Shalom everyone and thank you for joining me in the study of Parashat Schlachticha. Today we would like to try to understand, perhaps maybe add another layer to already what we have in mind in terms of the story of the Meraglim, the story of the spies. One of the most famous stories in the Torah, Moses sent 12 tribes, which is definitely too many, especially when you compare it to when Joshua sent only two spies to scatter the land and to spy on the land. But this entire story has so many questions, probably more than any good answer. But today I would like to try to focus on power versus influence. So let's see what we can dig, what can we try to find out and explore from our Pasha. The Torah states that when the Miragli, when the spies came back from their 40 days mission in the land of Israel, they spoke about the land of Israel, but then after some kind of a discussion, they said the following. So they start bed-mouthing, bed-mouthing the state of Israel, the land of Israel, that they scattered. And they told the Jewish people, this land that we were sent to scatter, to look at Eretz Ochelet Yoshveah. It's a land that basically swallow, eat, kill its inhabitants. And everyone there is a giant. Everyone there is a have a very large size body. It's not for us. So basically, they badmouth the land of Israel in two ways. A, it's a land that you don't want to go there. It's going to kill you, it's going to eat you up. And then the second one is that we will not be able to really conquer it. The people there are large, they are big, they are huge, they are too controlling, they are monstrous. We will not be able to conquer the land. So one is the land itself, and B the people on it. Which, by the way, also, if they are so large in size, there is something wrong with that land. It's all extreme. So basically, the report is very, very negative. The Talmud in Suta says something very interesting. Darash Rava. Rava is an Amora, he's a rabbi in the fourth century in Babylon, and he says the following. Rava says, take a look at that verse. The land that basically eats up, swallow, kill its inhabitants. How did they come to that conclusion? So Rava says that God basically said, I don't understand them. I did it for their own good, and they interpret it and explained whatever they saw in a very negative light. And what do I mean by that? says Rava. I, says God, thought that what I did was good. Why? Which means everywhere the spies went, there was a Leviat, there was a funeral, there was a burial of someone important. So everyone went to the funeral, so no one really paid attention to the Meraglim, to the spies. So hold on for a second. Let's just try to imagine it. You have 12 people from Am Israel, from the nation of Israel, they go into this foreign land. Obviously, they are different than any other one. Any other person in that land does not look like those 12 people. So in order to create some kind of a distraction, Hashem, in a way, created a funeral every place they went. So if they went to Tel Aviv, they saw a funeral, they went to Yerushalaim, they saw a funeral, they went to Haifa, they saw a funeral. So Hashem did it purposely. So the people, the inhabitants of the land will be busy, will be engaged with something else, and they will not pay attention to those 12 spies. Vika de Amri, and some opinion says that Eyov Nachnafshe, the Atridu Koli Alma Behespeda. Maybe some people say maybe Eov Job died on that day, and the entire land was basically participated in that funeral, so no one paid attention to the spies. So whatever it is, God in a way created an environment, a situation that the spies will be able to go freely in the land without being uh pursued, without being chased, but they were able to do their job. By the way, just as a side note, we know that when Joshua 40 years later sent the two spies to Jericho and they are staying with Rachav, we know immediately that the king of Jericho is trying to investigate where they are. They are trying to find them, they are trying to catch them. And that makes sense. These 12 tribes, for 40 days, they are walking around, they are taking pictures, they are doing whatever they want, and no one asks them, who are you, where are you coming from? So that's a miracle that God created by killing some of the most important people in the land of Israel. So the people will be engaged with it. So, until now it's great. However, the spies they misinterpreted, misinterpret what they saw. Which means when they came to the land of Israel and they start walking between one city to another, they saw a funeral. They saw a funeral in Tel Aviv and in Haifa in Ramat Gan, Yerushalaim, Chevron, Tsvat, Tveria, wherever they went. So they thought, oh, every day we go to somewhere else, there is a funeral. So the