The Torah says that Caleb ben Yifuneh was blessed with “a different spirit,” and that this differentiation allowed him alone to survive the curse of death in the desert. At Numbers 14:23, God tells Moses that the entire generation that had witnessed divine miracles in Egypt and the desert but had nevertheless acted testily ten times would never see the land, but rather die in the wilderness. The next verse reads, “But my servant Caleb had a different spirit with him, and followed me, so I will bring him to the land where he had come, and his seed will inherit it.”
This verse occasions many questions. Why only Caleb? What about Joshua? Why is Caleb called “my servant,” an honorific used sparingly in the Torah (though Avot D’Rabbi Natan gives 18 examples)? And what is his different spirit? Our commentators have much to say on this and more. Joshua acquitted himself well, but perhaps only because Moses gave him special attention and protection. His survival is therefore not entirely earned. And at the crucial moment in the prior chapter, Caleb alone spoke out against the evil report of the spies, silencing them with his confident belief in God. For this reason, he is honored with the title “my servant” and singled out to enter the Land. But what was his different spirit?
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