Shelach
The passuk states “שלח לך אנשים ויתרו את ארץ כנען, send for yourselves men and spy out the land of Canaan.” Rashi explains שלח לך as send with your own interest. If you would like to send, send, I am not commanding you to send. The Midrash Tanchuma adds, this is as the passuk states “אשר שלח משה לתור את הארץ, that Moshe sent to spy out the land,” not because of Hashem’s command.
The Bnei Yisrael came before Moshe and requested, “Let us send men to spy out the land,” as it states in Parshas Devarim, “ותקרבון אלי כולכם ותאמרו נשלחה אנשים לפנינו ויחפרו לנו את הארץ, and all of you came close to me, and you said, ‘let us send men before us and they shall spy out the land.’” The following passuk states, “וייטב בעיני הדבר, and the thing was good in my eyes.” Rashi infers, it states בעיני, in my eyes it was good; however it was not good in the eyes of Hashem. Hashem did not want us to spy out the land. Moshe checked with the Shechinah, and Hashem said, “I said it is a good land, as I said, ‘I will bring you up to a land that flows with milk and honey.’ I am taking an oath that I will give them place to make a mistake with the report of the spies in order that they won’t inherit it.’”
Rashi is bothered if it was good in the eyes of Moshe why is it written as a rebuke that we did something wrong? Rashi answers with a mashal: a person says to his friend, can you sell me a donkey? He responds, yes, here it is. He asks, can you give it to me to test out? Yes. In the mountains and valleys? Yes. Once he sees that the seller does not hold back any tests, the buyer says in his heart, “I have faith that there will not be any blemish in this donkey.” Immediately he says take your money and I won’t test it. So too Moshe said, “I too consented to your words, maybe you would retract when you see that I am not holding back from allowing you to check it out.” However, he rebuked them, “you did not retract from spying out the land, you did not believe.”
The Midrash Tanchuma brings a mashal to how Yisrael was compared to this instance: to a king who found for his son an exceptional woman to marry; nice, wealthy, and no one like her in the entire world. The son requested “Let me go and see her,” as he did not believe his father. Immediately it was difficult for his father as how to deal with the situation. His father thought, what shall I do? If I say to him, I will not show her to him, he’ll say she is, in truth, not nice; and therefore, he did not want to show her to me. In the end the king said to his son, “See her, know that I didn’t lie to you. However, because you didn’t believe me, I promise that you will see her in your house, you will not marry her, rather I will give her to your son.” So too Hashem said to Yisrael, “’it is a good land,’ you didn’t believe, and you said ‘show it to us.’ If I hold back, they will say it is not good, and therefore He is not showing it to us. Rather, go see it; but I take an oath that not one of you will enter the land, only your children.”
We see from here that the reason why we did not merit Eretz Yisrael is because we did not believe and trust in Hashem. One who doesn’t believe something could happen does not have a connection to it and will not merit to be part of it. So too, it would seem, if one believes he can accomplish something and puts his faith in Hashem, he will be successful. Many times, if one dreams unrealistic goals that he wants and hopes for but does not truly believe they will come into fruition, they won’t. If one believes they could happen, and puts in the effort, Hashem will help.
Let us set goals and believe they will be successful with Hashem’s help.
