Start with the farbrengen? Okay. Yes. Usually, I pick something that has to do with the parsha of the week or with the time of the year. This time a little bit different, a little bit ahead, because since we're not here during the summer, so never comes out to talk about the parshiyot of the inyanim that we learn about during the summer. So we have certain things during the year that every year we have the same time so we can talk a few times about those inyanim, but with the parshiyot of the summer, we don't get a chance. I thought let me pick one subject of next few weeks' parsha and discuss that, and that is the מרגלים, the twelve spies, the spies that were sent to Eretz Yisrael, which really is in Parshas Shelach, and today is not Parshas Shelach, but it doesn't matter, we're learning a little bit ahead. First, I'm going to try to discuss a little bit about the מרגלים more in the simple peshat, and then discuss it more according to Chassidus. As I always say, this class is not a class in halacha, it's more a class in trying to explain the inyanim in the more pnimius'dike, more inner explanation the way it's explained in Chassidus or in דרוש ספרים, whether we discuss a mitzvah, we discuss a certain topic or a thing that happened in the past. So we'll do the same with Parshas Shelach, with the מרגלים. So first I'm going to discuss the מרגלים looking at more from the simple peshat, and then go a little bit deeper the way it's explained in Chassidus. So as we always start, we always start just to give the background of the subject. Now this is one of the things that we don't really have to give the background to too many people, everyone knows the story of the מרגלים, but still it's k'dai just to go through in short. What happened was, this was the second year when the Yidden were in the desert. And the Yidden came to Moshe Rabbeinu, even though in Parshas Shelach it doesn't mention that, but later on in Parshas Devarim it says that ותקרבון אלי כולכם, all the Yidden came to Moshe Rabbeinu, and when they came, they came they were pushing and shoving, and the Rashi says that the young didn't give any derech eretz to the older people, and they came anyway, came running to Moshe Rabbeinu asking Moshe Rabbeinu to send spies to Eretz Yisrael to see how the land is. And it says וייטב בעיני, Moshe Rabbeinu said I liked the idea, and he stresses I liked the idea, but not necessarily that Hashem liked the idea. And he agreed for them to send spies to Eretz Yisrael. Even in Parshas Shelach, Rashi says when it says שלח לך, you should send to you, Rashi says it means לדעתך. It's up to you, if you want. אני איני מצוך, I'm not commanding you. It wasn't that Hashem told him to do it. He says, if you want, you feel it's a good idea, go ahead, do it. But it all came because the Yidden requested. And the reason Moshe Rabbeinu agreed, Rashi says in Parshat Devarim that Moshe Rabbeinu thought to himself, he really also didn't want that the Yidden should do it, he didn't want, he didn't like the idea. But the reason he agreed because he thought that if I'll agree to send spies, then they'll change their mind, then they're going to say, well if he agrees to send spies, obviously he has nothing to be afraid of. If he'd be afraid, if Moshe would be afraid that the land is not such a good land, he would try to get out of it, not allow to send spies. If he said right away, send spies, I don't mind, then they'll say, okay in that case we don't need. And Rashi even gives a mashal, when someone comes to hire someone's, rent someone's donkey, and he says can it do this, can it do that, can it go here, can it go on mountains and valleys, and you say yes and yes and yes. And then the guy says to you, can I test it? And if he answers go ahead, I don't care, test it as much as you want, then automatically you're going to say okay never mind, I don't want to test it. I don't need to test it, because if you agreed to it, then I know that it's true. So the same thing here, Moshe Rabbeinu thought that the Yidden are going to decide, change their mind when they hear that he agreed to it. Unfortunately, the Yidden did not change their mind. And Moshe Rabbeinu chose twelve best people that he could find for the job. And he called them and he told them, we are sending you לתור את הארץ, to tour the land. And the pasuk mentions their names, he gave them instructions what to do, what to look for, and one of the things the pasuk says is that Moshe Rabbeinu changed Yehoshua's name from Hoshea to Yehoshua. And the reason he did it because the word Yehoshua is made up of two words: יו\"ד ק\"א, which means השם, יושיעך, השם should help you מעצת מרגלים. from the advice of the מרגלים. And then Moshe Rabbeinu sent them away and they went there, and we know that Kalev stopped off, he stopped off at the אוהל, he stopped off by in Chevron, he stopped off to daven in the Me'arat Hamachpela, and what did he daven for? That Hashem should help him, save him from the עצה of the מרגלים. And they came to Eretz Yisrael, they took the fruit, and it was gigantic fruit that they brought along to show the Yidden the what kind of fruit it is. They needed eight people to carry one bunch of grapes, and then one carried a רימון, one took תאנה, they 10 people carried the things, and they came back from Eretz Yisrael, and they gave a report. And what was the report? We came to Eretz Yisrael and we saw that the land is טאקע ארץ זבת חלב ודבש, a land that flows with milk and honey, but the people are very strong, he showed them the fruit, the fruit is not