Why the Meraglim Spoke Lashon ha-Ra Against Eretz Yisrael
Lashon ha-ra can be prompted by many things: anger, jealousy, insecurity, revenge, mockery, social bonding, moral outrage, fear, control, self-defense, or even a desire to be seen as insightful. But beneath many of these motives lies one common strategy: the attempt to establish the self by diminishing another. The speaker senses that someone else's success, dignity, goodness, or even presence exposes something he does not want to face. So he uses speech to rearrange reality. He lowers the other person in order to feel safer, higher, clearer, more justified, or less challenged. Lashon ha-ra begins when reality threatens the false self. The speaker is not merely attacking another person. He is attacking the mirror that person has become.
When we understand lashon ha-ra this way, we can suggest that there are two deeper roots for lashon ha-ra: arrogance and a lack of emunah. Arrogance is the self refusing to be judged by Hashem's reality, while the lack of emunah is the self refusing to trust Hashem's reality. Arrogance says, "I am above reality." The lack of emunah says, "I do not trust the reality that Hashem is giving me." The root that unites them both is the refusal to accept Hashem's version of reality.
This being the case, why would anyone feel the urge to speak lashon ha-ra against a piece of real estate? To put it more sharply, the Arizal explains (Sha'ar ha-Pesukim, Shemot 1) that the souls of the meraglim were very high – higher than Eretz Yisrael. In the language of Kabbalah, they were from the aspect of 'Leah' whereas Eretz Yisrael is from the aspect of 'Rachel'. Therefore, why would they feel the urge to speak lashon ha-ra not only against an inanimate parcel of land, but against a land that was at a lower spiritual level than they were? In other words, why would they feel threatened by something beneath them to such an extent that they spoke lashon ha-ra against the land (Bemidbar 13:32)?
R' Nachman of Breslov teaches (Likutei Moharan 7:1): וְעִקַּר אֱמוּנָה, בְּחִינַת תְּפִלָּה, בְּחִינַת נִסִּים, אֵינוֹ אֶלָּא בְּאֶרֶץ־יִשְׂרָאֵל, כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב (תהילים ל״ז:ג׳): שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה (And the essence of emunah, which is the aspect of tefillah, which is the aspect of miracles, is only in Eretz Yisrael, like it is written [Tehillim 37:3]: Dwell in the land and cultivate emunah). Therefore, when we speak of Eretz Yisrael we are speaking of emunah because Eretz Yisrael is an aspect of emunah. This is what we meant above when we said that Eretz Yisrael is an aspect of 'Rachel'. But when we say that the meraglim were of the aspect of 'Leah', we are not speaking about emunah, but about seichel – spiritual intelligence and intellect. And what's the relationship between seichel– chochmah, binah, and da'at – and emunah? R' Nachman tells us (Sichot ha-Ran 32): כִּי בֶּאֱמֶת חָכְמָה דִּקְדֻשָּׁה הוּא לְמַעְלָה מֵאֱמוּנָה (For in truth, holy chochmah is higher than emunah). And the same can be said of binah and da'at as well. Seichel is above emunah. Therefore, when the Arizal said that Eretz Yisrael was beneath them, he didn't mean that Eretz Yisrael was spiritually worthless to them. Not at all. He meant that emunah is on a lower spiritual rung than da'at. In his framework, emunah is rooted in malchut, the lowest of the ten sefirot – called the final or lowest level [מַדְרֵגָה אַחֲרוֹנָה, madregah acharonah] – as one descends from the seichel – whereas, as we have just seen, da'at is rooted in the mochin, which is well above malchut.
But emunah is not merely an inner feeling or a private state of belief. It is the point where the highest da'at descends into action, and therefore it is the root of the mitzvot themselves. R' Natan of Nemirov, the main talmid of R' Nachman of Breslov, explains in Hilchot Nedarim 4 that the purpose of creation is for man to connect the lower worlds with the upper worlds. He does this by serving Hashem according to the mitzvot prescribed by the Torah. And the mitzvot are all rooted in emunah as stated by David ha-Melech (Tehillim 119:86): כָּל־מִצְוֺתֶיךָ אֱמוּנָה שֶׁקֶר רְדָפוּנִי עָזְרֵנִי׃ (All of Your mitzvot are emunah. They pursued me falsely. Help me!) This principle can be expressed either negatively or positively, but both are actually worth focusing on. Emunah is required to properly fulfill the mitzvot, and without it, it is impossible to fulfill the mitzvot. Two sides of the same coin. Now if one is at the higher level of da'at and the mitzvot are at the lower level of emunah, what must one do to fulfill the mitzvot, especially the very physical mitzvot that are incumbent upon a Jew in Eretz Yisrael, such as challah, terumah, ma'aser, shemittah, orlah, bikkurim, etc? He must descend to the lower level of emunah, meaning that he must leave the place where he thinks he knows and enter the place where he serves Hashem from the humility of having learned that he does not really know at all.
