This week we read about the tragedy of the Meraglim: their mission to scout the land, their reports back to the nation, and the devastating fallout which resulted in an entire generation condemned to die in the desert and never get to see Eretz Yisrael.

What makes the story so disturbing is how relatable it is. On the cusp of entering Eretz Yisrael, Klal Yisrael panicked, and asked Moshe if they could send ahead spies to survey the land, to see its inhabitants and what exactly would be needed for a successful conquest. This sounds like a reasonable request. In fact, Yehoshua did the same thing before his conquest of Eretz Yisrael.

And who would go on this mission? The gedolei hador. The Nesi’im of each Shevet. This also sounds reasonable. They, of all people, would be the most free of bias and the most likely to give a good report.

This is all perfectly normal hishtadlus, the type we might engage in if we found ourselves in similar circumstances. And yet not only did it go wrong, it was quite possibly the worst mistake we’ve ever made as a nation, except perhaps the Eigel. The Nesi’im used the opportunity to slander the land. The sense of disaster was so strong that Yehoshua and Kaleiv needed special segulas to not be drawn after them. A nation was thrown into a frenzy, and an entire generation was doomed to die in the desert over a newly extended forty-year period before they would finally enter the land.

In fact, the Gemara in Sanhedrin (104b) says of that night that they returned, אמר רבה אמר ר' יוחנן אותו היום ליל תשעה באב היה, אמר להם הקב"ה אתם בכיתם בכיה של חינם, ואני קובע לכם בכיה לדורות — Rabbah said in the name of Rav Yochanan, that night was Tisha B’Av, and Hashem said, you cried for no reason; I will make this night a night of crying for generations to come. And indeed, we have many, many reasons to cry on Tisha B’Av.

What went wrong? How did the Nesi’im make the mistake that they did? And what does this Gemara mean that Hashem would make them cry over future tzaros? Hashem isn’t a vengeful, hating G-d. “Now, I’ll give them a real reason to cry” is not the type of message we would expect to receive from Hashem.

Miriam’s Lesson

The first Rashi in the parsha gives us a clue. This parsha comes off the heels of Miriam’s lashon hara to teach us that the Meraglim saw what had happened to her and should have learned from her mistake.

This, too, is problematic. The incident with Miriam was a far cry from what the Meraglim did. Miriam spoke quietly, to only her brother Aharon, about an observation she had about Moshe. Rashi says she had no intent to degrade him. She was afflicted with tzara’as as a result. The Meraglim had malicious intent, they made their reports public, and used it as a springboard to rile up the nation, so much so that the people were terrified and stayed up, sobbing, into the night. And we don’t find anyone getting tzara’as from this; instead, the Meraglim died a gruesome death and all the men were subjected to death over a forty-year period. This doesn’t seem to resemble Miriam’s aveirah at all — not in deed, and not in punishment.

The Odd Man Out

Let’s begin with a closer examination of the parsha of Miriam. Here is a pasuk-by-pasuk recap of the incident, starting from the beginning of פרק י”ב. The first and second pasuk tell us the story — Miriam spoke to Aharon about Moshe’s wife, and how he divorced her because he was a Navi. But, she asked, why is that important? We are Nevi’im too, and we are able to stay married. Third pasuk — “And Moshe was more humble than any man on earth.” Fourth through eighth — Hashem appears suddenly to Moshe, Aharon and Miriam and explains to the latter two that His connection with Moshe is such that He can appear to him on a moment’s notice, and thus it would be inappropriate for Moshe to be married. He then goes on to describe the level of Moshe’s nevuah — face to face, clearly and not couched in visions, etc. And then the pesukim go on to describe how Miriam got tzara’as, how Moshe davened for her, and so on.

The pasuk that doesn’t fit in this narrative is the third one. Why interrupt the story to tell us that Moshe was so humble? What does that have to do with anything?

True Humility

The Ramban writes on that pasuk^[1] that Moshe’s anavah was such that he would never respond to any sort of allegation made against him. He was never looking to put himself above anyone else. The Ramban even brings the opinion of Rav Nosson in the Sifrei that Miriam and Aharon spoke this in front of Moshe and he didn’t respond, and for that Hashem decided to step in.

The Ramban is giving us a profound insight into what exactly anavah is. A person who is truly humble doesn’t seek to put himself above anyone else. Why not? Because true humility is built on a person’s intimate understanding of who he is and what he stands for. A person who really knows himself, a person who has plumbed his own depths and is innately self aware, and is comfortable with everything he finds — such a person is invincible. He will never need to put himself above anyone else, or put anyone down, because he is totally okay with who he is.

So perhaps we can add to the Ramban that not only was Moshe’s anava the reason Hashem stepped in for him, but it was the antithesis of Miriam’s lashon hara. The Torah slipped this little pasuk in to tell us why Miriam felt the need to speak lashon hara in the first place: because as great as she was, she was still lacking in this one area that Moshe had perfected. Her anavah wasn’t where it could have been, and so she put Moshe down to raise herself up. Lack of humility is the true root of lashon hara.

