Matos: 5786 - "Is the land fat or lean, is there wood in it or not." Rashi: "[This refers to] whether there is a worthy person among them who will protect them." But how could they possibly check…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:02 Speaker 2 We’ll dedicate today’s class to the complete recovery of my brother, Yaakov Meir ben Rachel. May he have a complete recovery soon.

00:11 Speaker 1 Amen.

00:13 Speaker 2 We’re at Parshas Shelach, the parsha of the spies who came to speak ill of the land, and all that resulted from it. When the spies return to Moshe Rabbeinu, what’s the first thing they tell him? They show him the fruit of the land—what kinds of fruit grow there. “A land flowing with milk and honey,” and they show him the fruit of the land. The question is: their whole purpose, as it says, “They went and they came”—even when they set out, their intention was to speak ill of the land. Yet they give the land the greatest possible praise: “A land flowing with milk and honey,” and they show them its fruit. What fruit grows there! Grapes so large that eight men have to carry them. Could there be greater praise than that? What did they mean by it? True, Rashi says that any lie that doesn’t contain some truth won’t hold up. Fine—but first they should have said, “However, the people are strong.” There are mighty people there, people of great stature. They could have slipped in something true along the way. But here, the main thing, the very first thing, is that they describe the land’s virtues. How does that fit with their coming to speak ill of the land? There’s another question. When Moshe Rabbeinu sends them, what does he ask them to find out? He tells them: “And what is the land like? Is it fertile or lean? Are there trees in it or not?” Rashi explains what “Are there trees in it or not?” means: check whether there are righteous people there whose merit they can rely on, so that we won’t be able to conquer them. The question is, how could they check whether there were righteous people there? Where would they look for them?

02:05 Speaker 1 What?

02:05 Speaker 2 Where would they look for righteous people? And how could they tell whether someone was righteous or not? How? How could they carry out that investigation? To understand these questions, the Gemara tells us that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi came to Gavla—that’s the name of a place in Eretz Yisroel. There he saw clusters of grapes that looked to him like calves—clusters of grapes! Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, “Land, land, for whom are you producing these fine fruits? For those Arabs who come upon us because of our sins? For whom are you producing such fruit?” On the face of it, why is he making a complaint against the land? Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the land so that, naturally, it produces fruit; it grows crops and fine fruit. So what is his complaint against the land? From this we learn an important principle. True, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the land to produce fruit and crops, and to produce them well. But the Holy Land is different from other lands. In the Holy Land, the fruit and crops it produces depend on the people who live on it. As the Torah says, “If you walk in My statutes and keep My mitzvos ... the land will yield its produce.” Right? Then everything will be as it should. But, G-d forbid, if they reject My statutes and don’t keep them, then that won’t happen. So in the Holy Land, in Eretz Yisroel, things are different. It depends on the people who live there, and the land produces its fruit accordingly. Now we can also understand what the spies intended when they came to Moshe. What’s the first thing they said? “A land flowing with milk and honey.” They show them—and they show Moshe Rabbeinu—the fruit of the land. Such fine fruit! What did they mean by that? Moshe Rabbeinu sent the spies

04:22 Speaker 2 because, at the Covenant Between the Parts with Avraham Avinu, Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells him in a vision, “For the sin of the Emori is not yet complete.” They hadn’t yet reached the full measure of their sin, so you couldn’t conquer the land yet. Only “the fourth generation will return here”; by then, the measure of their sin would be full. So when Moshe Rabbeinu wants to see whether we can now enter the land and conquer it, what he mainly wants to know is: “See what the land is like”—whether the people are strong or weak, whether there are trees in it or not. In other words, are there righteous people there who can protect the land? That’s what Moshe Rabbeinu chiefly wants to know, because if the Emori haven’t reached the full measure of their sin, the Jewish people won’t be able to conquer it. That’s why he tells the spies to check, and says, “Be strong and take some of the fruit of the land.” They brought fruit from the land and came to Moshe Rabbeinu. What’s the first thing they say? Look at the fruit there! They show them the fruit of the land. The land flows with milk and honey. What did they mean? If there’s fruit like that and the land flows with milk and honey, that means there must still be righteous people there. And so we won’t be able to conquer the land. This was, as it were, their strongest proof that we couldn’t conquer its people, because the measure of their sin was not yet full. The proof was that there was such fruit there—a land flowing with milk and honey. That’s why it was the main thing and the first thing they said. They didn’t say it out of love for the land; it was part of their slander. If there’s fruit like that, there must still be righteous people there. And if there are righteous people there, “the sin of the Emori is not yet complete,” so we won’t be able to conquer them. What did Yehoshua and Calev tell them?

06:15 Speaker 2 After all, on the face of it, the spies’ argument was sound. Yehoshua and Calev told them: True, this land is very, very good. But the reason it has such fruit is that “they are our bread.” It isn’t because there are righteous people there. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want to bring the Jewish people to a desolate land where they’ll have nothing to eat. So He is giving them a land full of goodness—but “they are our bread”; it’s for us. It isn’t on account of the people’s righteousness. “Their protection has departed from them.” There are no righteous people there. The whole point is for us to come to a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. That’s how Yehoshua and Calev refuted the spies’ slander. And let’s just finish with this Torah teaching from my grandfather. He always had a saying: “See the good of Jerusalem.” When someone would speak negatively about Jerusalem or Eretz Yisroel, he would say: After all, it’s written—King David says, “See the good of Jerusalem.” You have to look at the good side of Jerusalem. If someone is always looking for shortcomings, he’ll find all kinds: this problem and that problem and others. You have to look with a favorable eye. “See the good of Jerusalem.” The same applies to Eretz Yisroel. Eretz Yisroel is a very, very good land, but you can always look for shortcomings. So you have to look at the good side. And the same applies to every Jew: you have to look at every Jew and see the good in them. Have a good Shabbos, and may we hear good news.

07:52 Speaker 3 Amen.