normal, and the people are not normal, the people are very big, it's very dangerous to go to Eretz Yisrael. And when the Yidden heard that, they were so upset, they got very angry and they started crying, it says, that night, and that happened to be the night of Tisha B'Av. Kalev ben Yefuneh tried to stop them and convince them, screaming, Hashem, if Hashem wants us, He's going to take us and we'll be able to go in, עלה נעלה וירשנו אותה, if חפץ השם בנו, if Hashem wants us, we'll go up and we're going to inherit the land, there's nothing to be afraid. And then Yehoshua together with Kalev tore their clothes and they started telling them that there's nothing to be afraid of, but the people were afraid, and Hashem got very upset, and because of that, Hashem gave a gezeirah that they will stay in the desert for 40 years, because they were in Eretz Yisrael for 40 days, so יום לשנה, a day for a year, so they were in Eretz Yisrael, they were in the desert for 40 years. And not only did this have an effect for then that because of that they didn't go into Eretz Yisrael right away, took them 40 years to get to Eretz Yisrael, another 39 years, but as it says, this was a בכיה לדורות. They cried the night of תשעה באב, and it says Hashem said, it says in the Gemara, you cried that night for no reason, because of that, for many, many generations you're going to cry that same night. And תשעה באב is a day that we cry for many, it's already a few thousand years that we're crying on תשעה באב for the חורבן בית המקדש. This is basically, in a nutshell, the story of the meraglim. When we start thinking about the story of the meraglim, there are quite a few things which are not understood in simple peshat, and that's what we're going to get into first, and then we'll go a little bit deeper. In simple peshat, it seems from here that Moshe Rabbeinu had a hunch in the beginning that there is something wrong, they're up to something wrong. He gave Yehoshua a berachah that Hashem should save him from the etzah of the meraglim. Obviously, Moshe Rabbeinu felt that the meraglim are going in the wrong direction. If he felt it that way, why did he send them? Why didn't he say, hey, I see you guys are not doing going in the right direction, and he should have said, you're not the right people, and he should not have sent them. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu send them? See, the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu listened to the Yidden, even though it wasn't a good idea, and he agreed to send them, was he thought that even though it's not such a good idea, because what's the reason to send meraglim? Hashem said the land is a good land, why should we send spies? But he agreed thinking that they'll come back and they'll give a good report, so even though the Yidden questioned it, but when they're going to hear from the meraglim the good report, everything will be fine. But the question is, when he saw that the meraglim are on the wrong, going in the wrong direction, the meraglim had a bad etzah, in other words, the meraglim were not going to be tzadikim, not going to give the right report, so why did Moshe Rabbeinu continue sending them? That's one question. Another question, there seems to be a contradiction here that Rashi says, באותה שעה כשרים היו, רש״י says that when he chose them, at that time, when he sent them, they were tzadikim. And at the same time, Rashi says that he bentsht Yehoshua that he should save him from the עצת מרגלים, עצה of the מרגלים. But if they were tzadikim, what was he worried about? So this seems to be a contradiction that how did it happen? Then there's another question: what is actually wrong in what they said? They were send to give a report of what they see. They came back, and that's exactly what they said. They said exactly what they saw. We came to the land, it's a beautiful land, flows milk and honey, but the people are very big and very strong, and it's very dangerous. It's exactly what they were sent for! They were sent to come back and give an honest report. They came back and gave an honest report. What is it, because Moshe Rabbeinu didn't like that report, that's why he was upset with them? You have to give a report to make it fit, tailor-made to what the people want to hear? He was sent to give a, they were sent to give a real report of what they actually saw, and this is what they saw, so they came back. So what was so wrong in what they said that we make such a big thing of the מרגלים, terrible מרגלים? So that's another question.

The answer to this is, in pashut pshat, that they were sent—it doesn't say in the pasuk at all that they were sent as מרגלים. מרגלים means spies. It doesn't say in the pasuk that they were sent to spy the land. It says, ויתרו את הארץ, וישלח אותם משה לתור את הארץ, he sent them, לתור means to tour the land. ויעלו ויתרו את הארץ. They were sent לתור את הארץ. They were not sent to be מרגלים, to be spies. What is the difference between a tourist and a spy? A tourist only goes to look. He looks, goes to see what is there, what's happening there, what does it look like, what is it, that's all. A spy goes to look deeper and to spy the land to see what can we do, how can we work out, from which side can we come, what's the best way to do. A spy has to use his sechel with all kinds of ways and and חכמות and things to look deeper into besides of what you see. They were sent with one mission. Moshe Rabbeinu sent them and told them, \"I'm not interested\"—he didn't say these words, but that's what he meant—\"I'm not interested in your advice. Your advice is not important. We're not sending you for advice to tell us whether it's easy to conquer or hard to conquer. Come back and give us a report exactly of what you saw. Don't come to any conclusions. We're not asking you for conclusions what to do.