Elevating the Physical Through Self-Sacrifice

1“They came to the valley of Eshkol and cut from there a vine branch with one cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two, and also some of the pomegranates and some of the figs.”¹ The Midrash says that the spies did not want to take any of the fruit of Eretz Yisrael. They took it only because Kalev drew his sword, went down before them and told them, “If we do not take it, either you kill me or I kill you.”² This is astonishing. Why was it so important for the spies to take some of the fruit of Eretz Yisrael that Kalev would risk his life over it?

2Let us explain the episode of the spies, beginning with a question. Why does the Torah, in several places, praise Eretz Yisrael as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” and dwell at length on its physical blessings? It is puzzling that the Torah praises only its physical side. Eretz Yisrael has a lofty holiness, and it is there, of all places, that a person can reach the holiest insights in avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. As R' Yehudah HaLevi wrote in his well-known words about Eretz Yisrael, “The air of your land is the life of souls.”³ The verse, then, should have praised the land for its spiritual qualities.

3Let us open with the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on the sin of the spies. My holy ancestor, zt"l, records in his Toldos Adam, in the name of the holy Rebbe of Vorka, zt"l, that the spies' intentions were for the sake of Heaven.⁴ My holy father explained this as follows. Every Jew has within him “a portion of God from Above.”⁵ So even when he sins, the sin does not blemish him completely, for no blemish can touch the Divine portion within him, and because of this, that holy portion can always return in teshuvah. But the spies reasoned that because the Holy Land's holiness is so great, a blemish caused there would be just as great, according to the principle of “one opposite the other.”⁶ It could damage, Heaven forbid, even this Divine portion, so that a Jew could hardly atone for or repair a sin committed there. That is what they meant by “We cannot go up”:⁷ if, Heaven forbid, we go down and cause a blemish, we will not be able to rise again and repair it, because the land is so holy. But Kalev said, “We shall surely go up,”⁸ the opposite of their claim: even in the Holy Land a person can rise again and repair the damage. Those are his holy words.

4aWe can explain the whole matter as follows. We know that there are two ways to serve Hashem. The first is the simple path of serving Him through Torah and mitzvos. There is also a higher path: to serve Him even in eating, drinking and the like, for in these too a person must serve Hashem and bring the physical into holiness. That is why, whenever Hashem praises Eretz Yisrael to Bnei Yisrael in the Torah, He describes its virtues in physical terms. He was teaching them the purpose for which the land was given: the power of its holiness is so great that through it even physical things can be elevated into holiness.

4bThe spies understood that in the Holy Land they would have to serve Hashem through physical things all the more intensely, and this frightened them greatly. They might be drawn after the physical, and then, far from elevating it, they would, Heaven forbid, fall lower. As the Midrash quoted in the Tur says, “When Israel enters the land, this one will run to his vineyard and that one will run to his field, and the Torah, what will become of it?”⁹ That is: how can a person serve Hashem through things like a field, a vineyard and an olive grove, so that these too become a kind of Torah? This lofty path filled the spies with fear.

5This explains why the spies did not want to take the fruit of the land, that is, to take it and bring it into holiness. They argued that a person must toil greatly to be privileged to bring such things into holiness, and they feared that they might cause a blemish in the attempt. This is also the point of my holy father's words. The spies reasoned that the land is so holy that even physical things can be rectified and elevated there. By the same measure, if they caused a blemish, Heaven forbid, and were drawn after the physical, there would be no way back for them, Heaven forbid.

6aBut Kalev told them otherwise. The great and wondrous holiness of Eretz Yisrael, he said, does not mean that taking care with physical things must be harder and more demanding there, to match that holiness. On the contrary, the reverse is true. For the Torah promised of Eretz Yisrael, “The eyes of Hashem your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”¹⁰ And we know from the books of Kabbalah that everywhere else in the world, the flow of blessing passes through heavenly ministers and appointed officers, through whom Hashem sends His abundance down below.¹¹ Only in Eretz Yisrael does Hashem Himself convey the flow, with no minister in between.

6bSo in Eretz Yisrael it is easier to sanctify even physical things, including the eating of its fruit. It may seem hard and far-fetched that Bnei Yisrael could be privileged to serve Hashem through the physical as well. Even so, through mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life, they would certainly be able to rectify the fruit and everything physical in Eretz Yisrael and elevate it to Hashem. That is what Kalev showed them by drawing his sword: it was a hint that through mesirus nefesh the fruit of Eretz Yisrael can be rectified.

7aThis is what Chazal meant when they said of Moshe Rabbeinu's longing to enter the land, “Did he then need to eat of its fruit, or to be sated with its goodness?”¹² The purpose of Bnei Yisrael's entry into the land is indeed to elevate and rectify everything physical through the power of Eretz Yisrael's holiness. But for Moshe Rabbeinu even the wilderness was a kind of Eretz Yisrael, and he could elevate everything to Hashem right there.

7bIt is like the well-known story about my holy ancestor, R' Shlomo Leib of Lentshna, which the Toldos Adam records here.¹³ He was once asked whether a house could be bought for him where a gentile had previously lived. He answered that wherever a Jew enters and serves Hashem, the house becomes a kind of Eretz Yisrael. We see from this that tzaddikim have the power to sanctify their homes outside the land, so that living there counts as living in Eretz Yisrael. They sanctify their place with Torah and mitzvos, in a lofty holiness like that of the Holy Land. This is what the Gemara means: Moshe Rabbeinu certainly did not need to enter the land in order to rectify and elevate its fruit and its physical side. He could do that in his own place in the wilderness, which was a kind of Eretz Yisrael. He wanted to enter only in order to fulfill the mitzvos that apply only in the Land.

8This is what my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l, meant in his Divrei Binah at the beginning of this parshah.¹⁴ The first letters of Shelach lecha anashim, “Send men for yourself,”¹⁵ form the word eshel, the initials of achilah, eating, shesiyah, drinking, and linah, lodging. That is, the spies' whole dispute was about physical things: whether in Eretz Yisrael they would be able to rectify eating, drinking and lodging and elevate them on high.

9This lets us explain the verse “Send men for yourself, and let them scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to Bnei Yisrael.”¹⁶ Notice the double wording: “the land of Canaan,” and then “which I am giving.” It is well known, after all, that the land of Canaan is the land promised to Bnei Yisrael. But the verse means that the land is a kind of “land of Canaan”: in it a person could sink, Heaven forbid, into “the practices of the land of Canaan”¹⁷ in physical matters. Hashem answered this with the words “which I am giving to Bnei Yisrael”: I am giving Bnei Yisrael the power to truly rectify everything and elevate it to its root, and the great holiness of the Holy Land will, on the contrary, help them do it. True, this requires mesirus nefesh, like the sword that Kalev hinted at. But through it they will be able to rise very high and rectify even physical things, bringing them into holiness.

10This is a lesson for us: even physical things can be rectified through mesirus nefesh. May Hashem grant that we reach mesirus nefesh in avodas Hashem. This will bring us closer to the coming of Moshiach, for through it we will be privileged to separate the good from the bad, and we know that this brings the redemption near, may it come speedily. Amen.