Two people can visit a city or a sight and see the same things, yet their perspective or feeling about what they are viewing may be poles apart. It all depends on one’s mindset.
Some examples: When one is vacationing, his frame of mind is to enjoy his time and his point of view is to see the best and create lasting memories.
When one is on a business trip and meetings are scheduled his focus is on accomplishing his goals. The sights, which are the trappings, are usually a blur.
When one is exploring a location or area to settle in or to establish a company his assessment is more critical. An open minded and unbiased approach to surveying the area will enable him to have a clear picture on which to base his decision. However, if he has been fed negative information about the area he must change his attitude or mind-set in order to see the good.
Certainly if one heard raving reports of the location his optimistic perspective will be aroused and he will probably see the positive.
The Jews were in the desert and were poised to go directly into the land of Israel. G-d had guaranteed that the Jews would enter without having to resort to warfare for He would disable the armies of the inhabitants of the land. G-d attests that the land of Israel is the most lush and sacred of all lands. Who would not accept such a proposal from the Ultimate real estate Manager?
Yet the Torah tells us, that the leaders of our nation requested from Moshe that they first scout out the land and leave it to them to determine if it was in fact conquerable and inhabitable for the Jews.
Such a mission was an affront to the Almighty and doomed to failure. Moshe relayed to G-d the wishes of the leaders and G-d said, ‘It is up to you and them to decide to send spies.”
They were granted free will to make their decision and 12 spies were sent into the land. Moshe instructed them about what they were to report.
Deep down the spies had a negative biased perception of the land and had they scouted with that mindset all the negatives of the land would have stood out and overshadowed the positives.
G-d, in His infinite goodness, caused the inhabitants to be preoccupied with funerals so that the spies would not be noticed. But from the spies distorted perspective they looked at this as a pandemic that had hit the land.
Yehoshua and Calev, two of the spies, remained righteous. Moshe saw that Yehoshua was vulnerable to be persuaded by the spies and he added a letter Yud to his name. This enriched him with a letter from G-d’s name and offered him protection. Since Calev was married to Moshe’s righteous sister Miriam, her influence kept him righteous. At a certain point Calev left the group and went to the City of Chevron to pray to G-d at the gravesite of our patriarchs and matriarchs that he not be swayed by the negativity of the spies.
Why did Calev feel a need to pray for protection? Because the power of negativity is very strong, especially coming from a group. One can easily get swept away by it, even if they know deep down that it is wrong.
The spies came back and reported negatively and were able to bring all the men of the nation to tears because of the fear they instilled.
The effect of the negative report was disastrous. The entrance of the Jews into the land was delayed for 39 years, and the adult men who were between the ages of 20 and 60 when they left Egypt, died before they entered into the land.
We see that having an overbearing negative perspective and sharing negative information of others spells disaster. Lashon Harah breaks apart relationships, families, communities and countries. Lashon Harah affects our people more than any nation. This is because we are the ones who were given the laws of how to control what we say about our brethren. As tempting and easy as it is to speak negatively about others, when we hold back we are guaranteed the greatest of rewards!
Since we are technologically captivated by instantaneous news and headlines – it is worth the time to comb through the reports and see if one can pick up one positive story out of the hundreds that are negative.
We certainly are challenged with the rise of anti-Semitism. Most of the time it is stirred up by those who hate us and influence so many people who, seriously, have no clue.
The Torah’s account of the spies and the power and influence of their negative stance is an ageless struggle.
Our longstanding way to combat this is to invoke G-d’s protection as Yehoshua’s name illustrates, and as Calav did, by praying to G-d for His protection!
Rabbi Dovid Saks, Director Jewish Heritage Connection Scranton, PA