\" They were not sent as מרגלים. A מרגל looks deeper. By Yosef we find when he accused his brothers of being spies he said, \"You are מרגלים.\" What did he mean to say? \"You came with one—you made it look like you came for one intention, but really there's something deeper. ערות הארץ באתם לראות, you came to look how you could conquer Mitzrayim,\" he said to them, \"even though you make yourself look as if you just came to buy food.\" A מרגל looks deeper. They were not sent to look in any way deeper than what the superficial picture is. Tell us what you see. They came back, and what did they do? They didn't just give a report. They gave a report with a conclusion, and they said, \"We saw the people are strong, and therefore we cannot go. It'll be hard for us to conquer. It's dangerous.\" Who asked them to say if it's dangerous or not? It wasn't up to them. This happened when they came back. But even when they went in the beginning, when Moshe Rabbeinu chose them, Moshe saw that in the beginning already, just as he chose them, and he, I guess, saw from their behavior, from the way they were talking amongst themselves, that they are looking at themselves not as shluchim, we'd say, not as tourists, but they're looking at themselves as מרגלים. They were already talking about, \"We will see how to do and what to do,\" and not in a bad way. They did not, in the beginning, discuss among themselves that we're going to come back and give a bad report or say how hard it is to conquer and we can't conquer the land. It might have been an עצה טובה. Could be they were thinking of good ways how we're going to come back and we're going to tell the Yidden easy ways how to conquer and how we'll be able to go in. But that already is wrong, because they weren't sent for that. That's why Rashi, when he says that Moshe Rabbeinu gave the berachah to Yehoshua, he said, י-ה יושיעך מעצת מרגלים. Hashem should save you from the eitzah, the advice of the מרגלים. It doesn't say Hashem should save you מחטא המרגלים, from the sin of the מרגלים, or מדבת המרגלים, ה׳ should save you from the lashon hara of the מרגלים, doesn't say that. From the עצה of the מרגלים. The fact that they were looking for an עצה, an עצה means advice, Moshe Rabbeinu already suspected that there's something wrong here. Now, he couldn't because of that stop them and say, \"Okay, so you're not the right customer, you're not the right people to go,\" because they didn't do anything wrong. Had he seen something wrong in them, something bad, he would have stopped them, would have not send them. He didn't see anything bad. But he saw, he suspected that they're trying to come back with their with their with their advice, with their עצה, and Moshe Rabbeinu already didn't like it. So he gave a ברכה to יהושע, י-ה יושיעך מעצת מרגלים. But the question was, if he knew something is wrong, why didn't he stop them? He had nothing to, nothing concrete to stop them from going. So he sent them, hoped that nothing will happen, but still, since he saw that they had this advice, Moshe Rabbeinu suspected already, and he gave Yehoshua the ברכה. And even Kalev, when Kalev, says a Rashi, went to Me'arat HaMachpelah, what did he daven for? He davent that he should be protected from the עצה of the מרגלים. He also saw that the מרגלים are already going with the sevara, with the idea of looking for עצות. No one asked them for עצות, no one asked them for advice, so he was afraid he might get pulled into their advice, even though it might be good advice. It still would have been wrong, but not bad. So Moshe didn't stop them, Kalev couldn't do anything, but he wanted to stay away from it. What happened when they actually started with their own שכל, with their own advice, deviated a little bit for what their mission was? The moment you deviate a little bit from the כוונה, from the purpose of your mission, so in the beginning, it's a little bit, but it doesn't take too long, and you could go who knows how far. And that's exactly what happened here, because otherwise, it's very hard to understand. We're talking about people who were tzadikim. Tzadikim! Tzadikim that Moshe Rabbeinu chose for a mission! Moshe Rabbeinu, for sure, he was the leader of Klal Yisrael, for sure, he knew every single Yid, and he knew who is fit for the job. So they were tzadikim, they were really tzadikim. It wasn't that Moshe made a mistake, he thought they were tzadikim and really they weren't, they were really tzadikim! How is it possible for tzadikim, in such a short while, to turn into such רשעים? The answer is: it's, takeh, pretty fast, but the moment you start rolling down the mountain, the moment you start turning away, and it might be, sound like it's not bad, but the moment it deviates from the כוונה, from the purpose of what you're sent to, of what you're supposed to do, then already you're going crooked, and when you start a little bit, you go further away, and in a short while, who knows how far it could go. That's exactly what happened to them. They deviated into the fact that in their mind, they thought they were supposed to give an עצה, or they started thinking, \"We're going to mix our own שכל into it to give advice,\" and it turned out that they came and they said lashon hara on Eretz Yisrael, and they caused the בכיה לדורות. Going a little bit further, what was, takeh, the reason that Moshe Rabbeinu did not send them and ask them for advice, and make them into מרגלים, but he wanted them to be תרים? So, in short, a מרגל, a spy, is connected to lie, to a lie. The whole idea of a spy is to lie. He makes himself look as if he is one type of person, and really he is not. When the Yidden were going into Eretz Yisrael, and this was the הכנה to Eretz Yisrael, the main, main preparation to Eretz Yisrael, שקר doesn't fit in there. