By Rabbi Joshua (colorlessly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
Following the incident of the spies and the declaration of the punishment that will be meted out for it, the people are given a series of new commandments. They are told, first, that when they enter the land and bring an animal sacrifice, they should accompany it with a grain offering and a wine libation. Rashi points out that included in this formulation is a good announcement for the people, that they would, eventually, as a nation, enter the Land of Israel. In this way, the commandment served a form of comfort for the people after hearing of their punishment for the incident of the spies, entailing their eventual death in the wilderness. Dr. Aaron Lichtenstein, in his work “Reading the Sacred Text: What the Torah Tells Us,” demonstrates that all of the following mitzvos, until the end of the parsha, contain, in one way or another, a message of comfort to the people, reassuring them that, even after the egregious sin that they committed, they were still God’s nation. The interested reader is referred to that work. I would like to elaborate on his treatment, of the last mitzvah in the parsha, that of tzitzis.
How, asks Dr. Lichtenstein, does the mitzvah of tzitzis relate back to the incident of the spies, and how does it serve to help the people move forward? He suggests two connections. The fringe of techeiles, a thread that is dyed a royal blue, evokes a renewed sense of the nation’s mission to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, as they were charged at Mt. Sinai. This is in contrast to the sense of inferiority evoked by the spies when they said “ we were in our eyes as grasshoppers" (Bamidbar 13:33). Another connection, he says, can be found in the verse in the parasha of tzitzis, which says, “and you should not scout out after your hearts and after your eyes.” The usage of the word “lasur,” to scout out, is unusual, and recalls the use of that word in regard to the spies as well. I believe that these two connections can be expanded upon, and shown to be related to each other in a way that sheds further light on the sin of the spies.
When the spies said that they seemed in their eyes as grasshoppers, they were experiencing a sense of low self-esteem. Rav Shlomo Wolbe, in his Alei Shur (volume 1, pg. 162), writes that a necessary first step in one's service of God is a feeling of self-worth of the heights to which a person can reach. Without this recognition, a person can easily fall into thinking that his nature is so bad that he can never change, and end up sinning. This is why, says Rav Wolbe, the revelation at Sinai is preceded by the charge to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Only after one has a sense of the greatness that he can achieve can he then proceed to serve God properly. This teaching of Rav Wolbe is cited by Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski in his recent book, “Letters to My Children,” and used a basis for emphasizing the central importance of having a healthy sense of self-esteem in order to combat the subtle tactics of the evil inclination.
The lack of self-esteem expressed by the spies, then, led them to the point of searching after their hearts, and after their eyes. In this process, they did not look at things objectively, but, rather, let the desires of their heart influence their vision, thus, leading them to issue a negative report about the land. The tzitzis, with its strand of techeiles of royal blue, would now serve to restore the nation’s sense of self-worth of its potential greatness, and thus aid them, in avoiding the descent into the sin that the spies generated.