Moshe is a week away from death. The Jews stand on the border into eretz yisrael. Before Moshe dies he begins to give the Jews tochacha (rebuke). At first he begins by just mentioning the places where the Jews did bad things but then he starts going into detail. He explains how he used to judge every court case on his own and that it began to get to hard for him to judge every case. He tells Hashem that he wants to choose judges to help him and Hashem agrees.Then Moshe explains the story of the meraglim. He says that the Jews had just left Har Sinai and they were about to enter the land. The Jews say that spies should be sent into the land to scout it out. Moshe says that he likes the idea. The only problem was that the Jews did not really want to enter the land so the entire mission was sabotaged from the beginning. The Sfat Emet (Sfas Emes...) says that the reason why Moshe added in the fact that he thought that sending the meraglim was a good idea was because that was part of his tochacha for the Jews.
I have several question: 1) Why was Moshe's decision to choose judges a tochacha for the Jews? 2) What does it mean when the Sfat Emet says that Moshe's agreement to the Jews was a tochacha? 3) How did the Jews wanting to stay out of the land mess up the mission of the meraglim?
Stay with me here there is a lot of background information for this one.
We all remember the story of Yitro. He comes to Moshe at some point and sees Moshe judging all of the people. After Moshe finishes Yitro tells him that what Moshe is doing is not good. By Moshe doing all of the court cases he is making himself weak. Therefore Moshe must assign more judges to make his job easier and will free up his time to allow him to do the more complicated cases. Yet when it comes to this week's parsha Yitro is not mentioned. Why doesn't the Torah say that it was Yitro's idea to get the judges?
If we remember back to parshat Shlach we all recall the "cute" dvar torah that I wrote (assuming we have read it) from the Daat Zekanim. The Daat Zekanim explains the words "Shlach Licha" (send for you) that the sending was for Moshe. How is the sending of the meraglim of sending for Moshe? The Daat Zekanim explains that Moshe had heard the prophecy from Eldad and Maidad and knew that he would die in the desert. By sending the meraglim the Jews would spend another 39 years travelling. Since they were not going into the land Moshe would live an extra 39 years. This is why the sending was for Moshe. Yet it is not mentioned in this week's parsha that the meraglim would be beneficial for Moshe, yet it says that he thought the sending was a great idea.
There is an idea that the reason why the mergalim spoke bad about the land was because they wanted to stay in the midbar because there they were constantly surrounded, protected, and fed by Hashem. In the desert the Jews led a more spiritual relationship and they were afraid that their entering into the land would decrease their spirituality.
Rav Chiam Volozhin in his sefer Nefesh HaChiam quotes rav Chiam Vital. He says that everything in this world has something called Chiut/Chius. This means that every thing in this world has both a physical element and a spiritual one. He explains that before someone eats food he makes a bracha. The bracha that the person says makes the food satisfy both the body and the soul. In other words, the kavannah one has when doing something makes it both a physical thing and a spiritual thing. If someone does a mitzvah but does it for the wrong reason it may not be considered a mitzvah anymore, and may actually be considered a bad thing. A person's kavannah decides if their actions are good or not. So too the opposite, someone could do something but have the greatest intentions so even though their act was bad they were rewarded for it (Such as Pinchas killing Zimri).
When Moshe retells the story of how he chose the extra judges he leaves out Yitro, why? Because Yitro's reason was not to help the Jews it was to help Moshe. When Moshe later asked Hashem if he could chose extra judges he asks because he needed help to look over the Jews, his reason was from a higher purpose, helping the Jews, not helping himself, Yitro's reason.
Now in this week's parsha when it mentions the meraglim it says that Moshe thinks it would be a great idea to send them. By having people who actually experienced the kedusha of the land all of the people would want even more to get into the land and they would be even more excited about it. His reason was not for his own life, it was not so that he could have a longer life. There was just one problem, the Jews did not really want to go into the land. Now, when Moshe sent the mergalim, which could have been an excellent boost for the Jews they were sent by the Jews to bring a bad report. This negative chuit/s effected the entire mission and led to the death of the entire generation.
By putting both of these stories in this week's parsha right next to each other we can see what great tochacha Moshe is trying to teach "Kol Yisrael", everyone, not just the Jews then but even us now, that when we do something for the right purpose then it will always work out if we have the proper intentions. But if we have the wrong intentions then everything will fail. Moshe said the story about the judges to say that he chose the judges for the right reasons. Also he pushed out of his mind the fact that the meraglim could lead to him having a longer life and instead focused on how it could be good for the Jews. The problem was that the Jews intentions were no good and we see what happened because of that.
Every year parshat Devarim is read the shabbat before Tisha B'Av. That was the very day that the meraglim brought their negative report. In a few days we will all be fasting for Tisha B'Av. We will be reading Aicha, we will be saying Kinot, and we will be sitting on the floor. All of these actions are great ways to yearn for the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash but if we are all thinking about something else then what is the point? If we all spend our day killing the time by doing other things then we are missing the whole purpose of the last three weeks. If we were to actually focus on what we lost and how we have all been in galut for almost 2000 years then it will greatly effect our Tisha B'Av. If for just one day a year on Tisha B'Av the very day that the Jews so many years ago made the mistake of doing a good thing with bad intentions let us all concentrate on what we are doing and spend the day having good kavannah for the thing we are doing. Hopefully through that we will merit to see the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash quickly in our days. "The one who mourns the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash will be merit to be happy at its construction!"
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