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't want them to be spies, which is a lie. Especially Moshe Rabbeinu, we know that Moshe Rabbeinu's מדה is מדת האמת. We know the מדה, when we talk about the attribute of Moshe, is emet. And there says this פסוק, אמת ושלום נשקו, that emet and shalom kissed, the Midrash says this refers to Moshe Rabbeinu when he met his brother Aharon, and they kissed. Aharon was shalom, we know, it says in Pirkei Avot, Aharon was אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, he looked for peace, so shalom represents Aharon, emet represents Moshe, truth, Moshe was truth. That's why Torah is called תורת אמת, the true Torah, and it says זכרו תורת משה עבדי, the Torah of Moshe. It says in Gemara that there were תנאים that passed by the קבר, the grave of Korach. And what did they hear coming from Korach's grave? Screaming, \"משה אמת ותורתו אמת,\" that Moshe is emet and his Torah is emet. Moshe is the middah of emet. It says in Chumash in Parashat Ki Tisa that when Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu the י״ג מדות הרחמים, the 13 attributes of mercy, it says וימהר משה ויקד ויפול על פניו, Moshe ran and he fell on his face. So the Gemara says, מה ראה, what of the 13 did he see that got him so, shook him up, that וימהר ויפול על פניו, he fell? So the Gemara says, מה ראה, אמת ראה. If you look in the י״ג מדות הרחמים, one of them is ואמת, נוצר חסד לאלפים, and one is ואמת. He saw the word emet, and that's what affected him, because Moshe and emet go together. So if Moshe is the middah of emet, Moshe Rabbeinu did not send them as מרגלים where they have to use the middah of שקר. And what they did, they started off their journey looking at themselves as מרגלים, as spies, trying to, and not in a bad way, but spies trying to figure out themselves, in a way, in a hidden way, what can we do to help. Moshe Rabbeinu saw that this is not going in the right direction. He was suspicious, couldn't do anything, sent them anyway, and it turned out that because they started off wrong, they went all the way, and they came back with the lashon hara, and it caused a בכיה לדורות, it's tzarot forever. But the question is a different question, and this we're going to get a bissel away from peshat. How were they able to scare the Yidden of come going to Eretz Yisrael by telling them how strong the goyim are and all the the the the sakanah, the dangers is there, and they convinced the Yidden that because of that, we can't go to Eretz Yisrael? Why wouldn't the Yidden tell them, we're we know what Hashem could do. We were in so many dangerous situations, and look what Hashem did. Look at what Hashem did to Paro. Look at what Hashem is doing to us in the מדבר. The midbar is a midbar full of danger. It says in pasuk that the desert that they were in was a מדבר הגדול והנורא נחש שרף ועקרב, a desert which is terrible, a den of snakes and scorpions, it's dangerous to go there. Actually the Midrash says that this desert that the Yidden went in was so dangerous, years later there was once a group of people that went there and a snake ate them all up. It's dangerous. And nevertheless, what happened when the Yidden were in the desert? It was the safest place. Hashem sent the ענני הכבוד and the aron smoothed out the land, killed all the snakes and scorpions, it made it a place that was for them the safest place possible. Hashem took care of it. And even when it comes to fight with other nations, look what Hashem did to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim. Look at קריעת ים סוף. Hashem made קריעת ים סוף. What kind of greater miracle in קריעת ים סוף can there be? The Gemara says that קריעת ים סוף is called kashah. It says קשה לזווגם כקריעת ים סוף. Something that's the hardest thing that could happen is קריעת ים סוף, and Hashem did it. So how is it possible that they should scare the Yidden because they told them it's dangerous there, the goyim are very strong? And one might say maybe they were telling them that, well, against Pharaoh and Mitzrayim, which is one nation, Hashem could gives us an etzah, as we say, Hashem could help us, but here we're going into a land of the כנענים, למד אלף מלכים, there are 31 kings there, that's much more and that Hashem can't do anything. But that's not true, the Yidden knew from קריעת ים סוף, if we look at the shirah that the Yidden sang at קריעת ים סוף, they said נמוגו כל יושבי כנען. They then knew that all the kings in כנען melted, were scared from the Yidden because they heard קריעת ים סוף. So they saw the goyim themselves knew that the Eibershter, Hashem is stronger than them. Even 40 years later, 40 years later, when the two meraglim sent by Yehoshua came to Rachav, she told them 40 years later that we are all petrified here from the Yidden because we still remember Keriat Yam Suf. So we see that all the goyim were afraid. And the Yidden knew that, because they said it in the שירה, נמוגו כל יושבי כנען, תפול עליהם אימתה ופחד, they all were afraid. So how could the מרגלים scare the Yidden by saying to them that the goyim