Rabbi David Samson is one of the leading English-speaking Torah scholars in the Religious Zionist movement in Israel, and an educational entrepreneur.
The Torah portion we read this past Shabbat begins with Moshe begging Hashem to allow him to enter the Land of Israel:
“I beseech Thee, let me go over and see the good Land that is beyond the Jordan, that good mountain and the Lebanon.”
Commentators point out that the Hebrew word for beseech, “Va’etchanan,” has a gematria (numerical value) of 515, indicating that Moshe beseeched Hashem with 515 different supplications, so great was his desire to make aliyah.
Rabbi Sholom Gold, of blessed memory, asked an interesting question. Why does Moshe repeat the word “good” in the verse? After all, he could have combined the sentence to say: “Let me go over and see the good Land and mountain, and the Lebanon that is beyond the Jordan.”
He answered that Moshe was actually asking two things from Hashem. First, he was asking for permission to enter the good Land. Second, he was asking for Hashem’s blessing that once he was in the Land, he would continue to see the Land in a good light.
Rabbi Gold explained that there is a yetzer hara (evil inclination) that causes a person to see the Land of Israel in a negative perspective. The Spies are the classic example of this tragic transgression. Even though they were outstanding Torah scholars and leaders of the tribes, they came back from their tour of Israel with a critical report, highlighting the dangers they encountered. Instead of emphasizing the good of the Land, they succumbed to their yetzer hara and emphasized the things which they experienced as bad.
For instance, having seen many funerals during their trip, they reported that it is a land that “devours its inhabitants.” Rashi explains that in reality, Hashem was doing them a favor, arranging that there would be many funerals so that the Jews could go about their mission undetected (Bamidbar, 13:32). Rather than seeing that the Land of Israel was indeed good, as Hashem had promised, the Spies interpreted events in the Land as bad, in order to justify their corrupted personal desire of remaining in galut with they enjoy honor and authority (Mesillat Yesharim, Ch 11, in the discussion on Honor; also Zohar, 3:158).
This same corrupted vision continues today on the part of people who spend their days criticizing Israel all over the media. “This is no good, and that’s no good, and this is immoral, and that is unjust, and this is like the Nazis, and that is Messianic, and this is leading the country to destruction…” ad infinitum. Others in the Diaspora proclaim “Until all of the problems in Israel are fixed, it is suicide to come on aliyah,” thereby reenacting the sin of the Spies.
Seeing the Land of Israel, and what goes on there, in a negative light is a pernicious transgression that most people aren’t even aware that they are guilty of. On the contrary, they think they are doing a mitzvah by rejected Hashem’s chosen Land with all kinds of political observations and facts. They don’t realize that they are embracing the very same sin as the Spies.
As the Gaon of Vilna writes: “Many of those who sin in the great transgression of, ‘They despised the cherished Land,’ and also many of the guardians of Torah, will not know or understand that they are caught in the sin of the Spies in their many false ideas and empty claims….” (Kol HaTor, Ch.5).
This does not mean that one cannot point out problems with the Medina, or with government policies, or with the biased media. However, in doing so, the criticism must come forth from the fundamental confirmation that this is our one and only Land, and come hell and high water, we won’t betray our love for it with an allegiance to any other lover.
Thus, to protect himself and the people against the terrible spiritual illness of slandering the Land, Moshe praises the Land of Israel throughout the Torah portion, stressing over and over again that it is indeed a “good Land.”
The Sages of the Talmud followed Moshe’s example. At the end of tractate Ketubot, it is related that Rav Hanina would clear away debris from the roads of Eretz Yisrael, so that no one would speak derisively against the Land. When teaching their students, Rav Ami and Rav Asi would move from the shade to the sun, and from the sun to the shade. Rashi explains that they would move into the sun when the shade was too cold, and into the shade when the sun was too hot, so that no one should speak a bad word about the settlement of Eretz Yisrael.
How important it is, then, to view the settlement of Israel and our life here in a positive light. Doing otherwise is a grievous misdoing.
Of course, a “good eye” is important in looking at everything in life, especially our families, our wives, our children, and our friends. The Mishna teaches that a “good eye” is the trait of our Forefather, Avraham, and its opposite, the trait of the wicked Bilaam (Avot, 5:19).
May Hashem cure us of the evil of seeing the settlement of the Land of Israel in a negative light, and may we merit to rectify the sin of the Spies by loving the Land, seeing it with a good eye, and coming to live here in accordance with the will of the Almighty, as stated again and again and again in the Book of Devarim.