoccupy them with their mourning so they would not notice these [spies].”

God occupied the inhabitants of the land with burying their dead so they wouldn’t pay attention to the spies, and the spies interpreted it as a land that eats its inhabitants. Well, that’s not very convincing. That is what they saw, and that is precisely what they reported. How were they supposed to know it was the hand of God?

Others explain that they were sent only to determine how to conquer the land and not to offer an evaluation of it, and that offering an opinion was their sin. Yet, as Ramban himself notes, this doesn’t fit the plain sense of the opening verses:

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes send a man, every one a leader among them. Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the LORD’s command; all of them were men of standing, leaders of the Israelites… Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan and said to them, ‘Go up there in the Negev and go up into the hill country, and see the land—what it is; and the people who dwell in it—are they strong or weak, few or many? And what is the land in which they dwell—is it good or bad? And what are the cities in which they dwell—are they open or fortified? And what is the land—is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? Take courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.’ Now the days were the season of the first ripe grapes.”

It is clear here that they are being sent to offer an assessment of the land (is it good or bad, fat or lean, does it have trees or not) and also of the fortifications of its inhabitants (are they strong or weak, few or many; are the cities open or fortified). That is exactly what they did.

Many have noted tensions between our parashah and the retelling in Deuteronomy (1:22–23):

“You all approached me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may spy out the land for us and bring back word of the route we should go up by and the cities to which we shall come.’ The matter pleased me, and I took twelve men from you, one from each tribe.”

Here the initiative comes from the people, unlike Parashat Shelach where the initiative is Moses’s at God’s command. The goal also appears somewhat different. Here they seem to be sent indeed to choose military tactics rather than to opine on the land. Biblical critics of course see this as a contradiction between two different sources. More traditional commentators (such as R. Elchanan Samet in this article, and the core of this appears already in the above Ramban) suggest that God sent them to bring an assessment of the land, while the people also asked that they examine the military route for conquering it. Ramban, for example, describes it as follows:

“The matter can be resolved thus: Israel said—as is the way of all who go to war in a foreign land—that they send men ahead of them to know the roads and the approaches to the cities; and when they return, those scouts will go at the head of the army to show them the roads, as it says (Judges 1:24), ‘Show us, please, the entrance to the city’; and that they advise them concerning which city to fight first and from which side it will be easiest to conquer the land. So they explicitly said (Deut. 1:22), ‘and they will bring us back word of the route by which we shall go up and the cities to which we shall come’—that is, the cities we will first come to, and from there to the whole land. This is a proper counsel for all conquerors of lands, and so Moses himself did (Num. 21:32), ‘Moses sent to spy out Jazer,’ and likewise Joshua son of Nun (Josh. 2:1), ‘two men as spies’; therefore the matter pleased Moses. For Scripture does not rely in all its actions on miracles; rather, it commands those who wage war to arm themselves, to guard, and to ambush, as in the war of Ai (Josh. 8:2), which was by the word of God, and in many places. Then Moses consulted with the Divine Presence, and the Lord gave him permission and said to him, ‘Send men and let them scout the land of Canaan,’ so that they will know it and inform you, and by their word you will take counsel regarding the conquest.”

In any case, both military assessment and reporting on the quality of the land were part of their task, so it’s hard to see what was wrong with what they said.

Ramban continues there and rejects yet another possible explanation (that they “slandered the land”):

“Do not think that their transgression lay only in saying ‘a land that eats up its inhabitants’ (v. 32), for even before they said this we find Caleb contending with them. As it is written (Deut. 1:28), ‘Our brothers have melted our hearts, saying: A people greater and taller than we…’; and here it is written (Num. 14:3), ‘to fall by the sword; our wives and little ones will be for plunder.’ And Moses our teacher said to their children words even stronger than the spies had said to their fathers (Deut. 9:1–2): ‘Hear, O Israel: you are crossing the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens; a people great and tall, sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard said: Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ If the transgression and sin of the spies was this, then why would he discourage the hearts of their children as the spies discouraged the hearts of their fathers? And what purpose would there be to Moses’s mission altogether? If the land is good and the people weak, fine; but if it is bad or the people strong, did he think to take them back to Egypt?”

I will not enter here into the explanations of what exactly the sin was; the commentators propose different ideas and I don’t see much point in engaging them. My goal is not to resolve the parashah but to sharpen a point underlying the entire discussion.