are very strong and strong nations and Amalek is there? Why were they afraid of that? And the interesting part is that when Kalev answered them, this is not what he said. He should have answered, what are you guys talking about? Why are you afraid of the goyim, we know what Hashem did to us. He didn't do that. He just said, אם חפץ השם בנו, if Hashem wants, עלה נעלה וירשנו אותה, we'll go up. He didn't say that we shouldn't be afraid because Hashem already did, look at the miracles He did. The fact that he mentioned some miracles was for a different reason. He wanted to quiet them down and he knew that if he would start talking something about Moshe in the positive, they wouldn't listen, so it says ויהס כלב, so he said, he started saying, 'Huh, you think it's the only thing that Moshe did to us?' They all thought he's going to speak bad against Moshe, so they became quiet. So he said, 'This is all he did? Huh, he split the Yam for us, he gave us the manna, he gave us the שלו.' But he didn't use it as an answer to them saying you're, 'Why are you afraid? Look what Hashem did to us.' This was just a way to quiet them down. But in answer, he didn't say, 'Why not?' This should be his best proof, he'd say, 'Why are you afraid? We have experience that Hashem could do anything, and why are we afraid if Hashem is going to take us into Eretz Yisrael? Why don't we see that?' There must be something deeper in the טענה of the מרגלים. So to answer that, let's go a little bit deeper in what the טענה of the מרגלים was, what they were saying, which will also answer how it's possible for people who were such great tzadikim to turn into reshaim in such a short time. And usually, the only way that could happen if it starts off with something that is not so bad, but because it's on the wrong track, as I said before, but from a different a different a different angle of what the מרגלים mistake was. It wasn't just a mistake that they were bad people and they lied, they started off with a small, tiny mistake, and that mistake led them to this big mistake that they made. And when we'll understand how we look at that from the Chassidish point of view, then we'll understand why the Yidden were scared and they were able to scare them by saying that the goyim are very strong.

So it says in Chassidus that this is the טענה of the מרגלים: far-kert, the מרגלים were very great, very great tzadikim. The reason they said we shouldn't go to Eretz Yisrael is because when the Yidden were in the desert, spiritually they had it so good. They had no worries whatsoever. They didn't have to get involved in any physical thing at all. To get food, they had the מן מן השמים, they had manna. For water, they had באר של מרים. They didn't even have to go and clean their clothes, it says the ענני הכבוד cleaned their clothes. And if a person grew, child grew bigger, or maybe the same thing if a person ate too much and got fat, he needed a new suit, it says the ענני הכבוד, the clothes I mean, grew together with them. It says that it cleaned their clothes. They had everything. What would they What were they busy with? What did they do all day? They sat and learned Torah, and they daven, and they were connected to Hashem. They were a constant deveikut to Hashem. Came the מרגלים to Eretz Yisrael, and here they saw that in order to survive in Eretz Yisrael, you have to plow, and you have to plant, and you have to work on the field, you have to get involved in gashmiyut, and then we're able to have fruit, food, and we'll be able to survive. So they said to themselves, why are we crazy? Why should we go to Eretz Yisrael for? Let's stay in the desert. In the desert we'll be constantly involved in ruchniyut, why lower ourselves to gashmiyut? And you know what could happen when you lower yourself to gashmiyut? You could get pulled into it completely! You could be completely become part of the gashmiyut. And this is the peshat in the word that they used. They said, we came to Eretz Yisrael, we see it's an ארץ אוכלת יושביה. It's a land that eats up its inhabitants, it eats up its people. Now the פשוט פשט is wherever they went, they saw funerals. And the reason it happened, Hashem made it because He wanted to distract the people from them, so He made them have funerals so they were busy, they shouldn't see them. But they used it against Eretz Yisrael saying it's a people that eats up its it's a land that eats up its people. That's the simple peshat. But Chasidut says this is not the peshat. This is the peshat, but not the this is There's more to it. They said that it's a land, the ארץ that will eat up its people. You will be drawn into the ארץ, you will be drawn into the ארציות, into the gashmiyut. And if you're drawn into the gashmiyut, you'll be completely an ארץ. You'll become Use the word an am ha'aretz. What's an am ha'aretz? An am ha'aretz means a nation of the land. So all kinds of reasons why it's called am ha'aretz, but one of the things is, this is a person that is involved in ארציות, a person that cares about ארץ rather than about שמים. שמים represents spiritual matters, ארץ represents physical matters, an am ha'aretz, a person that cares about גשמיותדיקע things. And this is what they said: it's an ארץ אוכלת יושביה, it's a land that eats up. If you're going to go there, we're going to get involved in the gashmiyut, and that's going to pull us down. Why should we go there? Let's stay in the מדבר. In the מדבר we will not have any worries, not have anything to do in gashmiyut, we'll be able to constantly learn Torah and daven and be involved