Was their sin lack of faith in God, was it a provocation, was it their fear of having to fight - or a combination?
Parashat Devarim, Moshe relates in his words, the events leading to his fateful agreement to send the מרגלים: the spies, and the awesome outcome of that mission.
We read:(1:20-34):’Then I said to you:’You have come unto the mountain that Hashem our G-d gives us..go up and possess, as Hashem, G-d of your forefathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear and do not lose resolve.
‘All of you approached and said:’Let us send men ahead of us and let them spy out the Land, and bring word back to us; the road on which we should ascend and the cities to which we should come’.
‘The idea was good in my eyes, so I took from you twelve men..They turned and ascended the mountain..and spied it out..They brought back word to us and said:’Good is the Land that Hashem, our G-d gives us’.
‘But you did not wish to ascend, and you rebelled against the word of Hashem, you G-d. You slandered’ Hashem..’Because of Hashem’s hatred for us did He take us out of the land of Egypt’..the spies saw:’ A people greater and taller than us, cities great and fortified to the heavens..even children of giants have we seen there!’
‘Then I said to you: ‘Do not be broken and do not fear them. Hashem, your G-d, Who goes before you - He shall make war for you, like everything He did for you in Egypt, before your eyes..Yet in this matter you do not believe in Hashem, your G-d..’.
‘Hashem heard the sound of your words, and He was incensed and He swore, saying:’If even a man of these people, this evil generation, shall see the good Land that I swore to give to your forefathers.’ Rashi comments:’’the idea was good in my eyes’:’I consented to your words, thinking that you would reconsider when you saw that I do not withhold it from you, but you did not reconsider.’
Rav Aryeh Leib Heiman elaborates:’Moshe certainly did not think that there was a need to send spies, or that there was anything that needed verifying, after all the promises of Hashem that they would conquer the Land.
‘Rather - as Rashi comments - Moshe surmised that, should he not accede to the demand of the people, they would think that he was concealing something from them..that he does not want them to know the difficulties which await them..’.
In our Parasha - Parashat Shlach - the Torah relates in ‘real time’, the reaction of the people to the report of the spies, on their return from their mission, on hearing their words:(13:27-32)’We cannot ascend till that people for it is too strong for us..The Land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people that we saw in it were huge, we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes.
‘The entire assembly of Bnei Israel raised up and issued its voice; the people wept that night..If only we had died in the land of Egypt..Let us appoint a leader and let us return to Egypt!
‘Hashem said to Moshe:’How long will this people provoke Me and how long will they not have faith in Me, despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? ‘
The Torah then relates the decree from Above, that all of the people from twenty years shall not enter the Land, but shall perish in the desert, (14:31): ‘And your young children of whom you said they will be taken captive, I shall bring them; they shall know the Land that you have despised.’
The Abarbanel, on the words: ’How long will this people provoke Me’, expounds:’When this people in Egypt were bad and sinful, they had an excuse that the place caused this, and I therefore took them out of there, and said: ‘I will take them from there, and bring them under My wings and they will cleave to Me.
‘When they transgressed at the Sea, they could also be excused, as they had not yet received the Torah, which led to their lack of Emunah; so I said: I will take them to Har Sinai, and the holiness of the place will purify them.
‘After this, when they sinned in the desert, I said that the place, being desolate and forlorn, was the cause; and I said ‘I will bring them to a settled place, and they will believe in Me.’
‘Yet, when they came to the Land they did not believe in Me, so where can I take them that they should change their nature there?
‘This is what was said:’How long will this people provoke Me?’, meaning: to what other place and other land shall we go, where they will not provoke Me and believe in Me? - there is no place where they will not provoke Me and not deny Me there.
‘The Torah mentions the two matters:’provoking Hashem’ AND ‘not have Emunah in Me’, as there were two different classes among the people: there were those who were believers, but still provoked Hashem, regarding His mitzvot, and sought to cast off their yoke of the Torah and of mitzvot.
‘The second group, had no belief in the Torah of Moshe, and therefore had no yoke to cast off.
‘The rebuke of ‘till when will they provoke Me’, was addressed to the first group; the rebuke:’’and not have Emunah in Me, despite all the signs that I have performed for them’, was addressed to the second group, meaning: if after all these signs that I have performed in their midst, they still lacked Emunah…’.
The Alshich Hakadosh commemts , on these two matters:’The charge of lack of Emunah should have preceded that of provoking Hashem, as it came first, and was the reason for their demand to send the spies, and only subsequently, did they provoke Hashed by their evil deeds.
‘But, if we examine the matter, we find that they did not reveal a lack of Emunah initially, as they said that they wanted to send spies only to determine ‘the road on which we should ascend and the cities to which we should come’, though Hashem understood what was in their hearts.
‘Now, after their crying and evil talk, they revealed that they believed in the meraglim, and not in Hashem, who had said that He would bring them to the land.
‘This clearly revealed a lack of Emunah, of no lesser severity than ‘provoking Me’.
‘This is why Hashem said:’How long will this people provoke Me, and how long will they not have Emunah in Me’, but in the meraglim.’
