Do You See the Cup Half Full?

Parshas Shelach, which falls out this week in Eretz Yisrael, serves as an appropriate lead-in to the impending start of Chodesh Tammuz, when the Three Weeks begin. The parshah recounts the sin of the Meraglim, who returned on Tishah B’Av with a negative report about the Land of Israel. Because Bnei Yisrael accepted their false claims and cried needlessly, Hashem decreed that future generations would also be required to mourn and cry on Tishah B’Av (Taanis 29a). It should therefore come as no surprise that Chazal find a link between this parshah and Megillas Eichah, which we read on Tishah B’Av.

The first perek in Eichah is written as an acrostic, with each successive pasuk beginning with the next letter of the alef-beis. Although the second, third, and fourth chapters follow a similar pattern, there is one notable exception. Even though the letter ayin comes before pei in the alef-beis, in these three perakim, the pasuk beginning with the letter pei precedes the pasuk that starts with ayin. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 104b) cryptically explains that this is because the Meraglim sinned by placing their mouths (pei, like the word peh) before their eyes (ayin also means eye). What does this mean?

Rav Moshe Shapira explains that in any encounter, a person finds what he is looking for. Even before he fully takes in and evaluates a new situation, he has already made up his mind about it. Not surprisingly, he then gathers evidence to support his conclusion, a phenomenon known as self-fulfilling prophecy. In this case, the Meraglim had already decided that they did not want to live in Eretz Yisrael, so they interpreted everything they saw there through a negative lens and returned with a report distorted by their biases.

Bnei Yisrael were punished with an additional year of wandering in the Midbar for each day of the Meraglim’s journey (Bamidbar 14:34). Why were they punished for the entire trip and not just for the lone day on which the spies came back and spoke critically about Eretz Yisrael? Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz explains that their sin was not limited to the day of their return. They sinned on each day of their expedition by twisting everything they experienced along the way.