in deveikus to Hashem and like a connection to Hashem. This is what they said. Now this is a mistake! This is a mistake! Why? For first of all, this is not what Hashem wants. But why? Hashem did not create the world for us to isolate ourselves from gashmiyus. For that, He has plenty of malachim. He brought us into the world that we should, as Chassidus always uses the term taken from the Midrash, we should make a dirah batachtonim. We have to make a dwelling place for Hashem in this low world. That means Hashem wants us to get involved in physical matters and bring kedushah into the physical matters, but not to stay away from gashmiyus completely. So, their whole approach was wrong. But on one hand, we understand how it's possible for them to make such a mistake. The question is such tzaddikim, how could they make a mistake and come back and say bad things about Eretz Yisrael? It started off with this mistake. Now this is a mistake, but it's a mistake in a pretty high level, that a tzaddik, even a tzaddik like them, could make such a mistake: miscalculating what Hashem's כוונה is, thinking that it's better to sit and learn Torah all day for the whole nation, rather than get into involved in aretz and bringing kedushah into the ענינים ארציים, into the physical matters of the world. So they made that mistake, but the moment they started with such a mistake, then that made them fall completely till they became, takeh, and they said bad things against Eretz Yisrael, and brought, as we say, the בכיה לדורות, the trouble for all generations since then. But it started with this. So this is what Chassidus says is the pshat in what the מרגלים had in mind. Because they had this in mind, this is why they were able to scare the Yidden. Because what they told the Yidden was like this: they said, when we were now in the desert, and when we were going out from Mitzrayim into the desert, when Hashem deals with us with, we call it, a הנהגה ניסית, he deals with us in a behavior of miracles, certainly Hashem could do miracles, and he did all these miracles. But here we're going into a land where we're going to leave the הנהגה ניסית. We're going to leave the behavior of miracles. We're not going to have the man anymore. We're not going to have the selav. We're not going to have the water from the בארה של מרים. We're not going to have the ענני הכבוד. We're going to have to behave in a form of derech hateva, of nature. The moment we're going to have to deal with nature, nature and miracles are two separate worlds. And therefore when we're going to have to get involved in nature, the miracles can't happen. If the miracles can't happen, then they said, we have to be scared. Hashem himself will not even perform miracles. ממנו means from them, meaning from the Yidden, so Rashi says they really meant not ממנו, but ממנו, they're stronger than him. What does that mean? They said כביכול אפילו בעל הבית אינו יכול להוציא את כליו. Even the baal habayit, the owner, the master can't take his kelim out, which means even Hashem won't be able to help us. And the question is, how could they say such a thing? How could they say such a thing? How could they say, denying the ability of Hashem? Just in 40 days, they were tzadikim before. Now, not only, know sometimes a tzadik, and after a while you're not such a great tzadik, you become... but to actually denying the greatness in the ability of Hashem. And besides, this is a contradiction. They called him baal habayit. They called the Eibershter baal habayit. He's the baal habayit, in other words, he is the owner, he's the master. So what do they mean the master? If he's the master, he can do what he wants! What's that the master can't take his kelim out? This is what they said: the master, Hashem, has established that there is a דרך of nissim, a דרך of miracles, and there is הנהגה, a דרך of טבע. And in their eyes, you can't mix the two. Now we are in the מדבר, we have הנהגה of nissim, and we have nissim, we don't have to get involved in טבע, and we don't want to get involved with nature, we don't want to have anything to do with the world. And we'd be closer to Hashem. If you're going to send us to ארץ ישראל, where we have to get involved in the physical things of the world, then we're dealing with nature, then there's a different דרך altogether. In nature, even Hashem cannot take it out. That means Hashem himself, he is the one that established nature. So if he established nature with the rules of nature, when it comes to nature, nature has its own rules. So even from Hashem's perspective, nature and miracles they said are two separate דרכים, two separate ways, and he can't do it. Well, what they meant, he can't, what they meant is he's not going to do it. This is not a place where he's able to, where he will do, because it's a different דרך, it's טבע. And Kalev couldn't answer any, he couldn't say, no, Hashem did miracles, look, he did all these miracles, he'll continue doing miracles, because their טענה was not that. So what did what did Kalev answer? He just answered that Hashem is beyond all that and you don't know what you're talking about. אם חפץ בנו השם, השם wants, then עלה נעלה וירשנו אותה, we will go up. We will go up and we will inherit the land because if that's what Hashem wants, he's going to make the, nothing to be afraid of. Because he was telling him, you guys are mix- are separating between miracles and nature, as if, chas veshalom, there are two separate things. It's not true! Hashem made the nature and Hashem made the miracles, and Hashem himself is beyond