So now that we have a better understanding of Miriam, let’s take another look at the Meraglim and see if we can glean any new insight. The Meraglim saw what happened to Miriam and didn’t take mussar. In what sense did they not have this middah of anavah?

An Unbelievable Claim

The answer lies in a pasuk in Devarim. When Moshe is recounting the story of the Meraglim to Klal Yisrael at the end of their forty-year sojourn in the desert, he makes an astonishing claim, one which does not seem to be backed by the narrative in Parshas Shelach at all: ותאמרו בשנאת ה’ אותנו הוציאנו מארץ מצרים — you (Klal Yisrael) said, it is out of Hashem’s hatred for us that he took us out of Mitzrayim. Rashi brings a Midrash that the ‘evidence’ of Hashem’s apparent hatred for Klal Yisrael was that he was taking them out of Mitzrayim, a land irrigated by the Nile River, to Eretz Yisrael, which needed to rely on rainwater.

This claim isn’t just astonishing; it’s infuriating. How could Klal Yisrael dare say Hashem hated them, and was bringing them to Eretz Yisrael just to mess them over? Did they really think Hashem promised Eretz Yisrael to Avraham Avinu just to destroy his grandchildren? If Hashem hated them, would He have broken the laws of nature for them, again and again, to take them out of Mitzrayim? Why would He have taken them out of Mitzrayim to begin with? Would a G-d who hates us have said, “I have brought you unto Me . . . and you will be my cherished ones from among the nations?” Would He have given us His Torah? And isn’t our whole foundation of emunah built on the fact that Hashem is all-powerful and cares about us? And don’t forget, this was the generation which witnessed these miracles with their own eyes. How on earth could they have come to this conclusion? It’s almost laughable at how ridiculous it sounds.

The Sifrei’s Key to Everything

Rashi brings a Sifrei to help us understand this incredibly difficult pasuk. Here are the Sifrei’s words: מְשַׁל הֶדְיוֹט אוֹמֵר מַה דִּבְלִבָּךְ עַל רְחִמָּךְ מַה דִּבְלִבֵּהּ עֲלָךְ — a simple mashal to understand this is, whatever you feel about your loved one is how he will feel about you.

What does this mean? It sounds like he’s saying that Klal Yisrael hated Hashem, and so they naturally assumed that He hated them back. But that can’t be. We have no evidence that Klal Yisrael hated Hashem. They were afraid of getting close to Him, perhaps, but they hated Him? No.

Let’s take a closer look at the Sifrei’s words. מַה דִּבְלִבָּךְ עַל רְחִמָּךְ — what you feel about yourself, you project onto your loved one, מַה דִּבְלִבֵּהּ עֲלָךְ — and that is how you think he feels about you. In other words, however you feel about yourself is how you assume others will feel about you.

Klal Yisrael’s problem was not that Hashem didn't love them; it was that they didn’t love themselves.

The Seforno says they were afraid because they had worshiped idols back in Mitzrayim. Their inability to let go of this baggage formed a perception of who they really were — a ragtag nation who was disloyal to Hashem, who didn’t deserve to leave Mitzrayim, let alone receive the Torah or go into the Promised Land. And they projected this image back onto Hashem. If this is who we really are, then there can be no way Hashem actually loves us. He must be giving us our due now, so He can take us to Eretz Yisrael and destroy us. A more depressing outlook can hardly be imagined.

Spies vs. Meraglim

And so, suspicion crept into the relationship. The Promised Land? Let’s see what’s really going on over there. Let’s see if we really want to be going. This was no spy mission for military purposes. This was to test Hashem, to see if He was, indeed, setting them up for failure or not. Contrast this story with Yehoshua’s spies, and you will find some important differences.

Here are a few that the Malbim delineates: Where did the idea for this operation come from? By Yehoshua, it was his idea; nobody else even knew it was happening. The Meraglim, however, were sent by the nation, with Moshe reluctantly okaying it. Yehoshua sent two professional spies, who could slip in and around the country unnoticed. Klal Yisrael sent twelve spies, and they weren’t spies by profession; they were gedolei hador. The miracle that Hashem performed so their presence would go unnoticed — the overabundance of people dying — was just that: so their presence would go unnoticed. There were twelve gedolei hador walking down Central Avenue, and Hashem had to make a miracle that they shouldn’t be seen, because they weren’t acting like spies.

Which brings us to the next point. This idea came from the nation. Where did the Meraglim themselves go wrong? What led them astray?

The answer is that they were the leaders of Klal Yisrael. Their job was to lead. If a poisonous attitude arose which led the nation to believe that Hashem hated them, then the Nesi’im’s job was to correct that attitude. Not to buy into the narrative. And certainly not to participate in a plan whose goal was to test Hashem and see if He was actually planning on messing them over. That was their mistake — the fact that they went at all. Once they were on board, their mission overtook them, so strongly that Yehoshua and Kaleiv needed special intervention to stay on the straight and narrow.