conclusion is this is a land that basically kills or eat up its inhabitants. So what do we have here? This interpretation of Rava that Rava tried to suggest to us is a very interesting interpretation. It's basically something very common among people. You and I can see something, and we can come to totally different conclusions. A lot of it depends on interpretation, background, and I might even say, What do you want to see? And how do you want to see what you see? So it's true. We can imagine that if we will go to a country and everywhere we go there is a funeral, we'll say, What's going on here? There is a plague here. But at the same time, if you are a spy and you understand that you want to go as freely as you can without being asked any questions, and you see that there is a funeral everywhere you go and no one pays any attention to you, don't you need to think and to pause and to stop and to think, what's going on here? How come that everywhere we go there is a funeral, so no one pays any attention to us? But they never ask that question. The Meraglim already had in their mind something very much set in their mind, they don't want to go to the land of Israel. So everything that they see, they don't see the opportunity, they see the crisis, they see the destruction, they see the bad, the negative, they don't see that perhaps we can look at it in a different way. So hold on to that thought and let's see another another Talmudic paragraph that talks about the Meraglim. Again, Gmarayan Sota, the Babylonian Talmud tracted sota, page 34, says the following Shmonanas Ueshkolu, eight spies carried the grapes, one Ehad Nasarimon, one carried a pomegranate, the chad nasateena, and one carried a fig. So wait, there are twelve, and based on this description, only ten participated in the carrying of the fruits from the land of Israel back to the encamping of the people of Israel. So where are the other two? So the Gemara says eight had to carry the grapes, one a pomegranate, one fig, and Yeshua and Kalev did not participate in the taking of the fruits, carrying of the fruits. Why? So the Gemara suggests two options. The first, Ebait Eima, you can say, Mishundi Hashivi. Yoshua and Kalev are very important people. They are the most important spies from all the other ten, and therefore they were respected. So they were not asked to carry anything on their shoulders. Okay, that makes sense. You know, someone who is very respectful, someone who is very important, you don't ask him to carry things. Why is it that Yoshua and Kalev did not carry any fruits? What does that mean? That they were not in the same Aitzah, the same, I will really translate it as conspiracy. Look at Rashi. Rashi, the commentator on the Torah and on the Talmud, says the following. To bring such a weird, strange, unique, special grapes. Why? Here, exactly the same idea. It's almost like a copy paste from Rava, which means, just imagine. I'm sure we all saw different grapes in our lives. Small ones, large ones, tasty, less tasty. But we never saw that people need to have eight people carrying a vine or a some kind of grapes with them. It means they are very heavy, very big, large in size. So when you see fruits like that, what do you say? So the Meraglim, the spies, the other spies, they decided, you know what? We are going to say, we are going to bed-mouth the land of Israel. We are going to say it's a land that basically eats up, kills, swallows its inhabitants, and also the people there are huge. So large people, huge people, what do they eat? Large fruits. So that will be the proof to substantiate our claim that this land is a weird land. This is a strange land. This is not a land for us. This is not a land for regular people. And therefore, they took those grapes not to show the beauty of the land of Israel. Not to show that basically with one grape you can be satisfied for three hours. They wanted to take those grapes because they were so different, to show that they are so different, but not different good, but different weird, strange on the negative side. So therefore, Yeshua and Caleb, they already realize what's going on. So Joshua and Caleb say, no, no, no, no. We are not participating in it. We will not take part of something like that. We're not going to carry it with you. So you then you can use it against the land of Israel. So again, one reality, two different interpretations. Where does it come from? Why would people have such a negative kind of interpretation to something that they see? What really encouraged the spies to do something like that? I think the key to try to understand the scene, the transgression, the issue that the spies had was the following verse. We the spies share with Am Israel, we saw those giant people. They are bne anak, they are large in