Now we begin to see the challenge. The meraglim thought that they had already risen above and beyond all that. They learned Torah; they had tremendous da'at – but to get one's hands dirty in the performance of the mitzvot themselves rather than just in their learning? That was something they weren't interested in doing. But the Mishnah teaches us (Pirkei Avot 1:17): וְלֹא הַמִּדְרָשׁ עִקָּר אֶלָּא הַמַּעֲשֶׂה (The study is not the essence, rather, the action).
But there was another problem, as R' Natan explains (Likutei Halachot, Hilchot Nedarim 4:12): כִּי זֶה עִקַּר הַשְּׁלֵמוּת וְזֶה עִקַּר הַשַּׁעֲשׁוּעִים שֶׁל ה' יִתְבָּרַךְ כְּשֶׁמִּתְחַבֵּר וּמִתְקַשֵּׁר הָעוֹלָם הַתַּחְתּוֹן עוֹלַם הָעֲשִׂיָּה הַמְּגֻשָּׁם, בָּעוֹלָמוֹת הָעֶלְיוֹנִים הָרוּחָנִיִּים וְהַזַּכִּים מְאֹד … כִּי זֶהוּ רְצוֹנוֹ יִתְבָּרַךְ וּבִשְׁבִיל זֶה בָּרָא כָּל הַבְּרִיאָה מֵרֹאשׁ וְעַד סוֹף הַכֹּל בִּשְׁבִיל הָאָדָם הַבַּעַל בְּחִירָה שֶׁהוּא בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה הַגַּשְׁמִי, שֶׁעִקַּר עֲבוֹדָתוֹ לְקַשֵּׁר תַּחְתּוֹנִים בְּעֶלְיוֹנִים שֶׁזֶּה עִקַּר תַּעֲנוּגָיו וְשַׁעֲשׁוּעָיו יִתְבָּרַךְ (For this is the essence of perfection, and this is the essence of the delight of Hashem, may He be blessed, when the lower world, the physical world of Asiyah, is joined and connected to the upper, spiritual and exceedingly pure worlds … for this is His will, may He be blessed, and for this He created all of creation from beginning to end, for the sake of man, the being of free choice, who is in this physical world, whose essential avodah is to connect the lower [worlds] with the upper [worlds] – for this is the essence of His delight and pleasure, may He be blessed).
What's the problem? The problem is a matter of emunah. In the words of R' Natan there: וְאֵיךְ שַׁיָּךְ שֶׁהוּא יִתְבָּרַךְ יְקַבֵּל תַּעֲנוּג וְשַׁעֲשׁוּעַ מִמַּעֲשֵׂה הַתַּחְתּוֹנִים (And how is it possible that He, may He be blessed, should receive pleasure and delight from the deeds of those in the lower worlds?) The question is not whether Hashem receives great joy from us doing the mitzvot to bind the upper and lower worlds together, but rather why would He take any interest in such a lowly creature in the first place? And in particular, this was the exact kitrug levied by the malachim against Hashem from the very beginning when He shared His desire to create man – as immortalized by David ha-Melech in Tehillim 8:5: מָה־אֱנוֹשׁ כִּי־תִזְכְּרֶנּוּ וּבֶן־אָדָם כִּי תִפְקְדֶנּוּ (What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?) The Gemara in Sanhedrin 38b states explicitly that these words were said by the malachim when Hashem told them that He was going to create man, and the Zohar ha-Kadosh adds that they knew that man would sin (Bereshit 25a): אִנּוּן בָּעוּ לְקַטְרְגָא לֵיהּ וְאָמְרוּ (תהלים ח':ה') מָה אֱנוֹשׁ כִּי תִזְכְּרֶנּוּ וְגו' דְּעֲתִיד לְמֶחְטֵי קַמָּךְ (They wanted to accuse Him, and they said [Tehillim 8:5], "What is man that you are mindful of him, etc." because in the future, he will sin before You).
The malachim couldn't believe that Hashem would desire man, especially knowing that man would sin. The whole idea seemed completely preposterous to them. Their argument was simple: how can lowly, physical man matter so much? They saw man's lowliness as a reason he could not give Hashem pleasure, but the truth was that man's lowliness is precisely what makes this avodah to connect the lower and upper worlds possible, something that is inherently impossible for the malachim to accomplish.