The Foundation of the Discussion: “Lo Taturu” and Coercion in Matters of Belief

The difficulty commentators find in the sin of the spies rests on the assumption that if the spies really reported what they saw, one cannot fault them. Even if they erred—for example, when they interpreted widespread mortality as “a land that eats up its inhabitants”—that is truly what they understood, so what do we want from them?! This may look trivial, but when we glance at the end of the parashah, things are not so simple.

As noted, at the end of the parashah we encounter the section of Tzitzit:

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them that they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments for their generations, and they shall place upon the fringe of each corner a thread of blue. It shall be for you as a fringe; you shall see it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes after which you go astray, so that you shall remember and do all My commandments and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the LORD your God.”

Tzitzit is presented here as the alternative that prevents us from straying after our hearts and our eyes, after which we “go astray.” The verb “latur” hints that this is apparently what happened with the spies. They “went astray” after their hearts and eyes, and the picture they saw and presented to the people was the product of that “straying.”

Indeed, Chazal interpret “lo taturu” as follows (Yerushalmi Berakhot 1:5):

“‘After your heart and after your eyes’—it was taught: R. Levi said, ‘The heart and the eyes are two agents of sin, as it is written (Prov. 23): ‘My son, give Me your heart, and let your eyes keep My ways.’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said: If you give Me your heart and your eyes, I know that you are Mine.’”

Thus, the spies followed their eyes and hearts, and that is what we are forbidden to do. Tzitzit will prevent this and cause us to remember the commandments.

And in Bavli Berakhot 12b we find a more concrete lesson:

“‘After your heart and after your eyes’—it was taught: ‘After your heart’—this refers to heresy, as it says (Ps. 14): ‘The fool says in his heart: There is no God.’ ‘After your eyes’—these are sexual thoughts, as it says (Judg. 14): ‘And Samson said: Take her for me, for she is right in my eyes.’ ‘After which you go astray’—this refers to thoughts of idolatry, as it says (Judg. 8): ‘And they went astray after the Baalim.’”

The verse comes to prohibit two kinds of sinful thoughts: sexual immorality and heresy (idolatry).

This is codified in halakhah and appears in all enumerations of the commandments. So, for example, Rambam writes in his Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandment 47 (and in more detail in Sefer HaChinuch Mitzvah 387):

“The 47th commandment is that we are warned not to stray after our hearts to believe opinions that are the opposite of the opinions the Torah obligates us to believe, but rather we should shorten our thinking and place for it a boundary at which it should stop, namely the commandments and prohibitions of the Torah. This is His exalted statement (Parashat Tzitzit): ‘And you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes.’”

“And the language of the Sifri: ‘“And you shall not stray after your heart”—this is heresy, as it says (Eccl. 7), “And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets.” “And after your eyes”—this is sexual immorality, as it says (Judg. 14): “And Samson said… for she is right in my eyes.” By ‘this is sexual immorality’ he means the pursuit of physical pleasures and worldly desires and engaging one’s thoughts with them constantly.’”

And in his halakhic code he writes (Avodah Zarah 2:3):

“All these prohibitions are of one kind, namely, that one not turn after idolatry; and anyone who turns after it in a way that leads to action is flogged. But it is not only idolatry that is forbidden to turn after in thought; rather, any thought that leads a person to uproot a fundamental principle of the Torah—we are warned not to bring it up in our hearts, not to occupy our minds with it and think and be drawn after the thoughts of the heart. For a person’s understanding is limited, and not all minds can grasp the truth in its fullness; and if each person will be drawn after the thoughts of his heart, he will destroy the world according to his limited understanding. How so? Sometimes he will stray after idolatry; sometimes he will think concerning the unity of the Creator: perhaps it is so, perhaps it is not; what is above and what is below, what was before and what will be after; and sometimes concerning prophecy: perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not; and sometimes concerning the Torah: perhaps it is from Heaven, perhaps it is not. And he does not know the measures by which he should judge until he knows the truth in its fullness, and he will come to heresy. Concerning this the Torah warned, ‘and you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes after which you go astray’—meaning: let each of you not be drawn after his limited understanding and imagine that his thinking grasps the truth. So the Sages said: ‘“After your heart”—this is heresy; “after your eyes”—this is sexual immorality.’ And although this prohibition causes a person to be banished from the World to Come, it does not entail lashes.”

