Shelach: 5784 - The spies' misconception: "And it also flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit." Why did they mention the main point first, when they wanted to speak ill of the land?…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:02 Speaker 2 There’s a beautiful explanation of this week’s parsha, the parsha of the spies. The spies return from their mission. They come to Moshe Rabbeinu and say, “We went, we saw the land, and it is a land flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.” The question is: wasn’t their whole purpose to bring back a bad report about the land? So what do they say first? “A land flowing with milk and honey—and this is its fruit.” Look at those fruits. The very first thing they do is praise the land. But they want to speak badly of it! True, Rashi immediately explains that a lie with no element of truth in it cannot endure, and that is why they said something true. But then the order should have been reversed. First they should have brought back a bad report: there are giants there, it’s a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the other bad things. At the end, they could have said something true as well. But here, the main thing they tell Moshe, as soon as they arrive, is praise of Eretz Yisroel. How does that make sense? Their whole purpose, their whole approach, was to bring back a bad report about the land. There’s something else we need to understand. When Moshe Rabbeinu sends them, he says, “What do you need to see? Whether it is rich or poor; whether there is a tree in it or not.” What does “whether there is a tree in it or not” mean? Rashi says: “Is there a worthy person there?” The question is, how could they check whether there was a worthy person there? They didn’t know the people; they didn’t know the language. Were they going to ask the neighbors? How? What means did they have to find out whether there was a worthy person there? How could they determine that? To resolve these questions, we first need to introduce something the Gemara tells us in tractate Kesubos.

02:10 Speaker 2 Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi came to Gavla, to the marketplace there. He saw clusters of grapes as large as calves—enormous clusters of grapes. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, “Land, land, for whom are you producing these fruits? For these Arabs? For these sinners? For whom are you producing them?” At first glance, what puzzled Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi? The land’s job is to produce fruit. It doesn’t matter who lives there. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the earth and the power of growth during the Six Days of Creation, so that is its job. Why, then, does he say, “Land, land, for whom are you producing this?” That is what it does. But Eretz Yisroel is different from every other land. The fruit Eretz Yisroel produces depends on who lives there. “If you follow My statutes,” then it says, “The land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will yield their fruit.” And if, G-d forbid, “you reject My statutes,” it is exactly the opposite. It depends on who its inhabitants are and how they behave. Now we can resolve the questions we raised. Moshe Rabbeinu told them: “How will you know whether there are worthy people there? Look at the fruit of the land. If there is excellent fruit, good fruit, that means there is still a worthy person there, in whose merit you will be spared.” That was the guidance he gave them. What did the spies do when they returned? The very first thing they said to Moshe Rabbeinu was, “Look at the excellent fruit there. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey.” That was precisely their point. If there were still worthy people there, that would explain why it was a land flowing with milk and honey and why it had such excellent fruit. It was part of their argument. It was their proof that we still

04:11 Speaker 2 would not be able to go up and conquer it.

04:13 Speaker 3 Because there are worthy people there.

04:14 Speaker 2 Because there are worthy people—just look at the fruit there. That was their intention and their purpose. So when Calev and Yehoshua answered, what did they say? “The land is very, very good.” They were addressing what the spies had said. Yehoshua and Calev said: the fact that there is good fruit there now, that it is a land flowing with milk and honey—that is because “they are our bread.” It is for us. It isn’t because there are worthy people there. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to bring us into a land that isn’t desolate, and that is why He produced such fruit. It is for us. Yes? “Their protection has departed from them.” There are no longer worthy people there, no innocent people there, no people who are uninvolved. The excellent fruit is there because “they are our bread.” Therefore, we can surely go up and take possession of it. Have a good Shabbos, with Hashem’s help.

05:27 Speaker 3 [unclear]