But what does this have to do with the meraglim? R' Natan shares an amazing chiddush (Hilchot Nedarim 4:17): וְזֶה שֶׁאָמְרוּ הַמְּרַגְּלִים [במדבר י"ג:ל"ג]: וְשָׁם רָאִינוּ אֶת הַנְּפִילִים וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם. הַיְנוּ שֶׁהִתְלַבֵּשׁ בָּהֶם קִטְרוּג הַמַּלְאָכִים שֶׁאָמְרוּ מָה אֱנוֹשׁ וְכוּ' שֶׁמִּשָּׁם עִקַּר הַיֵּצֶר הָרָע (And this that the meraglim said [Bemidbar 13:33], 'And there, we saw the nefilim, and we were in our eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes', that the kitrug of the malachim clothed itself in them, who said, 'What is man, etc.' – and from there comes the essence of the Yetzer ha-Ra). In other words, the meraglim were not intimidated by the gigantic size of the nefilim. Rather, they were shaken because the nefilim embodied the old kitrug of their angelic ancestors – that man is too low, too physical, and too unstable to carry the mission of Hashem into the world: "What is man that You are mindful of him?" And that is why they said, "We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes." They began to see themselves in the same way their accusers saw them: as grasshoppers, insignificant creatures with no eternal meaning. They stopped believing that lowly human beings, living in the physical world, could give Hashem deep pleasure by raising that world back to Him.
That was the root of their failure. Eretz Yisrael demanded descent into the world of emunah – land, mitzvot, and physical kedushah. But then they looked at their lowliness and heard the old question: What is man? What can such a creature possibly give to Hashem? But R' Natan says that is exactly man's greatness – living in the lowest world, struggling inside physical reality, and raising that reality back to Hashem. Not that man is a malach – not at all – but that he stands in the lowest world and can still connect it to the highest worlds. That is what the meraglim forgot.
So the meraglim committed a twofold sin. First, they didn't want to be mevatel their da'at and descend into the world of malchut where one must rely on emunah rather than one's own understanding. This was the arrogance of da'at that refuses to lower itself before the will of Hashem. Second, they accepted the kitrug of the malachim who reasoned in their own da'at that Hashem could not possibly derive pleasure and satisfaction from the physical mitzvot of man. This was the deficiency of emunah, the refusal to believe that the low physical world is exactly where Hashem wants His presence revealed. In the desert, they could live on a more elevated plane – the man from Heaven, the clouds of glory, the well of Miriam. But Eretz Yisrael would require plowing, planting, eating, separating, harvesting, fighting, building, and keeping all the mitzvot bound to soil and produce: terumah, ma'aser, challah, shemittah, orlah, bikkurim. To them, this was a descent away from kedushah. But the truth is that this is precisely the way the lower world becomes joined to the upper worlds.
This is also connected to the other slanderous statement they said about the land (Bemidbar 13:32): אֶרֶץ אֹכֶלֶת יוֹשְׁבֶיהָ הִוא (It is a land that consumes [eats up] its inhabitants). Now what kind of a statement is that? R' Nachman explains in Likutei Moharan 129 that the meraglim were technically right that the land eats its inhabitants, but wrong about what that means. Eating means transformation. Food becomes assimilated into the one who eats it. In the words of R' Nachman: כִּי טֶבַע הָאֲכִילָה – שֶׁהַמָּזוֹן נִתְהַפֵּךְ לַנִּזּוֹן, כְּגוֹן כְּשֶׁהַחַי אוֹכֶלֶת צוֹמֵחַ, כְּגוֹן עֲשָׂבִים, נִתְהַפְּכִין הָעֲשָׂבִים לְחַי, כְּשֶׁנִּכְנָסִין בְּתוֹךְ מֵעֶיהָ. וְכֵן מֵחַי לִמְדַבֵּר, כְּשֶׁהַמְדַבֵּר אוֹכֵל הַחַי, נִתְהַפֵּךְ הַחַי לַמְּדַבֵּר (For the nature of eating is that the food is transformed into the one who is nourished by it. For example, when an animal eats a plant, such as grasses, the grasses are transformed into animal life when they enter its intestines. And so too, from animal to human: when a human eats an animal, the animal is transformed into the human). Likewise, the land eating its inhabitants means that the people who live there are transformed into the aspect of the land, which as we have seen is the aspect of emunah.
This explains the resistance of the meraglim: they did not want to become the 'food' for Eretz Yisrael, meaning, they did not want to become secondary to the land's kedushah. They did not want their high da'at to be absorbed into the lower emunah of Eretz Yisrael. They did not want a life where their spirituality had to serve the land through earthy, detailed, physical mitzvot. In short, they were not willing to mevatel their da'at and embrace the emunah of living in Eretz Yisrael. Therefore, we can translate Tehillim 37:3 – שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה – with a slightly different nuance than we did earlier. Instead of "dwell in the land and cultivate emunah", R' Nachman reads this to mean: "dwell in the land so deeply that you become food for emunah" – absorbed by it, digested by it, and transformed into its essence.
We are now able to end where we began. Why would anyone elevated in da'at above the aspect of Eretz Yisrael, feel so threatened by the land that they would speak lashon ha-ra against it? The answer should now be clear. They spoke lashon ha-ra against the land because the land exposed the incompleteness of their greatness. The land demanded humility, bitul ha-da'at, descent into emunah, and the avodah associated with the lower physical world. They were not threatened by real estate. They were threatened by the land's demand that they stop standing above the mission and allow themselves to be consumed by it.