size, they are huge. Mina Nefilim. If you remember, in the beginning of Bereshit, we are talking about the Nefilim, the people who, like Og, the king of Bashan, who was according to the Talmud in Brachot, was like 50 Amot, which was like almost like 25 meters. Maybe it was an exaggeration, maybe not, but we are talking about really big people, Goliath, also someone in Tanakh that we know that was really tall and big and heavy. So they start to try to scare them. Okay. And so when we look up to them, we were like midgets, we were like little uh cockaroches in when we compared ourselves to those giants. Until now, it's also good. It's also fine. There is nothing negative in what they said. Basically, they report what they saw, and that's fine. Now it's true, they try to scare the people, but for now, it's not misinterpretation. Maybe many of the people in the land of Israel were giants. That's fine. But take a look at the end of the Pasuk, the end of the verse. And this is how they looked upon us. Kahagavim, grasshoppers. Now let's pause here for a second and let's ask ourselves a very simple question. Did they, the spies, talk to those people? Obviously not. We just mentioned before that everywhere they went, there was a funeral. No one paid any attention to them. So there was no, basically there was no there was no communication, some kind of a conversation between a Miragel, a spy, a Jewish spy, and any of those giants. So the fact that I feel like a grasshopper in when I compare myself to someone who is five meters tall, that's fine. But how do I know how does he or she feel towards me if they don't really see me? I never had a conversation with them. It might be that they look at me and say, oh my gosh, he's very small, he's very short, but you know, he's mighty, he's very strong. I don't know what they think. Take a look at what they say. Which means the spies already they determine for themselves and for Am Israel and for the people of Israel, how are they going to be looked upon from their enemies? This is a total defeat. There is one thing what you think, but you cannot tell me what they think without talking to them. And not only that, we know that this is a lie. How do we know that this is a lie? Because 40 years later, when Joshua sends them a raglim, the two spies, and they do talk to Rachav, who was the woman who tried to hide them, she said to them, After the splitting of the sea of Yamsuf, of the Sea of Reeds, and after Yetziat Mitzaiam, after Exodus, that was 40 years before, our hearts melted. Exactly like what we say in the Song of the Sea that we recite every day in the avenue in prayer. Which means the Torah describes it that every inhabitant in the land of Qnaan, which is the land of Israel, was terrified from Am Israel. Not even seeing them, they were terrified because they understood it's not only about Am Israel, it's about their God as well. So they their hearts melted. That's the accurate quote. So Rahav is telling that 40 years later. Here, the Mehaglim is a year and a half after Exodus. And the Mehaglim they decide for themselves and for Amisel that's not true. You know, the people of the land of Israel, they look upon us like grasshoppers, they are going just to step on us and going to kill us. This is such a mentality of defeat, it's such a mentality of basically hopelessness. And also the fact that they are giants and tall. So what? Fast forward to a different story in Tanakh when you have the giant against the let's call him just a very short, small person, Goliath versus David. And everyone is afraid from Goliath, including King Saul. He goes out there and he does his blasphemy and he cursed God, and everyone is terrified, and no one says a thing. And David Amel goes to him and he says to him, Okay, you are tall, I'm short, you are big, I'm small, you have muscles, I don't have too many. Okay, let's go. I come in the name of God. And when Goliath sees David, he says to him, Hakele vanuhi, what do you think? I'm a dog, that you come with some some rocks to shoot at me? I'm going to kill you. Meaning Goliath, in a way, is being embarrassed that David, who is not in his size and does not wear any armory, he goes and he fights against him. And then that conversation is something that we all need to know by heart. So Goliath says to him, I'm going to kill you. And David says, Anibabeshem Hashem, I come in the name of God. God is the mightier God, he's the mightiest God. For him, you can be a giant, you can be very short, you can be very strong, you can be very weak. If I come in the name of God, I'll kill you. And that's exactly what happened. And David kills Goliath. The idea of the Meraglim is that they look at things and they look at this powerful, quote-unquote, powerful people. But they had a truly misunderstanding