both, and therefore he could combine the two! Within the nature, he could make miracles. And as a matter of fact, the miracles which are connected to nature are in a higher level than miracles beyond nature. When miracles happen beyond nature, know what that means? It means that there is another way that's stronger than this way. You have two ways and as if there's a contradiction between the two, there's a fight between nature and miracles, and the miracle way is stronger than that, so you could perform a miracle and break the nature. But when you have a miracle within nature, what it means is that there is no such thing as nature as a separate entity. Nature and miracles are the same Hashem, and when Hashem performs a miracle within nature, that expresses Hashem's power even more than when He makes a miracle. It shows that there is no limits to Hashem. It's something that He could combine two opposites at the same time, which is similar to the way the aron was. It says the aron in the ב— קדש הקדשים was מקום ארון אינו מן המידה. The aron did not take up place and did take take up place at the same time. If you measured from one side, the aron was two and a half amot long. If you measured from one side to the wall was five amot, from the other side to the wall was five amot, and when you measured from the wall to the wall was 10 amot. And when you measured the aron, it was two and a half amot. It took up space, and it didn't take up space at the same time. Two opposites. It's called נמנע הנמנעות. Hashem could do two opposites, and you can't limit Him and say, well, there are two ways, two separate ways. And this is one of the major things in Yiddishkeit, and Chasidut, and Kabbalah talks about this a lot, that this is the whole idea of הוי׳ הוא האלוקים. When we say at the end of Yom Kippur, we say seven times הוי׳ הוא האלוקים. השם הוא האלוקים, but we use the name Havayah. By Eliyahu Hanavi, it says after the story on Har HaCarmel, what did the Yidden scream when they agreed, admitted that Hashem is the real God? So, they said השם הוא האלוקים, but they used הוי׳ הוא האלוקים. So, it says in Kabbalah, what does that mean? הוי׳, Elokim let's start, always we know represents nature. Elokim is the gematria the word Elokim is the numerical value is hateva, the nature. So, Elokim represents the way Hashem created nature. Havayah, י-ק-ו-ק, represents Hashem the way He is beyond nature, because the word י-ק-ו-ק, Havayah, contains three words within one word: היה, הוה ויהיה, past, present, and future together in one word, which is not nature. So, Havayah is beyond nature. And the main thing to remember is כי הוי׳ הוא האלוקים, that beyond nature and nature, they go together. It's not like two separate things. It's not like you have separate nature, and separate is nisim, miracles, beyond nature, and even if you believe that both come from Hashem, but they're two separate ways, and Hashem's limited, when it's miracles, it's miracles, when it's nature, it's nature. It's not He's not limited. He is beyond both. He's in a level which is completely beyond even miracles. He could combine the two. And that's what Kalev said: עלה נעלה וירשנו אותה. עלה נעלה, he used a double expression. עלה נעלה, we will go up twice, so to speak. Not only will we go to the level of of miracles, we could go to the level beyond miracles. But what they were saying, they were saying that we separate between the two, and therefore, since we can't mix the two, so let's stay in the desert, we'll have one way. Let's not go to Eretz Yisrael. In Eretz Yisrael, we'll have to be in nature, and nature is a different world, and we won't have Godliness there. And this was their mistake. The whole kavana is to come into the world, and in the world, which is gashmiyut, and when you're involved in work, and you're involved in business, you're involved in plowing and planting the field, that should be l'shem Shamayim and bring Hashem there. That's the תכלית הכוונה, this is what Hashem wants.

Then there's another point that it says in Chassidut concerning מרגלים, a little bit different, from another angle. Just spend another few more minutes. We know that Eretz Yisrael בכלל represents a place where you feel Elokut, you feel Godliness. That's what Eretz Yisrael is: ארץ אשר עיני ה׳ אלוקיך בה מראשית השנה ועד אחרית שנה. It's a land where the eyes of Hashem are there from the beginning of the year to the end. Now, what does that mean? The eyes of Hashem are all over. Hashem is משגיח בהשגחה פרטית, looks at all over, takes care of everything. So, what does it mean Eretz Yisrael is a land where Hashem's eyes are there? It means there you could feel it. In other places of the world, you can't feel. There you could feel it. It's a place where you could feel Godliness. The word Eretz Yisrael is made up of two words: ארץ and Yisrael. ארץ, the Gemara says: למה נקרא שמה ארץ? Why is it called ארץ? שרצתה לעשות רצון קונה. רצתה means it ran to do the will of Hashem, of its Master, or רצתה, it wanted to do the will of Hashem. And the word Yisrael represents Torah, it's abbreviation: יש ששים ריבוא אותיות לתורה, י-ש-ר-א-ל. There are 600,000 letters to the Torah, whatever that should mean, not now the time for to explain it because there aren't, they're only 3 and 1/2 305,000. But it says there are 600,000 letters to the Torah, and that's the word Yisrael. So, Eretz Yisrael represents a place of kedusha and Torah, etc., etc., etc. And the truth is, anybody goes to Eretz Yisrael, if you only want, you could feel kedusha there. If you don't want, Hashem doesn't