Rav Azaria Figo sweetens our understanding of what lay behind these words of Hashem, expounding:’Bnei Israel acted in two contradictory ways: ‘How long will they provoke Me’, that they wish to act in a way that provokes Me, which can only be if they believe in Me, and know that I feel and can be angered by their actions; but ‘till when’ can also be understood in the opposite sense, that they do not believe in Me all, and deny My Providence over them, despite all the miracles that I did in their midst, which refutes any suggestion of intention to provoke Me.
‘Since they are so bad and sinful in their deeds, I shall smite them, and, in their place make you, Moshe, a mighty nation.’
The Slonimer Rebbe, the Darchei Noam adds:’The prophets teach ( Nechemiah 9:8 ) that a precondition to inheriting the Land is -as we say in each morning’s tefillot -:’And you found his’ , Avraham’s, ‘heart נאמן faithful before You’, and this was the condition for: ‘And you entered into a covenant with him, to give the Land of Canaan’.
‘The words ‘his heart faithful before You’, mean complete Emunah in Hashem, and this is the condition to inheriting the Land.
‘True, Bnei Israel had already passed a test of Emunah in Hashem when they left Egypt, following Hashem into the wilderness with complete faith in Him, as the prophet Yirmiyahu extols, and did not say: ‘how can we go into the desert, a desolate place without vegetation or means of sustenance’; but now, as they were about to enter the Land, they were confronted with a more difficult test of Emunah, as now they saw with their eyes, the very opposite of what had been said to them.
‘Instead of seeing a ‘good land’, they saw ‘a land that devours its inhabitants’.
Alas, they did not pass this test, lacking the essential Emunah, and therefore this generation did not merit to enter the Land.’
We find two other instances in the Torah, where the lack of full Emunah resulted in not being permitted to inherit the Land.
The first of these is in the Mitzvah of Shemittah, the purpose of which, says the Kli Yakar is:’To instill in Bnei Israel the Emunah and trust in Hashem, as Hashem was concerned that, when they entered the Land, they would engage in its work in the way of nature, and, when they succeed, will ascribe it to their ability and hand, and forget Hashem, and no longer put there trust in Him.
Hashem therefore commanded them to completely leave the natural order of things, working the land for six consecutive years, and promising them that, contrary to the natural order of things, He would give the Land strength, not only not to be exhausted by not resting for six years, but, to the contrary, yielding enough in the sixth year, for their sustenance for three years.
‘This required complete Emunah, and as the failure to observe the Mitzvah of Shemittah was caused by a defect in their Emunah, the penalty for not observing it was exile from the Land.’
Sadly, the second instance in which a defect in Emunah resulted in a decree that the transgressor not enter the Land, concerned Moshe and Aaron.
This, of course, was the result of the events at Mei Meriba, where it was decreed that Moshe Rabbeinu - and Aaron - would not enter the Land, because, literally translated, ( Chukat 20:12 ):’יען לא האמנתםֶ בי להקדישני: Because you did not have faith in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of Bnei Israel, therefore you shall not bring the assembly to the Land which I have given them.’
The Chatam Sofer gives a very different understanding of these words, saying:’האמנתם does not, חס וחלילה , mean that - as the literal translation suggests - that Moshe himself lacked Emunah.
‘Rather, it is used in a causative sense, meaning that: You did not cause Bnei Israel to have Emunah, and, as the events there were intended by Hashem to strengthen the Emunah of Bnei Israel - whose Emunah was incomplete - before they entered the Land, the inheritance of which’, as we have brought, depended on complete Emunah, by their actions, Moshe and Aaron caused the opposite result - weakening the Emunah of the people, the awesome decree was, measure-for-measure, that they themselves not enter the Land.
‘This was measure-for-measure, as the result of the weakening of the Emunah of the people, would, as later events prove, result in the exile of the people from the Land.’
A parting query from Rav Yosef Salant, one which troubles all the commentators:’What was the sin of the meraglim? Did not Moshe charge them (Shlach 13:18-19):’See what kind of land it is, and the people who inhabit it, are they strong or weak..and what of the cities in which they reside are they in camps or in fortresses?’.
‘They were therefore bound to report back on these matters; so what was their sin, when they said, on their return:’The people that dwells in th Land is powerful, its cities are fortified..we cannot ascend to that people for it is too strong for us’?
‘The answer is - as the Ramban and the Akeida elucidate - that Hashem permitted Moshe to send spies, so that Bnei Israel would see how powerful the inhabitants of the Land were, and - most important - then appreciate that only Hashem could defeat them.
‘As Moshe Rabbeinu adjured Bnei Israel:(Eikev 9:1-3):’Hear O Israel: Today you are crossing the Jordan to come and possess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities, fortified up to the heavens. A great and tall people..You shall know this day, that it is the Lord your G-d Who passes over before you..He will destroy them before you..and you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly..’
‘Hashem’s command to send the spies, was to instill in their hearts Emunah in Him, and His might.
‘They would then, as a result of what the spies would see, realize that it was impossible for them to defeat the inhabitants in the natural order of things, and then they would internalize the wonders that Hashem would perform for them.
‘But, alas, by their words, the meraglim caused the opposite effect, saying that ‘חזק הוא ממנו: it is too strong for us’ - but, as our Sages expound, also meaning: ‘from Him’: from Hashem, the true reflection of their lack of Emunah.
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