Send Away Your Own Judgment: Humility in Its Place

1“Send men for yourself …”¹ On the words “all of them were men,” Rashi explains: “Wherever Scripture says ‘men,’ it expresses importance; at that time they were worthy.”² The verse's own wording implies this too: “they were heads of Bnei Yisrael.” Yet this seems to contradict what Rashi says further on, on the verse “And they went and they came”: “It compares their going to their coming: just as their coming was with evil counsel, so too their going was with evil counsel.”³

2On the verse “And Moshe called Hoshea son of Nun ‘Yehoshua,’” the Targum Yonasan says: “When Moshe saw his humility, Moshe called Hoshea son of Nun ‘Yehoshua’ …”⁴ And Rashi explains: “He prayed for him: May Kah save you from the counsel of the spies.”⁵ This raises a question, asked in the Chida's Penei David, in the Arvei Nachal and in the Ohev Yisrael: why did Moshe fear that Yehoshua's humility would make him stumble into the spies' counsel? On the contrary, the holy sefarim explain that humility is what carries a person through every trial in avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The holy sefer Toldos Adam teaches this on the verse “And Avram passed through the land”:⁶ Avram passed through his trials by the middah of humility, a character trait [corresponding to “earth”].

3Let us also first cite the Midrash:⁷ “A point of halachah: may one set sail on the Great Sea within three days before Shabbos? Our Rabbis taught: One may not set out in a ship on the Great Sea within three days before Shabbos when he is going to a distant place. But if he wishes to sail, for example, from Tyre to Sidon, he may sail even on Erev Shabbos, since it is known that he can arrive while it is still day. This applies to one going on his own affairs. But one sent on a mitzvah may sail on any day he likes. Why? Because he is an emissary of a mitzvah, and an emissary of a mitzvah overrides Shabbos … For there is nothing as beloved before the Holy One, blessed be He, as an emissary sent to do a mitzvah who gives his soul so that he will succeed in his mission.” We will go on to explain what it means to give one's soul for one's mission, a lesson learned from the episode of the spies.

4aLet us begin with the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on “Send for yourself,” which Rashi explains as “according to your own judgment.” He explained it through what the holy sefer Bnei Yissaschar writes about a rule we find in the Gemara: “Something that could be learned from a kal vachomer, Scripture nevertheless took the trouble to write.”⁸ The Bnei Yissaschar asks why it is with the kal vachomer, an argument from the lesser to the greater, that we find this. He explains that even when a person can grasp the reasons of the Torah and the mitzvos with his intellect, perfection still lies in setting the intellect aside and submitting himself to the Creator's honor. That means doing the mitzvah with simple faith, only because it is Hashem's command. The kal vachomer is a rule the human mind grasps by its own reasoning, and that is exactly where Scripture took the trouble to write the matter out. It teaches us that even what we grasp with our intellect must be done only because the Torah commands it, in the way of simple faith.

4bOn this basis my holy father also found an allusion in Chazal's saying “An eye sees, an ear hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.”⁹ Even though you have “an eye that sees and an ear that hears,” seeing with your mind and understanding well the reasons for the mitzvos, still “all your deeds,” when you come to carry out the mitzvos in practice, must be “written in a book.” You must find everything in the Torah, and fulfill the mitzvos only because that is what is written in the Torah. That is the meaning of “Send for yourself: according to your own judgment,” shelach lecha ledaatcha: there are times when a person must send his judgment and his intellect away from himself, namely when it comes to action. Then you are commanded to send away your own judgment and to serve Hashem on the foundation of simple faith alone. Those are his holy words.

5To explain this further and to resolve all our questions, we may say the following. We know that humility is a lofty and very necessary middah, as we saw with Avram passing through his trials, and as Chazal said, “Be very, very humble of spirit.”¹⁰ Yet there is also a misplaced humility: when a person who must fulfill a mitzvah and serve Hashem thinks that he is not worthy to be a servant of Hashem. This is the counsel of the yetzer hara, and then he must act in the spirit of “his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem.”¹¹

6This is what happened here, with the entry into the Land. Hashem, blessed be He, commanded Bnei Yisrael to conquer the Land, as the Torah says many times, and the Ramban's well-known words count settling the Land as one of the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.¹² But the spies' humility was misplaced. By their own judgment, it seemed to them that Bnei Yisrael lacked the strength to conquer the Land. That misplaced humility was their sin, for when a person must fulfill a mitzvah of Hashem, he must cast away his own judgment and rely on the Holy One, blessed be He. This answers our question about the Targum Yonasan. Moshe Rabbeinu knew that Yehoshua bin Nun was exceedingly humble, and he feared that Yehoshua might, Heaven forbid, stumble through this misplaced humility and hold back from fulfilling Hashem's mitzvah. So he prayed for him: “May Kah save you.”

7In contrast, we find in the holy Zohar that the spies spoke ill of Eretz Yisrael because they were the princes of the tribes.¹³ They knew they would remain princes only as long as Bnei Yisrael were in the wilderness; once Bnei Yisrael came into Eretz Yisrael, the spies would lose their office. In other words, the spies insisted on serving Hashem from gadlus hadaas, a lofty, expansive state of mind, and they sensed that once they were no longer heads, they could not serve Hashem from that state. It follows that they put both humility and pride in the wrong place. On the one hand, they wanted to serve Hashem from gadlus hadaas, and this led them to slander the Land. On the other hand, their humility was out of place: at the very moment of fulfilling Hashem's mitzvah, they chose to act humbly.

8This lets us explain Rashi's two comments well, for they do not contradict each other at all. On that day the spies truly were worthy and very great men, who served Hashem, blessed be He, with great understanding. But precisely because of this they relied only on their own understanding, until it led them into misplaced humility. That is what Chazal meant: “just as their coming was with evil counsel, so too their going was with evil counsel.” They truly were worthy, holy men who had reached lofty levels, but they stumbled through evil counsel, because they insisted on serving Hashem through their own judgment and understanding. This mistake was in them from the very start, and that is why Rashi “compares their going to their coming.” This answers our first question.

9Their mistake lay in the very foundation of avodah. As we saw with the kal vachomer, one must not bring human reasoning into Hashem's mitzvos. But they used their own reasoning to say that Bnei Yisrael were weak compared with the great might of the Canaanites, and they added things that were not right, as the commentators explain. This explains what my holy father meant by “Send for yourself: according to your own judgment.” The spies needed to send away their own judgment, so as not to depend on human intellect and understanding. Had they done so, they would have served Hashem and done His will, and their misplaced humility would not have held them back.

10This also explains the Midrash's teaching that an emissary of a mitzvah must give his soul for his mission. Mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life, is achieved when a person puts aside his own reasoning and personal interests, thinking of nothing and seeking nothing but an increase in the honor of Heaven. That is “there is nothing as beloved …”: what is most beloved and greatest in avodas Hashem is fulfilling His mitzvos without depending on one's own intellect. We learn this from the episode of the spies, and this is the link between the Midrash and our parshah. It also explains why the Midrash says here that an emissary of a mitzvah overrides Shabbos. An emissary engaged in fulfilling Hashem's mitzvah must set aside his own judgment and bend his intellect to the will of Hashem, blessed be He, which he is now carrying out. That is why he overrides even Shabbos.

11From all this we must learn for ourselves that it is not good to serve Hashem by the power of our own judgment and human understanding. We must lean only on what is written in the Torah, with faith in the sages and in the way of simple faith. Chazal have said that Israel is redeemed only in the merit of faith.¹⁴ May it be His will that we reach this, and that through it we bring the redemption near, speedily. Amen.