Parshas Shlach and the Gedoilim of Chutz Le'aaretz Still have not Learned their Lesson.. They Are delaying the Redemption

 

עָלֹ֤ה נַעֲלֶה֙ וְיָרַ֣שְׁנוּ אֹתָ֔הּ כִּֽי־יָכ֥וֹל נוּכַ֖ל לָֽהּ

׃

Along the journey to the Land of Israel in the great and dreadful desert, the newly formed Israelite Nation experiences one crisis after another in the process of discovering the absolute unity of Torah, Nationhood, and Eretz Yisrael. 

The greatest of these crises is the Sin of the Spies, a failure that revealed the weakness of the Nation’s attachment to its Land, what King David termed a rejection of the cherished Land (Tehillim 106:24-26). 

The terrible consequences of this crisis testify to the severity of living outside of the Land of Israel: “In this wilderness your corpses shall fall.”

בַּמִּדְבָּ֣ר הַ֠זֶּ֠ה יִפְּל֨וּ פִגְרֵיכֶ֜ם

The Sin of the Spies revealed a psychological weakness - a lack of faith in Hashem. This was expressed in their detachment from and rejection of the Promised Land. This weakness has passed through the generations, clinging also to the descendants, as we readily see today in the unwillingness of Diaspora Jews to uproot themselves from foreign lands. 

Thus the phenomenon of despising the Land of Israel recurs throughout Jewish history, such as in the time of the Second Temple when only a small portion of the people returned to the Land, while “much of the elite remained in Babylonia with their villas and businesses,” in the words of “HaKuzari” (Ch.2:24).

And so it also occurred in our time - some of the greatest leaders of the Jewish People and their followers ignored the national revival and preferred to remain in Exile even after the State of Israel was established, when it became possible for all Jews to return.

Who were the people who spread slander about the Land? 

“And Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran by the word of the Lord, all of them were men, heads of the children of Israel were they” (Bamidbar 13:3).

וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח אֹתָ֥ם מֹשֶׁ֛ה מִמִּדְבַּ֥ר פָּארָ֖ן עַל־פִּ֣י ה' כֻּלָּ֣ם אֲנָשִׁ֔ים רָאשֵׁ֥י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל הֵֽמָּה׃

 “All the word ‘men’ (אנשים) in Scripture implies importance, and at that moment, they were righteous” (Rashi). These important and upright men dragged the entire congregation after them with their slander, causing the people’s voice to rise up against Hashem’s command to journey on into the Land which He had chosen for them. 

And who were these men?

 The heads of the Sanhedrin (Bamidbar 14:1; Rashi). 

Thus, we need to explain: were they righteous or wicked?

There are different types of righteousness. There is private righteousness whereby in one’s personal life one observes the Torah and commandments. However it is possible for this person to be detached from the overall good of the Nation and its most exalted goals.

Living in the Land of Israel can serve as a measure of a person’s righteousness or wickedness. A person may be wicked in his private life in terms of Torah and commandments, yet be deeply connected emotionally to the Nation and the Land. He is righteous in the general "Clalli” collective sense of national attachment and concern. Therefore, the Land does not expel him.

This division between communal and private righteousness characterizes various groups within Israeli society. Those Jews who are lovingly connected to the collective matters of Israel, to the Land of Israel and to the Nation’s revival, have a soul more rectified than some of the faithful Torah-observant Jews who lack that trait. 

While the spiritual side of the Torah observer is more refined on a personal level, the righteousness of a non-observant Israeli lies in his natural emotional connection to the national collective. Outwardly, he may be estranged from mitzvah observance yet he is often willing to sacrifice his life for the welfare of the Nation. The rectification will come through mutual influence: the souls of the devout will be elevated through embracing the missing national component of the “sinners,” and the spirit of the non-religious will be refined by the influence of the God-fearing. A complete repentance will then appear in the world, and Israel will be ready for Redemption (Orot, p. 84).

The Spies were therefore righteous in the personal sense, but they sinned regarding the collective good of the Nation. 

The awakening of national revival and return to the Land is the beginning of the process of Redemption that will ultimately purge the spirit of impurity from the Land. The blinding power of the transgression of rejecting the Land of Israel even seizes Torah leaders to delay the Redemption with various spurious ideas such as the mistaken notion that the Mashiach must come before the Jews can abandon the Exile and return to the Promised Land to rebuild the Israelite Nation.

The book, “Eim HaBanim Semeichah” explains this at length. 

Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai wrote: “The serpent injected into the hearts of the Sages of Israel the belief that it is forbidden to speak about Redemption” (Sefer HaChaim, II). 