Here he already expands this to all thoughts that uproot any of the Torah’s fundamentals, not only idolatry. From the plain sense of his words, he forbids engaging in such inquiry naively, because people may reach the wrong conclusions. That is, even if a person arrives at incorrect conclusions, he is liable, for he should have refrained from this inquiry altogether.

The Sefer HaChinuch concludes there regarding punishment:

“One does not receive lashes for this prohibition, because this is not a defined matter about which we can deliver a formal warning to the transgressor; for a person is constituted in such a way that it is impossible for him not to see with his eyes sometimes more than is appropriate, and likewise it is impossible that his thought not sometimes expand beyond what is fitting. Therefore it is impossible to bound a person here with a known limit. Also because sometimes one can transgress this prohibition without any action; and I have written above that any negative commandment that can be transgressed without action—even if he did perform an action—does not incur lashes, apparently.”

This is an interesting rationale, for I would have expected that one does not incur lashes because it is a prohibition concerning thought (and thus lacks a concrete act). He adds here a specific substantive reason: that this cannot be fully controlled or warned against. Again, this isn’t to say there is no transgression, only that punishment cannot be imposed.

The upshot is that maintaining incorrect beliefs—even if you arrived at them through your own faulty reasoning—is a transgression. You were supposed to accept the accepted beliefs and not inquire into the matter at all. Not for nothing, it is reported in the name of R. Chaim of Brisk that “one who is, nebikh, an apikores is still an apikores.” These words are cited in several places by R. Elchanan Wasserman[1] (see also the extended discussion here). He connects this to the dispute between Rambam and Raavad regarding corporeality. Rambam (Hilchot Teshuvah 3:7) writes:

“There are five who are called ‘minim’ (heretics): one who says there is no God and the world has no leader; one who says there is a leader but they are two or more; one who says there is one Master but that He has a body and form; one who says He alone is not the First and the Rock of everything; and one who serves a star or constellation or anything else as an intermediary between himself and the Master of the worlds—each of these five is a ‘min’.”

And Raavad comments there:

“‘And one who says there is one Master but that He has a body and form’—the author said: Why call this one a heretic? Many great and good people were drawn to this belief because of what they saw in verses and even more from what they saw in aggadic statements that corrupt the mind.”

It seems they disagree whether innocent (unwitting) heresy is still heresy. R. Chaim’s statement follows Rambam’s view: that a person’s being “compelled” is irrelevant to the fact of his beliefs. That is, this is of course trivial at the factual level, so it must mean more: that holding such beliefs is itself sinful, and as a “min” he has no share in the World to Come (as stated in the previous halakhah). Raavad appears to agree that attributing a body to God is an error, but he argues that this is not heresy because it is “coercion in beliefs” (and thus he does have a share in the World to Come). It seems Rambam does not accept the notion of coercion in beliefs; in his view, one who holds incorrect beliefs is a sinner even if he was compelled into them.

I won’t reiterate my arguments for why the thesis that there is no coercion in beliefs is untenable; I have discussed that elsewhere. Even if that is indeed Rambam’s intent, such a position is unsayable (and I doubt that he himself truly meant it). Here I wish to return to the context of our parashah and the sin of the spies. Under the view that there is no coercion in beliefs, the commentators’ question about the spies would not arise. They erred—but error is also a sin. The premise of their discussion—that if they erred under compulsion (i.e., in good faith), there is no sin and they cannot be faulted—now appears to be a contested premise.

Coercion in Belief and “Latur”

But this is indeed strange on simple reasoning. What distinguishes coercion in beliefs from any other coercion (see for example here)? If a person reaches a certain conclusion and it is wrong, what is he to do—reject his own reason? How then is he to form any position? What does a person have beyond his intellect and reason? The demand that he obey even regarding matters with which he does not agree cannot be required—at least not with respect to matters of fact (see, for example, Columns 280, 393, and others).

Indeed, Radbaz writes in a responsum (IV:1055):

“One who errs regarding one of the principles of faith due to his faulty reasoning is not considered a denier, for since he believes that what his reasoning produced is the truth, he is compelled and exempt.”

Factually, he is a denier, but there is no normative dimension—i.e., no prohibition. As noted, one who is coerced is exempt throughout the Torah.

If we were to assume there is no coercion in beliefs, then anyone who disagrees with me is, from my perspective, a sinner. That he thinks otherwise is no excuse for his sin. Now we can reinforce this by the commentators’ underlying assumption in the discussion of the spies: there, too, it seemed clear that if they were compelled in their judgment they would be exempt and could not be faulted. We now see that at least regarding “lo taturu,” the sources suggest that this claim is not as trivial as we might have thought.

