It was a stormy night, and a battleship was on exercise at sea. The captain stood on the bridge, peering into the foggy night ahead. Suddenly, he heard the lookout shout from the observation post. “There’s a light on the starboard side!”
“Is it steady or moving?” the captain asked quickly.
“It’s steady,” the lookout replied.
This meant that they were on a direct collision course with another ship. The captain immediately ran up and grabbed the ship radio. “We are on collision course!” he signaled to the other ship. “Change course 20 degrees immediately.”
The signal quickly came back, “Advisable for you to change course.”
Infuriated, the captain replied, “I am a captain. Change your course NOW.”
“I am a seaman, second class. You had better change your course 20 degrees,” came the reply.
By now, the captain was outraged. “I am a battleship. Change course or suffer the consequences!”
Back came the signal, “I am a lighthouse.”
The captain changed course.
As human beings, we have the remarkable ability to jump to conclusions, assuming that we know the truth of a situation when we, in fact, have completely misjudged it. One of the most powerful learning experiences a person can have is a paradigm shift – a shift in perspective that causes us to see something in a fundamentally new way.
The Sin of the M’raglim
When klal Yisrael was getting ready to enter Eretz Yisrael, Moshe famously sends the M’raglim (Spies) to scout out the land. With the exception of Yehoshua and Kalev, the M’raglim return with a negative report, attempting to dissuade the Jewish People from entering Eretz Yisrael. While we often think of their account as malicious libel, this does not seem to be the case when the story is read on a surface level. As the Spies scouted the land, they witnessed many giants burying their dead, and upon return, the Spies reported this to the Jewish People. Chazal explain that the M’raglim violated the prohibition of lashon ha’ra (evil speech). However, they did not speak about people, only a piece of land! Does lashon ha’ra really apply to inanimate objects? Furthermore, the M’raglim spoke the truth. They saw people dying, and they passed on that information. Was it not their job to report what they saw?
In Megillas Eichah (Lamentations), the verses in the first four p’rakim are written in alphabetical order. However, in most chapters, the verse starting with the letter pei appears before the verse that starts with the letter ayin, counter to their alphabetical order. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 104b) enigmatically explains that this reversal is due to the fact that the M’raglim placed their mouth (peh) before their eye (ayin). [The Hebrew word “peh” literally means mouth, and the Hebrew word “ayin” literally means eye.] What does this mean, and what is the connection between Eichah and the sin of the M’raglim?
Proper Sight
There are two levels of reality: The first is how things appear on the physical surface; the second is the meaning that lies behind that exterior. Correspondingly, there are two levels of sight: The first is physical sight, which allows you to see the physical surface of the object; the second is spiritual sight, the mechanism of giving meaning and depth to that which you see. Improper sight is seeing only that which is on the surface without sourcing it back to its root and without seeing what truly lies behind it. When the surface no longer reflects a deeper truth, it becomes a shell of an object, lacking any internal meaning, like a body without a soul. If one were to look at someone’s face and see only flesh and bone without recognizing that there’s a consciousness and a living soul behind that surface, that would be an egregious corruption of sight. Their physical sight may be accurate, but the meaning they have given to what they physically saw is far from the truth. Similarly, when one witnesses an event, he has the opportunity to discern the meaning that lies behind it. If, however, he does not ascertain the truth that lies beneath the surface level, he is likely to project his personal feelings and perceptions onto the situation instead, twisting its true meaning to align with his subjective reality.
The M’raglim: Corruption of Sight
The physical sight of the M’raglim was intact; what they lacked was spiritual sight. They physically saw giants burying their dead, but they interpreted this to mean that the “land consumes its inhabitants” (BaMidbar 13:32). In reality, as the Gemara explains, this was a miracle that Hashem performed to aid the M’raglim in their mission. Hashem killed off the leaders of the giants in each city so that the dwellers would be distracted with their funerals, ensuring that the M’raglim could travel through Eretz Yisrael undetected (Sotah 35a). The death of the giants was the external reality; the mistake of the M’raglim lay in projecting faulty meaning onto it.
Similarly, the M’raglim reported to klal Yisrael that when they came across the giants, “We were like grasshoppers in our eyes” (BaMidbar 13:33). They projected their fear and lack of faith onto the giants. In their own eyes, the giants viewed them as grasshoppers. They were no longer conveying an account of objective reality; rather, they were projecting their own spiritual and existential insecurities onto their experience. This was their two-fold mistake. The M’raglim not only misunderstood their experience, but they then reported this distortion back to klal Yisrael. We can now begin to explain why this was a violation of lashon ha’ra.
[While there are various explanations regarding the motivation of the M’raglim to deliver a negative report, this is not the focus of our article. In brief, here are some of the opinions:
They wished to keep Moshe alive (as they knew that upon entering Eretz Yisrael, Moshe would die).
They were scared that they would not be able to overpower the giants.
Ego: They wished to maintain their elevated status. (The M’raglim were N’siim, and they feared that upon entering Eretz Yisrael, they would lose their positions of honor.)
They feared losing the constant miracles of the midbar. They knew that, upon entering Eretz Yisrael, Hashem would no longer miraculously intervene, as He did in the midbar. They did not want to transition to a world of teva (the natural), losing the constant miracles such as the Ananei HaKavod (Clouds of Glory), the manna, and B’eir Miriam (Miriam’s wellspring).]
Lashon HaRa: Corruption of Speech
Speech embodies the power of connection. It is the mechanism that enables us to connect with other people and to overcome the barrier between us. Lashon hara takes the very tool of connection, i.e., speech, and uses it to disconnect people from each other. When you speak negatively about someone, you create a wall between the subject of your negativity and the person you are speaking with. The very tool of connection has been corrupted to achieve its opposite goal.
As the Ramban explains, everything that the M’raglim said was “true” in the physical sense, but they failed to see what lay beneath the surface (Ramban, B’reishis 2:9). This itself is the epitome of lashon ha’ra: taking the truth and distorting it in order to create harm. Lying is a separate problem, violating the prohibition of “Midvar sheker tirchak” (Sh’mos 23:7). The evil of lashon ha’ra is not a fabrication but a corruption of the truth. The M’raglim suffered from a spiritual disease of ayin ha’ra (an evil eye). They had sight, but no vision; they saw, but were blind.
Eretz Yisrael
Through the mechanism of speech, the M’raglim disconnected klal Yisrael from Eretz Yisrael. It therefore seems that the sin of lashon ha’ra by the M’raglim was in creating a schism between klal Yisrael and the land of Eretz Yisrael, an inanimate object. However, when taking into account the deep nature and role of Eretz Yisrael, this takes on great significance. Eretz Yisrael is the place where Hashem connects to the world and most intimately connects to klal Yisrael. By using speech to disconnect klal Yisrael from Eretz Yisrael, the M’raglim were separating klal Yisrael from Hashem. In a deep sense, this was the most nefarious form of lashon ha’ra imaginable! In our next article, we will delve more deeply into this fascinating topic and try to understand the sin of the M’raglim on an even deeper level.
Rabbi Shmuel Reichman is the author of the bestselling book, The Journey to Your Ultimate Self, which serves as an inspiring gateway into deeper Jewish thought. He is an international speaker, educator, and the CEO of Self-Mastery Academy. After obtaining his BA from Yeshiva University, he received s’micha from RIETS, a master’s degree in education, a master’s degree in Jewish Thought, and then spent a year studying at Harvard. He is currently pursuing a PhD at UChicago. To invite Rabbi Reichman to speak in your community or to enjoy more of his deep and inspiring content, visit his website: www.ShmuelReichman.com.
