These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly portion: #1385 – Techeiles Today-Why Not? Good Shabbos!

I would like to share two Medrashim from Parshas Shelach. The first is in Medrash Rabbah Parsha 16 Siman 3. The Medrash quotes the pasuk “Grass withers and blossom fades, but the word of our G-d shall stand forever.” (Yeshaya 40:8). Then the Medrash, as it often does, asks, to what may the matter be compared?

The Medrash cites a mashal (parable) of a king who had a friend. The king promised his friend: “Walk with me and I will then give you a big present.” The friend of the king began to accompany him, but the friend then died. The king said to the surviving son of this friend: “Even though your father died (and therefore, strictly speaking, I don’t need to give you the present that I promised him), I am still going to give you the present. Come and take it, because I am a man of my word.”

The Medrash says: So too, with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The king in the mashal is Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the friend is Avraham Avinu (as it is written “the seed of Avraham my friend” (ohavi))” (Yeshaya 41:8). Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Avraham Avinu “Walk with Me” – as it is written “Lech Lecha (Go forth) from your land, from your birthplace, from the house of your father to the Land that I will show you” (Bereshis 12:1). He promised to give Avraham a present – Eretz Yisrael.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe that even though Avraham Avinu (and the other Avos) to whom I promised Eretz Yisrael already died, I am not retracting My promise. I will keep My promise (and give Eretz Yisrael to their descendants). That is the message of the above cited Medrash.

The analogy of the Medrash is somewhat problematic. When the king told his friend, “I am going to give you a present,” he specifically promised to give the present to his friend. He didn’t say anything about the children. However, Hashem promised Eretz Yisrael to the children of the Avos: “Lecha et-ne-na u’l’zarecha” – I will give it to you and to your children! Eretz Yisrael was promised to the descendants of Avraham Avinu, so there is no comparison to the mashal of the Medrash.

The Avnei Nezer (1838-1910) (the Socachover Rebbe) interprets this Medrash. He says that the meraglim (spies) represented a sea change in the attitude of Klal Yisrael. From the time of Yetzias Mitzrayim until now, there was one constant in Klal Yisrael: They asked no kashas. They had no questions on the Ribono shel Olam. They followed with blind faith. They trusted the Ribono shel Olam one hundred per cent.

This, in fact, was an emulation of the attribute of Avraham Avinu. When Avraham was told “Lech lecha m’artzecha, u’mi’moladetecha, u’mi’beis avicha,” he didn’t ask where he should go, he didn’t ask how long the trip was going to take and he didn’t ask how he should travel. He went with full faith in the Ribono shel Olam.

This blind faith was put into practice for Avraham and all his descendants until Parshas Shelach. However, when the people were on the outskirts of Eretz Yisrael and sensed that the time of entry into the land was upon them, they adopted a different attitude. “That is not how you conquer a country!” They insisted that the proper way to conquer a country is to first spy out the land.

This marked a sea change. They determined that their journey forward would have to be “normal” – al pi derecho hateva. From this point on, there was a lack of full faith and trust in the Ribono shel Olam. Therefore, in that sense, they were no longer the spiritual descendants of Avraham Avinu. The hallmark of the descendants of Avraham Avinu is “Lechtech Acharei bamidbar b’eretz lo zeruah” (you followed after Me in the Wilderness in an unsown land) (Yirmiyahu 2:2). No questions asked. When the Ribono shel Olam says “Jump,” you say “How high?”

So even though now they were no longer spiritually included in the promise “I will give Eretz Yisrael to you and your descendants,” nevertheless the Ribono shel Olam said, “I will give you Eretz Yisrael anyway.” That is the point of the Medrash. Just like in the mashal where the king said “I will give it to the son despite the fact that the father is no longer here,” so too, despite the fact that through their current actions and attitudes, Bnei Yisrael could not still claim to be true spiritual heirs of Avraham Avinu, nevertheless, the Ribono shel Olam still gave them Eretz Yisrael.

* * * * *

The other Medrash I would like to share is the Medrash found in Shelach 16 Siman 4. The Medrash refers to the pasuk “Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so too is a lazy one to those who send him.” (Mishlei 10:26) This means that just like everyone hates the taste of vinegar, so too the meraglim, who spoke lashon hara about Eretz Yisrael are hated. The Medrash critiques the meraglim as being lazy in fulfillment of their mission to spy out Eretz Yisrael.

Without this Medrash, we might have said plenty of negative things about the meraglim, but laziness is probably not one of them. They traveled throughout Eretz Yisrael from border to border over a forty-day period. Why does the Medrash call them lazy?

I saw an interpretation in the name of Rav Shraga Grossbard (who was niftar in 1993 in Eretz Yisrael). He said that there are two types of laziness. There is physical laziness and there is mental laziness. Physical laziness is when someone does not get out of bed and does not do what he is supposed to do. He procrastinates, etc. However, there is also mental laziness, where someone does not pause to think and contemplate what is really happening.