take away free choice. You go to Eretz Yisrael and not feel a thing. But if you're ready for it and you want, you could feel more kedushah in Eretz Yisrael than any place else. That's what Eretz Yisrael is. But in order for the Yidden to get into Eretz Yisrael, they had to have כיבוש הארץ, they had to conquer the land. Now conquering the land represents another nekudah. Conquering the land means taking the land away from the goyim. Conquering the land means something deeper, I don't know if it's deeper, but a different thing. It means taking things which really are worldly matters, like we said before, and utilizing them for kedushah, that's called כיבוש הארץ. Kibush taking Taking away from Canaan, taking away from goyim, or as the Rebbe's expression always used to be, goyishkeit, taking away from goyishkeit and conquering it for kedushah, which really means not only doing mitzvot, it means more, it means כל מעשיך לשם שמים, doing things that you do yourself for yourself, your own inyanim, but you do it l'shem shamayim. That's what כיבוש ארץ ישראל is. And that's what the meraglim didn't want. They claimed you cannot conquer the land. To conquer the land which means to take things of Canaan, take gashmiyusdike things which have no kedushah in it, and turn them into holy matters, that you can't. For the same reason as we said before, they separated between kedushah and not kedushah. If it's kedushah it's pure kedushah. But if it's something that's not holy, they didn't believe in the concept of כל מעשיך לשם שמים, that you could do everything l'shem shamayim. בכל דרכיך דעהו, in all your own ways you could know Hashem. And they claimed that Hashem had separated between the two, and you can't mix the two. They said, Hashem said אין סומכין על הנס, you can't rely on miracles, you have to follow nature, and when you go nature, it has to stay purely nature. That means when you go to gashmiyut, that's what it is, and you can't mix the two. We cannot conquer the land from the goyim. But it was a mistake. Because the whole purpose of why Hashem created gashmiyut is only for this reason. You can't look at gashmiyut as a separate entity and say, well, if you look at gashmiyut, gashmiyut is gashmiyut. Elokus, godliness is godliness. That's a mistake. The whole purpose why Hashem created the gashmiyut is only for the purpose of making the gashmiyut into ruchniyut. The Alter Rebbe had an expression, he said, דער אייבערשטער גיט יידן גשמיות, און יידן מאכן פון גשמיות רוחניות. Hashem gives Yidden gashmiyut, and we're supposed to make from gashmiyut ruchniyut. There is no purpose in no reason in gashmiyut for its own sake. Gashmiyut is only a means to an end. It's made there in order to utilize it to bring it to kedushah. Like it says, בראשית ברא אלקים, Hashem created the world, בראשית, בשביל התורה, בשביל ישראל. The whole reason why there's a creation of the world, which is the gashmiyut of the world, is for one reason. So, how can one say that if you deal with gashmiyut from the gashmiyusdike perspective, you can't mix it with kedushah? You can't conquer the land which is not kadosh, and turn it into kedushah. And that was their mistake. They wanted to stay in the midbar to stick to kedushah. In other words, they were tzadikim, they weren't against kedushah, against godliness. They wanted to stay in the midbar to be involved completely in Elokus, godliness, but what they didn't they said, well, we can't mix the two, and you go to Eretz Yisrael to conquer the land, that we can't do. And that was the mistake the meraglim made. And from making that, so to speak, small mistake, it brought them to the big mistake, and it brought them to all the troubles. But what it teaches us is very simple, that we have to know that we have an obligation, we have a job, we have a mission, and we have the ability of changing gashmiyut into ruchniyut. And the whole reason why we have the gashmiyut is only to change the gashmiyut into ruchniyut. And if we change the gashmiyut into ruchniyut, we accomplish, it says, more than what the Eibershter כביכול did. It says in the גמרא, גדולים מעשי צדיקים יותר ממעשה שמים וארץ. What tzadikim can do is greater than what Hashem did. The Gemara quotes a pasuk, but Chassidut says the pshat is like this. Hashem made yesh me'ayin. He made from nothing something, and He wants us, tzadikim means all the Yidden, עמך כולם צדיקים, to make from something nothing. Now, nothing doesn't mean nothing, it means ruchniyut. He made from ruchniyut gashmiyut, and He wants us to make from gashmiyut ruchniyut. Which one is easier? It's easier to make from ayin to a yesh than to take a yesh and make it back into an ayin. So, what we accomplish is k'vayachol more than what the Aibershter accomplished with the creation of the world. But by doing this, and we do it enough so we bring elokus into the world, so then the world becomes absorbed with godliness, and that will bring Mashiach, because it says when Mashiach will come, what's going to happen? ומלאה הארץ דעה את ה', the world will be full of Hashem. The world will recognize. All of gashmiyus will be felt as a means to ruchniyus. וראו כל בשר יחדו כי פי ה' דבר. The בשר, the flesh, the physical flesh is going to recognize that פי ה' דבר, comes from Hashem, that's going to recognize the ruchniyus. But it all depends, it says in Tanya, whatever will be later depends on מעשינו ועבודתנו, what we do now. The more we do it now, the faster we do now, the faster we're going to be zoche to the coming of Mashiach and the giluy of ונגלה כבוד ה' וראו כל בשר יחדו כי פי ה' דבר.