The implication is that a person is supposed to act according to his reason and intellect; and if he errs—at least where he was not negligent and reached his conclusion in good faith—he is coerced and cannot be faulted. This applies to the spies and to us. This is yet another link between the spies and the commandment “lo taturu”: in both, liability arises only if one did not act in good faith (this may be the meaning of the verb “latur” in the parashah). The spies were held liable because they did not act in good faith (they “strayed” after their hearts and eyes—however that is to be explained), and so, too, with someone who does not hold the “correct” beliefs. If he “strayed,” he can be faulted; but if not—he is coerced and exempt.

A Note on Our Attitude Toward Secular People and “Heretics” Today

The implication is that when assessing a person who holds incorrect beliefs—however far those may be from the truth—we must consider the basis of those beliefs. If he adopts them through deliberation rather than out of appetite (straying after heart and eyes), he is coerced and exempt. In my article “On Causing a Secular Jew to Sin,” I went a step further and argued that the actions of someone who does not believe in God or in Torah from Heaven have no religious meaning. He is neither subject to commandments nor to transgressions. Even if he put on tefillin, it is as if he did not; and if he ate pork, there is no transgression. In fact, there is religious meaning only if the act is performed while standing before God (descriptively for a mitzvah, or oppositionally for an aveirah).

Accordingly, I argued that in our time the typical secular person is not subject to mitzvah and aveirah, and there is no prohibition to cause him to “stumble,” and his mitzvot are not mitzvot (certainly there is no basis to count him in a minyan—at least if he does not believe in God). I am often asked how I explain the attitude toward heretics found in halakhic sources—in the Talmud and poskim—where the assumption is that they are willful sinners, with laws like “push them down and do not raise them,” and the various categories of “mumar.”

My claim is that in the past the assumption was that if a Jew sinned, it was due to his inclination. Every Jew essentially understands that one must obey God’s command and that halakhah is binding. It was clear that there is a God who revealed Himself at Sinai and gave the Torah. Those who sinned did so due to their evil inclination. So, too, concerning those who held incorrect beliefs—the claim was that this is the counsel of the inclination, while deep down they know the truth (see Columns 199, 354, 576, and more, on the “Hindik”). Of course, we cannot penetrate a person’s heart, and we follow presumptions (chazakot). In the past the presumption was that one who transgresses or holds incorrect beliefs does so due to inclination, and therefore he is a sinner unless proven otherwise. In our time, the presumption has changed. Today people hold mistaken beliefs because that is genuinely their position. Therefore, the presumption is that they are not sinners unless proven otherwise.

I explained this in the past based on the sugya in Yoma 69 (see Column 575), which speaks of the Men of the Great Assembly abolishing the inclination toward idolatry. In the past, idolators acted due to their inclination—even though deep down they understood it was forbidden and baseless. Today that phenomenon is unknown to us, because today we are dealing with people who simply think differently. Due to a lack of awareness of the historical shift, people tend to compare the halakhic attitude in the Biblical/Talmudic periods toward sinners and holders of false beliefs with such people today. But in my view, we cannot learn from those sources to our time, because the reality is entirely different (the presumption has changed).

Another Look at Coercion in Beliefs

The article mentioned above discusses the question of coercion in beliefs. It surveys various sources and describes different approaches that emerge. Before commenting on its content, I will note a methodological point: in my view, its method is not correct. For me, there is a straightforward a priori analysis that yields the answer: coercion in beliefs is coercion like any other—unless we assess that the situation is not coercion but rather appetite. This must be the conclusion, because that is what reason and common sense dictate. Only then may we turn to the sources to see what they say—but that should not change anything. At most, I will have to stretch the interpretation of this or that source, or simply reject it as unreasonable (disagree with it). Adopting an obviously irrational position is not an option. This is what I mean by first-order psak (see more in Columns 332, 637, and in this article, and much more). For the same reason, I don’t expect anyone to accept my conclusion about coercion in beliefs on the basis of my linkage between the sin of the spies and “lo taturu.” The basis is logic, by which I explain the Torah passages—not the other way around. I now briefly review the article’s basic analysis.

