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Why wouldn’t Chezky go on any dates, and what does it have to do with the spies?

Written by Rabbi Moshe Kormornick

Appoint for yourself men, and they will spy on the Land of Canaan (13:2)

Chezky was a good learner in Yeshiva; he kept the mitzvos stringently and had been offered many marriage suggestions over the years, but it seemed that no one was good enough for him. Even the Rosh Yeshiva’s daughter was someone who Chezky felt was “below” him. Realizing that his problem was haughtiness, Chezky’s Rabbi suggested that he learn the Mesillas Yesharim’s chapter dealing with humility. After learning it diligently, Chezky’s Rabbi re-suggested the Rosh Yeshiva’s daughter. Chezky was shocked: “Before I knew how to be humble, she wasn’t up to my standards, now that I have mastered the trait of humility and become an even bigger tzaddik, she’s even further away from me!”

The reason why the spies allowed themselves to speak badly of the Land, explains Rashi, is because they did not learn mussar from Miriam’s punishment after she spoke badly of Moshe. How could these great and righteous men[1] not have learned from what happened to Miriam? And how would mussar have helped them?

Rabbeinu Yona explains that whereas “knowledge” is a person’s retention of information, “mussar” is the internalizing of these details and making it form part of one’s being.[2] For instance, someone can know that a sin is wrong, but until he is repulsed at the thought of doing it, he may come to stumble in this sin; whereas someone who is disgusted with the sin is never likely to go near transgressing it.

In the case of the spies, the Zohar explains that the spies foresaw that they would lose their prestigious positions upon entering Eretz Yisroel, and deep down — without them even realizing it — their desire for honor clouded their judgement.[3] If the spies would have been able to internalize the mussar from Miriam’s punishment, however, this lesson would have been incorporated into their being and would have created an intolerance to speaking lashon hara despite the risk of losing their coveted positions.

When discussing the spies’ sin, we cannot fathom their level of greatness and their subsequent fall, but the lessons of the Torah are for us to take mussar from and internalize their message.[4] If the greatest leaders of the greatest generation can succumb to sin for not internalizing the Torah’s message, how much more so do we need to take the knowledge that we have learned and make it a part of our being. Like we learn from the story above with Chezky, let us take our knowledge of how to act and move it from our head to our heart.

[1] Each one was righteous as testified by Hashem Himself (Medrash Tanchuma, Shlach, 4).

[2] Shaarei Teshuva 3:3.

[3] Zohar 3:158a.

[4] Related in the name of the Vilna Ga’on’s by his brother in the beginning of his book, Maalos HaTorah.

 

 

 

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