As the Zohar says: “The serpent nests in the high mountains - these are the Sages and the Tzaddikim” (Tikkunei Zohar, end of Tikkun 13). 

Just as spiritual leaders have a great good inclination, they also possess great spiritual temptations. The arguments used to delay the national Redemption process are often phrased as protecting the integrity of Torah, fighting wickedness among the Zionist builders, protecting the spiritual well-being of religious children and so forth. But if this prevents them from joining in the rebuilding of the Nation in its one-and-only true Homeland then it is an evil inclination cloaked in a garment of seemingly devout mitzvah observance.

“And for this, all the lords of the land, the great ones of Israel, will be held accountable, and from them God will seek justice for the insult of His downtrodden house” (Or HaChaim Kadosh, Vayikra 25:25).

"ועל זה עתידין ליתן את הדין כל אדוני הארץ גדולי ישראל ומהם יבקש ה' עלבון הבית העלוב"

The Motivations for the Sin

The question is: 

how did such great individuals come to this? What spiritual and psychological factors led them to the sin of rejecting the Land?

One of the main factors that causes a person to deviate from the good path is personal interest - the fear that something will cause harm to his own well-being. When a person feels that something may hurt him, his clear perception is distorted and he begins to see good as evil and evil as good. 

As the author of “Mesillat Yesharim” explains:

“This, according to our Sages, is what led the Spies to slander the Land and caused the death of their entire generation - out of fear that their honor would be diminished upon entering the Land, that they would no longer remain the leaders of Israel and that others would replace them” (Mesillat Yesharim, Chapter 11, Eshkol ed., p. 66)

Similarly, the Zohar explains that the Spies feared a loss of prestige upon entering the Land. In the wilderness, they were leaders. But in the Land, leadership might change because of the need for armed struggle, down-to-earth agricultural development and the physical building of the Nation (Zohar III 158a). Heading a yeshiva in the wilderness and heading a nation are two different tasks. Thus the authority which the Spies enjoyed in the wilderness under the shelter of the Clouds of Glory was threatened. Surrendering authority involves an intense inner struggle that even great people cannot always overcome (Menachot 109b).

Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi adds another reason for resistance to leaving the exile:

 the necessity to abandon property and wealth accumulated abroad (HaKuzari II:24). The desire for honor and for material possessions are two corrupting interests that blind a person and distort his judgment.

However, abstaining from national revival is wrong as the Rambam and the Talmud make clear:

“At all times, a person should always live in the Land of Israel, even in a city full of idol worshippers, and not live outside the Land, even in a city full of Jews” (Ketubot 110b. Rambam, Laws of Kings and Their Wars 5:12).

Yes, the desert with its manna and Divine Presence is more conducive to spirituality but this is not the Divine goal. The goal of the Torah is to build the Kingdom of God in the earthly realm with all its challenges, even at spiritual costs. This can only take place in the Land which Hashem chose for this mission.

Some Torah Scholars in the Diaspora today advise their students that aliyah is good only if it contributes to their personal spiritual growth. They maintain that if life in the Diaspora benefits them more in Torah and fear of God, they should remain there. 

But God’s judgment is otherwise. He Himself teaches us that one must leave the Clouds of Glory in the wilderness and journey on to the Land to settle and build it (Devarim 1:6-8). Hashem calls the Spies rebels for their unwillingness to enter the Land. They believed in Hashem but only up to a point. They believed in His command to learn Torah but they didn’t believe in His command to conquer and dwell in the Land which Hashem gave to Am Yisrael to inherit.

Thus, when the Spies discouraged the people from entering the Land, they acted against the will of God who commanded the Jews to build a Torah society precisely in the Promised Land and not in the wilderness.

The Spies lacked true trust and faith in God. They saw “a land that devours its inhabitants.” In their eyes, Israel’s spiritual stature was too small to face the physical challenge. “And we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers.”

In contrast to the Spies stand Joshua and Caleb who proclaim:

“We shall surely go up and possess it, for we can surely do it!”

עָלֹ֤ה נַעֲלֶה֙ וְיָרַ֣שְׁנוּ אֹתָ֔הּ כִּֽי־יָכ֥וֹל נוּכַ֖ל לָֽה

Their faith in Hashem was complete. Even if God told us to climb to heaven, we would succeed in everything He commands (Bamidbar 3:30; Rashi).

The Land of Israel is our ladder to ascend to Heaven. 

Specifically, through building the Land, we can rise to the highest spiritual levels, by the power of its holy treasures, where the spiritual and physical are one.

[Excerpted from Rav Aviner’s Torah commentary “Tal Hermon.” Translated by Tzvi Fishman.]