between power and influence. Someone can look very powerful, but it does not mean, it does not mean that you cannot win him with your influence. So this is the Pasuk, in my opinion, is one of the key understanding of the entire story of the spies. They looked in a very superficial way. They didn't try, and perhaps they didn't want to, try to understand the meaning of things. And Yahushua and Kalev, they did not want to have any part of their story. Another Talmudic paragraph about the Meraglim in Sutta. Which means when they said, when they said that we were like grasshoppers, when we compared ourselves to those giants, and we tell you that's what they think about us. And also we will not be able to go to the land of Israel because. Because they are too strong for us, says Rabbi Khanina Bar Papa. At that moment, when they said that is, they are stronger than us, eino yaholyot sikam. Rhanina Barpapa suggests that the Meraglim denied God's ability to destroy the inhabitants of the land of Israel and to bring the people of Israel into the land. In a way, they basically came to some kind of a conclusion of defeat, not only a human defeat, but God forbid, even God, even God Himself. Yeah, he was very strong against the Egyptians, he was very strong against the Midianites, the Moabites, whatever. But with those people, even God will not be able to fight them. So now they are not only talking about or talking on behalf of their enemies, they come to a conclusion that even God cannot, God forbid, overcome this war and cannot destroy those people. This is how you end up when you don't want to dig deeper into the meaning of things. And this is how you end up when you have no hope and no faith and no trust in your mission. So that's what Rabbi Khanina Babapa says. Rav Mesharshaya adds something. And he says, The Miragli were liars, straight liars. Why? So Rav Mishashia says, when they claimed we were grasshoppers, when we compared ourselves to them, that I understand that's not a lie. But how did they know that those giants think like that, think like that about them? So the Gemara tried to resolve that issue by saying, no, no, no, they were not liars. So the Gemara tried to suggest, to try to find the benefit of the doubt with the Meraglim, and to say that no, no, it's not true. Because when those giants would walk back from that funeral that they attended, what we spoke about before, the Miraglim would climb on a tree, and they will hear those giants say, Oh, I think I saw like someone like looks like a human being, but it's like so small, like uh like a grasshopper. So that's how they thought that that's what they think about him. But also that it's not totally true. Because those giants never had a conversation with them. It's also all about superficiality. The giant sees some small people and they think, oh, those are grasshoppers, and the spies think, ah, that's exactly what they think about us. At the end of the day, it's all misinterpretation that comes from, especially from the spies' perspective, lack of faith and lack of understanding. The Sfono, Abovadia Sfono, 16th century in Italy, says, meaning he is also bothered with what we are trying to understand. How can they say that that what those giants thought about us? So he says, They thought about us like great supper, so even less than that. Why? This is an incredible insight. Basically, the Meraglim, and this is their entire misinterpretation of their entire mission. There are funerals, so no one will pay attention to them. So they think what? They come to a conclusion, this is a land that kills its inhabitants. Okay, one mistake. B, the fruits are huge. Oh, that's also terrible. Why? Because strange fruits, strange people. Second, third, they look at what was their experience for 40 days in the land of Israel, and they said, no one bothered us. No one talked to us, no one tried to find us, capture us, question us. You know why? They saw us. Definitely they saw us. But they looked at us and they start mocking us, which means we are not going even to bother talking to them or try to fight them because we're going to kill them like that. They didn't even take us into consideration. Let's pause here. How small can they be? What kind of an exile mentality it is. These twelve spies, I will say ten because Yeshua and Kalev were not really part of it, were heads of tribes. People that were supposed to be leaders, people that were supposed to create and shape a vision, people who were supposed to encourage the people, to entice them, to make them think, dream about the entry to the land of Israel and created a nation in the land that was given to us by God. And look at them. There are everything besides being leaders. No vision, no self-confidence, no understanding of reality, no attempt to