The Spies' Counsel: Humility in the Wrong Place

1“And they brought back word to them and to the entire congregation, and they showed them the fruit of the land.”¹ The Ramban asks why the sin of the spies was so grave.² After all, they had to answer the questions Moshe put to them when he sent them: “And see the land, what it is, and the people who dwell in it, whether it is strong or weak …”³ So what was their offense, what their sin, when they told him, “However, the people are powerful … and the cities are fortified and great”?⁴ What they said was true. Had Moshe sent them in order to bear false witness? Nor can we say that their sin lay only in calling it “a land that devours its inhabitants,” for Kalev had already quarreled with them before they said that.⁵ What is more, Moshe Rabbeinu himself went further than they did in describing the might of the land's inhabitants, when he said in the Book of Devarim, “nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens …”⁶

2On the verse “And Moshe called Hoshea son of Nun ‘Yehoshua,’”⁷ Chazal expound: “He prayed for mercy on his behalf: May Kah save you from the counsel of the spies.”⁸ The Divrei Binah asks why Chazal chose the expression “the counsel of the spies.”⁹ The spies sinned by spreading an evil report and by lashon hara, evil speech. So Chazal should have said “the slander of the spies” or “the sin of the spies.” Why did they say “counsel”?

3We will explain this following what my holy father and teacher, zt"l, taught about the spies. My holy ancestor writes in his Toldos Adam that the spies' intentions were for the sake of Heaven.¹⁰ My holy father explained that even a Jew who stands on a low level must know that in a single moment he can cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He, if he truly returns to Him. But the spies reasoned that because the land is so holy, one who sins in Eretz Yisrael, Heaven forbid, cannot return in teshuvah. That is what they meant by “We cannot go up.”¹¹ But Yehoshua and Kalev said, “We shall surely go up”:¹² always and in every place Hashem accepts our teshuvah, as we say in the Ne'ilah prayer at the close of Yom Kippur, “You extend a hand to transgressors.” This is how the episode of the spies is to be understood in terms of avodah. Those are his holy words.

4We can explain this more fully. Chazal teach that Eretz Yisrael has an intrinsic holiness, like a mitzvah object. The influence of its holiness is so great that the Gemara says, “Whoever dwells in Eretz Yisrael lives without sin.”¹³ The Pnei Yehoshua explains that the holiness of the land moves a sinner to regret his deeds at once, because the land cannot bear sinners.¹⁴ So whoever lives there is without sin, for he is bound to do teshuvah. But “the Torah did not speak of the dead”:¹⁵ this does not apply to one who, Heaven forbid, sins brazenly and treats the holiness of the land with contempt in order to follow his yetzer hara. In his case, Heaven forbid, the verse is fulfilled, “And the land vomited out its inhabitants.”¹⁶

5aSo it is no wonder that, as the Gemara relates, R' Abba would kiss the rocks of Akko, and R' Chiya bar Gamda would roll in the dust of the land, as the verse says, “For Your servants have cherished her stones and favored her dust.”¹⁷ This follows what the holy sefarim explain about the verse “And Yaakov kissed Rachel.”¹⁸ At first glance, even the most frivolous of people would not have kissed her like that! They explain that just as one kisses tefillin, tzitzis and every other mitzvah object,¹⁹ so Rachel was, in Yaakov's eyes, only an object of the mitzvah of marriage; he saw no difference between her and any other mitzvah object. It is the same with the dust and stones of Eretz Yisrael: they are holy like a mitzvah object, and that is why R' Abba would kiss the rocks of Eretz Yisrael.

5bWe find the same idea in halachah. The Ateres Zekeinim cites the sefer Yesh Sachar as saying that the obligation to wrap oneself in a garment for Birkas HaMazon, the Grace after Meals, applies only in Eretz Yisrael, out of honor for the Shechinah.²⁰ We see that the land is so holy that the Shechinah rests on all of it, and that is why one must wrap oneself. This is also the meaning of what the Torah says of the mitzvah of Shevi'is, the Sabbatical year, “And the land shall rest a Sabbath for Hashem”:²¹ the land itself is a kind of Shabbos, for Eretz Yisrael has holiness in its very essence.

6aIt was the great holiness of Eretz Yisrael that frightened the spies. They reasoned that because the land is so holy, they would not be able to return in teshuvah there, and they were very worried that even a trace of sin might blemish this wondrous holiness. This explains why Chazal speak of “the counsel of the spies,” and not “the sin of the spies” or “the slander of the spies.” The essence and root of their sin lay earlier, before they spread their evil report about the land: they made so much of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael that they said they were not worthy to enter it.

6bThat is “the counsel of the spies,” for the word eitzah, “counsel,” means a path and an approach. [So the Radak writes in his Sefer HaShorashim, explaining this word: “Eitzah means thinking out schemes, so that one does not turn this way and that, and his heart is set only on the thing he is thinking about.”²²] Their whole sin hinged on this approach. When they saw how great the land's holiness was, they practiced a flawed humility, imagined that they were not worthy of it, and so held back from doing the will of Hashem. But the truth is otherwise, for the Holy One, blessed be He, accepts teshuvah in every place and at every time. Even if they foresaw that they might blemish, as it were, the great holiness of Eretz Yisrael, they should have relied on Hashem: if they did cause a blemish, He would surely accept their teshuvah. They should not have held back from doing His will.

7This clearly explains the words of Targum Yonasan: “When Moshe saw the humility of Yehoshua …”²³ Moshe saw how great Yehoshua's humility was, and he feared that Yehoshua might use this middah, this character trait, even where it does not belong. Yehoshua might reason as the spies did: “we cannot go up,” and if we cause any blemish in the land, we will not be able to repair it. When he saw the great holiness of Eretz Yisrael, he might stumble, Heaven forbid, and lean toward their view. But in such a situation a person must set aside the middah of humility and do the will of Hashem as he has been commanded. He must rely on Hashem, confident that his deeds will surely find favor before Him, and not let a flawed humility leave him dispirited. For this flawed humility is the “deep pit”²⁴ that in the end became the counsel of the spies. That is why Moshe prayed, asking for mercy on Yehoshua's behalf, that he not stumble on this mission.

8This also lets us understand the words of the holy Zohar: the spies took evil counsel for themselves, reasoning that if Bnei Yisrael entered the land, the spies would no longer be the leaders.²⁵ We may say that this does not mean they acted out of arrogance; on the contrary, they acted out of deep brokenness of heart. The holiness of Eretz Yisrael is so great that they feared they would not be privileged to stand on the level it calls for. If they fell even a little from their level, they would no longer be able to repair it, because the place is so holy. And so they would not be fit to be the kind of heads and princes of Israel that the land's great holiness requires.

9From here, indeed, we see how very much the holiness of Eretz Yisrael demands of us. Tosafos, the classic commentators on the Gemara, cite the view of Rabbeinu Chaim Kohen and others, who were afraid to live in Eretz Yisrael in our times for this very reason.²⁶ And tzaddikim taught that here in Eretz Yisrael a person must keep rising from level to level in avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. May Hashem grant that we be privileged to reach this, and that the verse be fulfilled in us, “And it shall be that whoever remains in Zion and whoever is left in Yerushalayim will be called holy.”²⁷ May we be privileged to see the coming of the Redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.