by DINThe headline is not only to get your attention, it is also 100% true, and because it's true, it' makes "Holy People" very dangerous.....
So dangerous are the "holy" ones that Hashem in this case never forgave them.
I'm jumping ahead of myself.....
There is a halacha that every bar-mitzvah learns as soon as he turns 13, which is that now that he reached the age of being a bar-mitzva, he can be counted in a minyan.
How do we know that a "minyan" requires a minimum of 10?
I hope you guys are sitting .....
We learn this halacha from the "meraglim".....
let that sink in for awhile...
Lest you think I made it up, I will give you the sources and you could look it up at your leisure ...
(מגילה כ"ג ב (הובא בפרש"י עה"פ), ברכות כ"א ב, סנהדרין ע"ד ב)
Why would the Chazal learn out a major rule from the meraglim?
It was because they were the "moetzes gedoilei hador" of that generation, as the Torah itself writes in the 3rd verse of this parsha!
"ראשי בני ישראל המה"
"They were the leaders of the Jewish people"
According to many Rishonim and the Zohar they spoke "Lashon Hara" on Eretz Yisrael but meant it "lishmah"
In other words, they remained very "holy people" and weren't evil at all; it was their desire to be close to Hashem and stay in the midbar to cleave to Hashem, to learn his Torah unencumbered with "gashmios"
What was the result?
There is a proverb: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
just because someone has "good intentions" that doesn't necessarily mean it is the correct thing to do...
When the Jews made a golden calf, an "eigal" in the midbar, it was an outright rebellion and an affront to Hashem that had just recently taken them out of Egypt with miracles....they turned their backs on their Saviour and Creator and instead chose a calf, that couldn't speak, see, hear, or talk and was just born so to speak.
Yet Hashem forgave them
Yet with these "tzaddikim" the ones who had good intentions, where Chazal learn that a minyan consists of 10, Hashem never forgave them and we are still paying a price for this mistake.
Why?
Because they spoke "loshon hara" about Eretz Yisrael and when you bad mouth Eretz Yisrael even if you have the best of intentions, you are never forgiven ....
You can quote from the greatest of our people, who may have had the best intentions, but if they bad mouthed the Land or bad mouthed even those who built it, then they are meraglim, especially if they live in Chutz Le'aretz..... Hashem will never forgive them
To bolster my point... at the end of Moshe Rabbeinu's life, Moshe, in Sefer Devarim rebukes the Jewish people and reminds them of all the sins they did in the midbar... but in order not to embarrass them, he did not mention the sins explicitly, instead, he only hinted or alluded to them by using veiled references ... so when it came to remind them of the eigal, he said "ודי זהב" ....you actually need a Rashi to understand the hint....
but when it came to remind them about the "meraglim" Moshe was very explicit... no veiled references here...., here he wasn't concerned that they would be embarrassed, Moshe goes into the details to what happened, things that we didn't even know learning Parshas Shlach ....
The gemarrah discusses a tuma bird called "r'ah" ראה, that has great eye sight, it could stand in Bavel and see a dead carcass all the way in Eretz Yisrael
עומד בבבל ורואה נבלה בארץ ישראל
the Baal Shem asked, if this bird has been gifted with such talent to able to see such great distances then why is it tamei?
Says the Baal Shem, someone living in chutz l'aaretz and focuses on whats bad in Israel can only be someone who is tamei...
I will add my own pshat .....
why did Chazal choose "Bavel" to illustrate their point?
Precisely because "Bavel" was the "makom Torah" of those generations and they became very comfortable there and looked down on Eretz Yisrael ... since those living in Eretz Yisrael were Mechallei Shabbos and were by in large intermarried.........
nevertheless the Babylonians searching for "dead carcasses" in Israel were considered tamei!
You can be from those who authored Talmud Bavli, the oral torah so that it should never be forgotten, but if you dare badmouth the land of Israel or its inhabitants, you risk losing your olam haba!
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