ו בגדיהם קרע תרים את הארץהבן יפנה מן ון וכלב נ ויהושע בן “And Yehoshua bin Nun and Calev ben Yefuneh from those who spied out the land tore their clothes.” (Bamidbar 14:6)
The term ha’tarim es ha’aretz is noteworthy. At this point in time, we already know that they were among the ones who “spied out the land.” What then is the need for the Torah to again spell out the fact that they were “ha’tarim es haaretz“? We know all that already!
R’ Mordechai Druk in his sefer Darash Mordechai relates this question to a famous vort of the Ponevezher Rav. In Bereishis (27:27) we learn, vayarach es begadav, that Yitzchok smelled the garments of Eisav. The Medrash expounds: “he smelled the rebellious within him” (vayarach es bogdav). Yitzchak even had nachas ruach [spiritual pleasure] from those people who were the traitors and rebelled against Hashem.
The Medrash then gives an example of such a rebellious person: Yosef Meshisa. He was a traitor to his people at the time of the destruction of the Second Beis HaMikdosh. He went over the side of the Romans. The Medrash says that when the Romans destroyed the Beis HaMikdosh, they went to Yosef Meshisa and (as a reward for his services to them) told him to go inside the Beis HaMikdosh and take for himself whatever he wanted.
He went into the Beis HaMikdosh and took out for himself the Golden Menorah. The Romans saw that and told him that this was too big of a gift. They then told him to take something else. The Menorah, they said, was fit for a king, not a commoner like himself. At that point, Yosef Meshisa refused. They urged him to go back and pick something else and he again refused.
To make a very long Medrash short, they tortured him and eventually killed him, but he still refused to go back and take a personal gift from the Beis HaMikdosh‘s property.
The Ponevezher Rav asked a question: What happened to Yosef Meshisa? Previously, he was a traitor to his people. He was willing to walk into the Beis HaMikdosh and take the Menorah for himself. That he was happy to do. No compunctions. Then, suddenly he is told, “No. You can’t take the Menorah. That is not right for you to take.” Suddenly, he became a ba’al teshuva? These are the bogdim [traitors] from whom Yitzchok Avinu received nachas ruach.
How did Yosef Meshisa turn around like that? The Ponevezher Rav explained that what happened to Yosef Meshisa was that he spent a minute in the Beis HaMikdosh. When a person spends a minute in the Beis HaMikdosh, it changes his life. The kedusha of the Beis HaMikdosh was such that Yosef Meshisa was never the same. After that one minute in the Beis HaMikdosh, he could not rebel ever again.
Such is the power of being exposed to the makom hamikdash. It is like radiation. A person can be exposed to radiation for literally ten seconds and it can have a profound effect on him. Such is the power of radiation, and l’havdil, such is the power of kedusha as well.
The Darash Mordechai concludes: Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon are crying, maybe the Meraglim will change their minds, maybe they will do teshuva. At that point, Yehoshua and Calev are described as those “who spied out the Land” (ha’tarim es ha’aretz). They gave up hope on the Meraglim doing teshuva. They realized: These people were in Eretz Yisroel. They were exposed to its holy sanctity. If after being exposed to Eretz Yisroel, they can still talk this way (“they are stronger than us, etc.”), then Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon, we hate to say this but nothing is going to help them. Your tefillos now will not save them either. They therefore tore their garments because they saw that the other Meraglim were hopeless and would never retract their report.