Rav Grossbard said that the Medrash here is referring to mental laziness. The meraglim were guilty of this resistance to thinking. When they entered Eretz Yisrael and noticed the abundance of burials taking place, they claimed, “It is a land that consumes its inhabitants.” They could have noticed that their identity as spies was not being discovered because everyone was busy with funerals. However, they came to the opposite conclusion, saying “It is a land that consumes its inhabitants.”

I live half a mile from Sol Levenson and Brothers (the Jewish funeral parlor in Baltimore). They have their share of funerals, but they don’t have them around the clock every single day. There are days when no funerals take place.

Does it make any sense that the whole country is burying people every day without there being some kind of plague? How do they look at this? If they take the superficial route, it must be a land that kills its inhabitants. But if they analyze it a bit more and delve into the matter, maybe Hashem is doing them a favor. Maybe He is keeping the populace preoccupied so that they don’t notice the meraglim spying out the land from border to border. However, to arrive at this second conclusion, a person needs to think a bit. The Medrash is saying that they were lazy concerning such level of analysis by not probing what was really happening.

Why were they lazy? To answer this, we must cite the famous Zohar that the reason they didn’t want to probe was because, in a certain way, they did not want to go into Eretz Yisrael. They knew they would lose their positions of honor if they went into Eretz Yisrael, and therefore they were blinded by that knowledge. They saw what they wanted to see, and they believed what they wanted to believe. That colored their perspective. That is why they were “lazy in thought process.” They wanted to come back with a report that said, “This is not for us.”

We know from life that people do this all the time. They know what they want to know and they see what they want to see. In this connection, I found another Medrash in Parshas Toldos. The Medrash speaks of a country that was drafting an army for the king. A prerequisite for this army was that recruits had to be tall and strong and swift.

There was a certain woman who had a son who was a midget. She used to call her child “my swift tall child.” She asked the king’s officers “Why did you not draft my son? After all he is tall and swift!” They said to her, “Maybe in your eyes he is tall and swift, but in our eyes, he is a dwarf amongst dwarves.”

When a child is four feet five inches tall, how can a mother, who knows that the requirement for the army is being six feet-five-inches tall, ask, “Why aren’t you drafting my son – he is tall and swift?!”

How does this happen? This is an extreme example of a person seeing what he wants to see. That is what happened to the meraglim. It is in that sense that the Medrash calls them lazy. They were lazy in that they did not delve and they did not probe. They did not look at the situation and declare, “This does not make any sense. What does it mean?” They were blinded by the greatest blindness there is – the ability to only see what they want to see and not to see what is really there.

Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]

Edited by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]

This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas Sh’lach is provided below:

• 016 Mixed Seating at Weddings
• 061 – The Minyan: Who Counts?
• 105 – Tallis: Does it Cover Only Married Men?
• 150 – Tzitzis: Must They Be Worn?
• 197 – Carrying Medicine on Shabbos
• 243 – The Concept of Prison in Jewish Law
• 287 – Women and Tzitzis
• 333 – Techeiles Today
• 377 – Tzitzis: Must They Be Seen?
• 421 – The Issur of Histaklus
• 465 – Donning a Tallis for The Amud
• 509 – Ain Ma’averin Al Hamitzvos
• 553 – Women and Tzitzis Revisited
• 597 – Davening at the Graves of Tzadikim
• 641 – K’rias Shema and K’eil Melech Ne’eman
• 685 – Art Museums
• 729 – Making Tzitzis
• 773 – Kavanah When Wearing Tzitzis
• 817 – Davening for a Rasha to Change – Does It Work?
• 861 – Do We Knead Challah in America?
• 905 – The Tallis Over Your Head
• 949 – The Shul’s Tallis−Bracha or No Bracha?
• 992 – Your Talis Katan: Is it Big Enough?
• 1036 – Our Tallis – Should It Be Beautiful? Is It Really Chayav in Tzitzis?
• 1080 – Doing An Aveira for the Best Reasons?
• 1123 – Taking Off Your Tallis – Must You Make A New Bracha?
• 1165 – Tallis Falling off During Davening / Cleaning Glasses With Your Tallis?
• 1208 – Going to Daven at a Cemetery – Not As Simple As You Think.
• 1253 – Carrying Nitroglycerin on Shabbos for Heart Patient / Candy for Diabetic? Mutar or Asur
• 1297 – Oh Oh Some-one Took My Tallis by Accident and Left His; Can I Use His Tallis
• 1341 – A Beautiful Talis: Is That Called Hidur Mitzvah and Other Talis Issues
• 1385 – Techeiles Today-Why Not?
• 1429 – Must You Wear Tzitzis When Exercising or Playing Sports?
• 1473 – Must You Check the Tzitzis of Your Talis Every Morning?
• 1517 – Should You Wear a Wool Talis Katan in the Summer?
• 1559 – A Silver Atara for Your Talis: Is It a Good Idea?
• 1601 – Visiting a Cemetery to Daven – Not As Simple As You May Think

A complete catalogue can be ordered from the Yad Yechiel Institute, PO Box 511, Owings Mills MD 21117-0511. Call (410) 358-0416 or e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.yadyechiel.org/ for further information.