even try to understand the meaning, the messages of God. And definitely no will or desire to fight for what is theirs. How can you think about yourself to be so small that no one cares about you? It's not about even self-esteem, it's about the entire understanding of who they are. And they failed. Totally failed. Says the Natsiv. So he focused on the first part that we thought when we compared ourselves to those giants, we were like grasshoppers. Our heart basically fell. Whose heart? The spies. And when you don't have your heart with you in a war, when you become terrified and afraid and fearful, you will not be able to win. We all know that when there is a war, there is a special priest who comes along and he says, Kolayarevera, and let's leave alone the interpretation of Khazal of our sages. But basically, if you are fearful, go home. And why? Because you will not be able to fight, and also you will influence others. You need to understand when you go to war, says the Naziv, it's not only about the power, about the strength, it's about the faith, it's about the emuna, it's about the commitment to the mission, it's about the passion, the dedication, the understanding that you have goals to accomplish, and the belief that God goes with you. But if you go without your heart, says the Naziv, you will be like a grasshopper. Rafsalovechik says the following The scouts, the Meraglim, sent by Moshe to solve the Holy Land, summed up their this pretendence in the words in our eyes. We seemed like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes. Such feelings of inferiority, God decided, could not inspire the initiative and confidence required to succeed in the conquest of the Holy Land. Both Yoshua and Caleph, Joshua and Caleb equally defied that doubt of their colleagues and declared that the people could conquer the land. However, a close look at the world showed a subtle difference between them. These differences reflect an essential distinction in the way Joshua and Caleb resisted the influence of their colleagues. Joshua received inspiration from Moses, who said a prayer for him. Caleb, on the other hand, sought inspiration on his own. While in Canaan he prayed at the graves of the Avot in Chavon, our forefathers in Chon, Joshua's resilience was a gift while Caleb was self-made. And I want to discuss that issue. When you look, and that may be a little bit of homework for all of us, look how Joshua and Caleb react to the claims of the claim of the other spies. Caleb goes up and says, Lo, kiahol nukalah, don't talk like that. We definitely can overcome it, we can conquer it, and we can do it without even mentioning God. Only later on, when he joins Joshua, he says, God will help us. Now, what does Joshua do? Nothing at the beginning. He fell on his face, he davens, whatever. Says Rav Salovechik and says the Rebbe Milubavich, which is interesting. The Rebbe Milubavich says, Rav Salovechik talks first about what? Raf Salovechik talks first about what the idea of being so down on yourself, being so inferior to those who you think they are superior, and that was their mistake. Rebbe Milubavich suggests a different thing, an additional thing. He says, look at the reaction. Yeshua was able to resist those spies only because Moshe prayed for him. Caleb had a ruach, a new spirit, a different spirit. He looked at the situation and says, Yes, there are giants there. But we can overcome them. We can do it. We can do it because we go back to the land that was promised to us. And we can do it because God will help us. God told us to go here. So God will help us. So both. We have the power, and we, God will help us. Caleb represents a new understanding. The understanding that it's not only about our might, but it's also our might. God expects us to do something in order to initiate something. In order for Him to help us. We need to do something about it. And as such, says Kalev, Yahol Nuhala, we need to believe that we can overcome them. I think that we can learn so much from that story of the spies. It's not only about the power, it might be the influence, the spirit, the hope, the trust that you have in God and in yourself. Don't look at yourself as a grasshopper and don't think that others look upon you as a grasshopper. That's what also what Shmuel says to Shaulim, Katona Tabe Israelata. When King Saul tried to justify his mistakes, Shmuel basically cut him off and says, don't. Don't be that humble. You are a leader. You need to lead. We, the nation of Israel, were chosen. We were chosen to be leaders. We should never look upon ourselves as grasshoppers. And definitely do not determine what others think about us. We might be small, but we are very mighty. We are a small nation, but we are leaders. And as leaders, we need to lead. Shabbat shalom.