The spies that Moses sent to explore the land of Canaan were recorded in the Jewish consciousness as sinners, as those who spread evil slander about the land, and as those who brought disaster upon the Israelites.
Because of them, the people remained in the desert for forty years.
The spies symbolize to this day the heartless and the small of faith. The Book of Psalms says of them, "And they were dismayed in the pleasant land, they believed not his word.".
But why do we actually condemn them so much, when they were supposedly just describing reality?
Isn't that what the spies were sent for? The people were about to enter the land and had to fight the seven nations of Canaan. They wanted to get information about the enemy facing them. The spies toured the length and breadth of the land and returned and described what they saw: "The people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are very walled, and we also saw the descendants of Anak there.".
To despair or to believe
But the spies' sin was not in the factual report they provided. They failed to draw the discouraging conclusions.
They were not sent to determine whether to enter the Land of Israel or not. They were not asked to declare: "We are not able to go up to the people, for they are too strong for them." They were required to bring a factual description only, in order to know how to manage entry into the Land, but not to challenge the very divine command to enter the Land of Israel.
At this point lies the eternal conflict between vision and faith and the difficulties of reality. There is no doubt that one must look at reality with open eyes and not ignore difficulties and problems, but the test is whether a person despairs in the face of difficulties or sees them as challenges and believes that with God's help he will overcome them.
All of Jewish history is filled with exemplary figures who broke through under impossible conditions.
All the great revolutions, all the important inventions, were made in the face of the ridicule of those around them who were 'crazy' trying to accomplish the impossible.
Joshua and Caleb saw the difficulties and dangers just as their ten companions did, but they believed in the power of God to overcome even the fortified cities – "If it is God’s will, He will build us and bring us into this land." They did not let 'pragmatism" suppress their faith, and they cried out in a loud voice – 'Let us go up and possess it, for it is a place of power and might.".
Miracles are with us.
The same debate has been going on in our own day, between lovers of the Land of Israel and those who are against it; between believers and those who are against it; between those who see the liberation of the land in the Six-Day War as a mighty miracle of God, and those who claim that it was a 'conquest'; between those who believe in the power of God to return the inheritance of the fathers to the children, and those who are frightened by the sound of a wave of a leaf and the protests of the nations, in the sense of "and it was in our eyes as grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.".
If we give in to pragmatic arguments, we can pack our bags, because our entire existence here is a 'settlement,' but we are here because we have faith in our hearts in God's ability to give us the land and overcome all difficulties.
The fact is that the mighty miracles of God accompany us constantly, against all odds and predictions. The story of the spies teaches us not to let go of faith – and it will prevail.
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