When Buttons Get Pushed
“Like the number of the days you spied out the Land 40 days a day for a year a day for a year you shall bear your sins for 40 years.”
(Bamidbar 14:34)
The implication of this pasuk is that the Jews would suffer a year of wandering in the desert for every day they spied out the Land. This is hard to understand. Were they being punished for the act of spying per se? Their sin was speaking derogatorily about the Land; why is that related to the number of days they stayed there?
This teaches us that the meraglim’s sin of lashon hara was not in speech alone. The crux of their crime was the negative thought that brought about their slanderous words. This is always the case when a person speaks lashon hara — the essence of slander is the act of seeing or hearing that which motivates him to relate what he saw or heard. (Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz Sichos Mussar)
The spies strode through Eretz Yisrael and didn’t like what they saw — funerals shrieks of terror the stench of death. Terrifying giants made them feel like insects. High-walled cities surrounded by impenetrable fortresses. Even the fruits were bizarrely large.
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