The central theme of this week’s parsha is what Chazal call חטא המרגלים - the sin of the spies. Of course, what needs to be clarified is what exactly was the sin, or even more important, the root of the sin.
There are many elements in the report that the spies brought back that can signal to us what might have been the real root of their mistake. On the surface, it would seem that they were very discouraged by the reality that they discovered. After all, their intention in spying the land seemed to make sense, and when they saw great giants roaming the land, they felt, as they reported, like grasshoppers. Moreover, Rashi quotes Chazal that they described themselves as ants.
When searching for the root of the sin of the spies, we certainly can’t skip the famous words of Chazal that Rashi quotes - כי חזק הוא ממנו, he is stronger than us. Chazal understand that there was a heretical idea that was being expressed, as if to say that Hashem doesn’t have the capability to help us out.
I was thinking that there is a powerful connection between the imagery that the spies were expressing and their lack of emunah.
My chavrusa and I have been learning two major gates from the Sefer Chovos Halevavos for almost a decade. One gate is called the gate of bitachon, and the second one is the gate of hachna’a, humility. What I found interesting is that you can be learning one of the gates and easily get confused which gate you're actually in. This is because the base of bitachon, which is complete trust in Hashem, is really dependent on one’s humility. That is to say, if I live with true humility, which means that I understand that everything in life is a gift, and that Hashem is righteous and perfect in His decisions, then I’m at the same time living with bitachon.
Let’s go back to the spies. The spies lacked emunah and bitachon. It could be that the idea of checking out the land was valid, but not if they had no trust that if Hashem said that we would enter the land, that would happen, even if there were giants there. What happened next is that they also had a false image of themselves. They felt like grasshoppers because they lacked trust in Hashem and couldn’t tap into their true self, which is a part of Hashem, a part of infinity that defies all logic and physical limitations.
What emerges is that the way to fix the error of the spies is to work on our emunah and our humility, and hopefully, we will be zoche to see the third Bais Hamikdash built by this Tisha B’Av, bimhera beyameinu.
RABBI DANIEL COREN
SEMICHAS CHAVER SHIUR in R’ Coren’s office every Wednesday at 9:00 PM
