This week’s parsha (Torah Reading) was Sheloch. It was the report of the spies back from Israel, where they say that it will be too hard to retake the land.

I was reading the English translation, along with the footnotes (Jewish Prayer books frequently have footnotes now, and Chumashim, the bound copies of the Torah and Haftorah readings for each week have had them for over 1000 years.

In any case, I came across the following passage (Numbers XV: 39)

And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may see it and remember all the commandments of the Eternal, and do them: and that Ye search not after your own heart, and after your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

Note that this is the translation from my wife’s Chumash from about 35 years ago, what I read in synagogue was from a more modern translation.

In any case, there was Rashi’s Commentary below (Rashi was a Rabbi from over 1000 years ago who took the commentaries, which had been passed on verbally, and wrote them down.)

Here is the commentary on the portion which I have emphasized:

(The translation therefore is: AND YE SHALL NOT SEARCH AFTER YOUR OWN HEART). The heart and the eyes are the “spies” of the body – they act as agents for sinning: the eye sees, the heart covets, and the body commits the sin.

In the artscroll (not in front of me) it further makes it clear that one is to follow God with one’s intellect and faith, because the heart cannot be relied upon, because it leads one astray.

While I did not find this odd, I think that this is the exact opposite of what I understand of most Christian perspectives are on this.

This attitude is reflected in the idea that one should not study mysticism until one is firmly grounded in Torah, which is why the concept of a relatively untrained person “dabbling” in Kaballah (Like the singer Modonna) is viewed with alarm.

No one is concerned about any forces being unleashed (or at least very few are), but the potential for being led down the wrong path is great when one follows one’s heart.