Shelach 5774: What on Earth

By Rabbi Joshua (undetectedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In honor of my niece, Avigayil Hefter, on her marriage to Yosef Shalom Rabin, which occurred this week in Yerushalayim.

Parshas Shelach begins, and deals largely, with the incident of the scouts, who were sent by Moshe to report on the land and encourage the people to conquer it. They failed in their mission and, on the contrary, discouraged the people from wanting to enter the land.  Rashi connects this incident with the one at the end of the previous parsha, Be’haalosecha, in which Miriam spoke against Moshe and was punished for it.  As Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi point out, according to Rashi, chronologically, the rebellion of Korach occurred between the incident with Miriam and the incident of the scouts, which is why Rashi asks why the two incidents of Miriam and the spies are juxtaposed. The reason says Rashi, is to point out that the scouts did not learn a lesson from Miriam, who spoke against Moshe and was punished, but, rather, spoke against the land and were punished. Many commentators raise the question of what connection there is between speaking against Moshe, a living human being, and speaking about the holy land, which is, after all, inanimate. What exactly was the lesson that the scouts failed to learn?  Rav Eliyahu Lopian, in his Lev Eliyahu, explains that the failing of the scouts lay in a character fault, a lack of humility, which contrasted with Moshe, who reacted with humility to Miriam’s remarks about him.

The Torah tells us that the scouts were all distinguished men (anashim), heads of the houses of Israel (Bamidbar 13:3).  Rashi points out that whenever Scripture uses this term “anashim” it refers to people of importance, and, at the time they were chosen for their mission, the scouts were honorable people.  Rav Lopian, however, cites from the Zohar that the scouts themselves were conscious of their elevated status, and that is what led them astray. They feared that once they entered Eretz Yisroel, they would lose their leadership positions, and, therefore discouraged the people from going there.  Rav Moshe Vorhand, in his Ohel Moshe, says that this verse, by saying that the scouts were “anashim,” is telling us that was in their minds, namely, their status, and their desire to retain it.  Rav Lopian cites Rav Yisroel Salanter, who taught that the yetzer hora, the evil inclination, confronts different people in different ways. The higher level a person is on, the more spiritual is his challenge.  In the end, it was this spiritual challenge of avoiding arrogance to which the scouts succumbed, and what led to their sin.

Rav Hillel Lieberman, Hy”d, in his Ahavas HaAretz, notes that Moshe, in his instructions to the scouts, used the words “mah ha’aretz” – “what is the land” – three times.  He told them, “See the land – what is it? … and how is the land in which it dwells… and how is the land, is it fertile or is it lean? (Bamidbar 13:18-20).  He explains that, in kabbalah, the word “mah” – what – refers to chochmah, or wisdom, which denotes bittul, or subjugation, as, for example, the moon which has no light of its own but only reflects the light of the sun.  Moshe, as the paradigm anav, or humble person, was in effect telling the scouts that, in order to inherit the land, they needed to be humble, as reflected by King David when he said “the humble will inherit the land” (Tehillim 39:11).  If they wanted to see the greatness of the land, they needed to negate their own prominence and in that way let the Divine providence dwelling in the land come forth.  By injecting even a small amount of self-importance, into their mission, then they became subject to a major character fault and ultimately turned against God and his land. They should have learned from the incident of Miriam speaking against Moshe, to which Moshe reacted with humility, about the importance of that trait, and then applied it to their attitude towards the land, which requires a sense of humility in order to be properly appreciated.  Their failure to do so led them to fail in their mission.