ראו ולא לקחו מוסר — the Meraglim saw what happened to Miriam. They saw how a lack of anavah, how a skewed sense of self, can alter a person’s perception of reality and cause them to believe that they are less than what they really are. Instead of trying to correct that misshapen viewpoint, they accepted it as reality and acted on it, and in doing so, set into motion a disastrous chain of events.

Projecting Reality

This wasn’t only about lashon hara. This went down to the core of their being. A nation who believes Hashem hates them will project that onto Hashem, which will cause them to act as if He actually does. The Gemara says in Sanhedrin (104b), אמר רבה אמר רבי יוחנן בשביל מה הקדים פ"א לעי"ן בשביל מרגלים שאמרו בפיהם מה שלא ראו בעיניהם — Rabbah said in the name of Rav Yochanan, why is it that in Megillas Eichah, while each perek is written in alphabetic acrostic, the pasuk beginning with the letter pei always precedes the one for ayin? Because of the Meraglim, who said with their mouths (peh) what they didn’t see with their eyes (ayin). The Meraglim came with preconceived notions about what the land was supposed to look like and foisted their narrative onto what they saw, twisting the events to fit with what they believed to be true.

Notably, it is also Rabbah in the name of Rav Yochanan who makes the connection to Tisha B’av above. “You cried for no reason, and now I will make this a night of tears,” said Hashem. Hashem wasn’t being vengeful. He was showing them the natural result of this attitude they held. If you continue to put your mouth before your eyes, then you will only bring about destruction and more destruction. This will be the night which marks the proliferation of a poisonous worldview, and its disastrous and far-reaching consequences. And it won’t end here. This will happen again and again.

The Tanchuma (Shlach 12) has a chilling lashon: אותו קול שבכיתם, גרם לכם ללקות בשונאים. That kol which you cried out, those tears, will be the cause of all sorts of tragedy and destruction. Your bechiah (crying) tonight was needless and avoidable; inasmuch as it isn’t rectified, it will turn into a bechiah ledoros. This problem will continue to resurface as long as this distorted view of Klal Yisrael being the ‘hated’ child of Hashem is promulgated.

So now we can understand that the source of the problem was a lack in anavah — in recognizing one’s true value. Having a warped view of self will lead one to view the world differently. One may need to put others down to raise themselves up, as Miriam did. One may come to foist that negative self-image on others, as Klal Yisrael did to Hashem. If the foundation is broken, then everything that follows is necessarily out of place as well. That is the grand and hard-learned lesson to be taken from all this.

Fringe Benefits

So what is the solution? Where do we go from here?

There are many connections between the story of the Meraglim at the beginning of the sedra and the parsha of tzitzis at the end. For example, it says the Meraglim went לתור את הארץ and it says by tzitzis ולא תתורו — don’t stray after your heart and eyes to sin.

But there’s another, perhaps more important point to make. What are tzitzis? Tassels. What is the purpose of a tassel? It has no purpose. It doesn’t function as a piece of clothing in the normal sense; it is worn on top of clothing, and it doesn’t keep its wearer warm. Its purpose is decorative; it identifies its wearer as part of an elite group. Just as graduates wear tassels to identify as members of the class, tzitzis are tassels which mark us off as part of Hashem’s ‘team’, as it were.^[2] Tzitzis are the badge which sets us apart, which we wear to show Who we belong to. We represent Hashem in this world. He trusts us to carry out His will, because He loves us. We are His בכור, His prized and beloved son.

Each time we are tempted to sin, to distort reality to fit with our desires, we are to be reminded who we are, and Who we represent. ולא תתורו  — don’t allow your desires to shape your perception of reality. Remember your true value. Look at your tassels, and remember that Hashem loves you. Let that thought permeate all your attitudes. Let your every action be built on that foundation of self-worth.

And there could hardly be a more empowering message about who we really are than that.

^[1] וטעם והאיש משה ענו מאד להגיד כי השם קנא לו בעבור ענותנותו כי הוא לא יענה על ריב לעולם אף אם ידע ור"א מפרש ואמר כי הוא לא היה מבקש גדולה על שום אדם ולא יתגאה במעלתו כלל אף כי על אחיו והם חוטאים שמדברים עליו חנם אבל בספרי (בהעלותך ק) רבי נתן אומר אף בפניו של משה דברו בו שנאמר וישמע ה' והאיש משה עניו מאד אלא שכבש משה על הדבר יזכיר ענוותנותו שסבל ולא ענם והשם קנא לו:

^[2] עיין ריטב"א בהגדה של פסח "מצויינים שם" — וכן יש גורסים מסויימים שם כלומר שהם ניכרים במלבושיהם ובענייניהם כגון ציצית בבגדיהם…

וע"ע משנה ברורה ח:כו מה שכתב שם על בנ"א המשימים הציצית במכנסים שלהם…."ואילו היה להם איזה דורון ממלך בשר ודם שחקוק עליו שם המלך כמה היה מתקשטין בו…."