Regarding Rambam’s view that there is no coercion in beliefs and that one who errs in his inquiry is a sinner, the article cites two kinds of explanations found among the commentators: R. Elchanan Wasserman (in the above sources, see note 1) and others argue that anyone who examines reality with open eyes and without bias should arrive at the correct beliefs and conclusions. By contrast, Abravanel and others argue that even if he had no possibility of reaching the correct conclusion, his soul is nevertheless corrupted by his false beliefs, and therefore he should not be included in the community of Israel—or, alternatively, factually he does not belong to the community of Israel (though presumably even then he would not be punished like a regular halakhic transgressor). Of course, the Raavad above disputes even this.

The first option concerns an evaluation of reality itself, but that is wildly implausible. According to it, even if every reasonable person raised in a given environment reaches that (mistaken) conclusion, it is still his fault. This recalls Aharon Barak’s ruling about the “unreasonable instinct” of the reasonable person (see Column 293). The whole point of the “reasonable person” standard is that if every reasonable person behaves a certain way, one cannot expect otherwise and one should not deem him a transgressor. Note that under these approaches a leniency emerges: if we have concluded that his behavior does not constitute a transgression, we should not expel him from the community of Israel. So if I disagree at the foundational level and am unwilling to see such a person as a sinner (i.e., someone who had a practical alternative), then, according to these approaches, the conclusion is also that he should not be excluded from the community—not only that he isn’t a sinner.

The second option is not about assessing reality; it is a normative claim that one who holds certain beliefs is not part of Israel. But it is very hard to accept such a claim beyond a bare definition. One can perhaps accept that definition as such (I myself am inclined to think it is correct—at least with respect to halakhah, since I think Judaism is halakhah and nothing more), but any sanction imposed because of it, in my view, is unjustified. I do not accept sanctions that are the result of facts irrespective of culpability. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of contemporary poskim try to portray the secular Jew in terms of various kinds of coercion (“a child captured among gentiles,” coerced, “in our generation no one knows how to rebuke,” etc.), and basically say—in halakhic language—that he cannot be faulted. They just cling, as poskim tend to, to existing halakhic terminology, and find it hard to admit that a different situation requires different terminology. It seems that most of them also intend to say he should not be excluded from the community of Israel (and some even permit counting him in a minyan, which to me is entirely untenable).

Later in that article it is noted that even in Rambam it appears that he does not mean to claim there is no coercion in beliefs, for he himself writes about the children of the errant in Hilkhot Mamrim 3:3 (and similarly in his Commentary to the Mishnah, Hullin 1:2):

“In what case is this said? In a man who denied the Oral Torah in his own mind and in matters that appeared to him, and he followed his frivolous thoughts and the stubbornness of his heart, and he denied the Oral Torah initially—like Zadok and Boethus—and likewise all who were led astray after them. But the children of those errant people and their grandchildren whom their fathers misled, and they were born among the Karaites and raised according to their way—he is like a child captured among them and raised by them, and he is not quick to cling to the ways of the commandments, for he is coerced; and even though afterwards he heard that he is a Jew and saw Jews and their religion, he is still coerced, for they raised him in their error. So it is with those we mentioned who follow their fathers’ ways—the Karaites who erred. Therefore it is fitting to return them in repentance and draw them near with words of peace until they return to the strength of the Torah.”

That is, one who denied because he “followed his frivolous thoughts and the stubbornness of his heart” is a min and apikores (whose law is stated there). This would seem to say he is indeed coerced in his beliefs but that there is no coercion in beliefs. Yet he continues: the children of the errant who were born among the Karaites are like a captured child and are coerced—even if afterwards he recognizes the ways of the Jews and the Torah. Here we see that if his error is compelled by the circumstances of his life, he is indeed considered coerced. It is not clear what exactly distinguishes the first from the second, but it is reasonable that Rambam chose his words carefully—“he followed his frivolous thoughts and the stubbornness of his heart”—i.e., a person who formed his view negligently. But one for whom this is truly his position and who had no reasonable way to understand otherwise is indeed considered coerced. According to this, believers in corporeality are sinners because they could have clarified the truth by fairly simple arguments. But if, hypothetically, there were those who adopted corporeality and, in our assessment, could not have reached another conclusion—they would indeed be coerced.

See in that article further proposals for reconciling Rambam’s apparent contradiction, and their rejection. As I said, in my view the conclusions flow from rational analysis; there is no need to pile up surveys of opinions and harmonizations (see more on this in Column 637).

[1] Kovetz Ma’amarim, pp. 17–20; Kovetz He’arot to Yevamot, at the end of the book, “Examples of Explaining Aggadot According to the Peshat,” §12(8).