The tragedy of the Meraglim (spies) did not begin with a lie. That is part of what makes the story so frightening.
When the spies returned from Eretz Yisrael, much of what they said was factually true. The land was powerful. The cities were fortified. The inhabitants were formidable. They saw real danger and reported it. But then the report shifted. It became interpretation. It became fear. It smelled of defeat.
The turning point comes near the end of their words:
“We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes."
The Kotzker Rebbe famously asked: It is bad enough that you were like grasshoppers in your own eyes - but what business is it of yours what you were in their eyes?
That question exposes the depth of the failure. The spies did not merely fear the giants. They allowed the imagined gaze of the giants to define them. They looked at themselves through the eyes of those they were meant to confront. Once that happened, the battle was already lost.
A person can face danger and still have courage. A nation can recognize difficulty and still move forward. But when a person begins to see himself through the contempt of his opponent, his strength collapses from within. The problem is no longer the enemy’s size. The problem is his own smallness.
This is why the report of the Meraglim was so destructive. They did not simply say, “The challenge is great." They said, “We are small." They turned the hostile eyes of others into the mirror in which they saw themselves - and despair followed. If we are grasshoppers, then we cannot enter the Land. And if we cannot enter the Land, perhaps we should never have left Egypt at all. Fear rewrote their entire past.
The lesson is painfully current.
Today, the Jewish people also live under the gaze of others. Every act of self-defense is placed before the court of world opinion, often by people who showed little moral clarity when Jewish blood was spilled and Jewish hostages were dragged into darkness.
Of course we must act with morality. Torah never permits cruelty. But morality is one thing; dependence on the approval of hostile nations is another. There is a vast difference between asking, “What does Hashem demand of us?" and asking, “How will those who hate us describe us?"
The Meraglim teach us that the second question can become poisonous.
A recent example was the uproar over Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the detained flotilla activists. These were not innocent tourists who wandered into the wrong harbor. They came as part of a deliberate political provocation to feed the world another image of Jewish guilt. They came chanting “Free Palestine," with little concern for Jewish blood or Jewish hostages.
Ben-Gvir met them with an Israeli flag. Hatikvah was played. Their chants were stopped. They were reminded that they had not arrived in a powerless country, but in the sovereign State of Israel.
Was it everyone’s style? No. Was it delicate? No. Could one debate the optics? Certainly. But the wave of Jewish outrage that followed was revealing. We were lectured that this was shameful, “not the Jewish way."
Well, boo hoo.
What exactly was the moral catastrophe? They were not harmed. They were not innocent bystanders. They came to provoke the Jewish state, and they were confronted with the fact that the Jewish state does not bow its head before them.
If they felt humiliated - cry me a river.
A proud nation does not collapse in shame because anti-Israel activists discovered that Israel has a flag, an anthem, and a backbone. This is not cruelty. It is the refusal to live as grasshoppers.
The same issue appears, more painfully, inside Israeli society. Since October 7, tens of thousands of reserve soldiers - including thousands of religious men - have left homes and families to defend the Jewish people, suffering uncertainty, fear, grief, and absence. The country has run out of patience with a situation in which so many carry the burden while others do not.
But here too, the deeper problem is fear.
Haredi leaders have been afraid to engage in a serious conversation about how can participate in national service while remaining fully faithful to Torah, kashrus, and their own religious and halakhic standards. Everyone knows that thousands are not truly learning full-time.
Everyone knows the community is growing rapidly and an increasingly large part of Israel’s future. It is self-evident that something must change.
Yet the conversation remains trapped in old fears: if we enter the army, we will be destroyed; if we participate, our children will be pulled away; if we compromise at all, everything will collapse. These fears may have roots in real concerns, but fear cannot be the permanent policy of a growing part of the Jewish people.
This is not a call to empty the Batei Midrash. A Jewish state must have room for genuine Talmidei Chachamim whose lives are fully dedicated to Torah, a major part of the strength of Klal Yisrael. But that cannot justify a system in which everyone is treated as if he is learning day and night when many are not. Courage would mean building frameworks (there already are several) allowing, at a minimum, those who are not full-time scholars to serve the nation without being asked to abandon who they are.
This too is part of the failure of the Meraglim. They saw danger and concluded that the future was impossible. They took a real concern and turned it into paralysis. But Jewish leadership cannot be built on paralysis. It must be built on faith, responsibility, and courage.
This is especially important in our generation.
For centuries, the Jew in Galut often had no choice but to keep his head down. He lived under foreign rule, dependent on the goodwill of others. Caution was survival.
But we are no longer living in that moment.
We have not yet reached the final redemption. Mashiach has not yet come. The world is still broken, and we still await the day when Hashem’s presence will be fully revealed. But neither are we the powerless Jew of the dark Galut. Hashem has granted us the unbelievable privilege of living in a time of Jewish return, defense, and rebuilding. We have a strong state, a strong army, and a flourishing world of Torah.
We are living in the Isaac Covenant - the stage of Jewish history in which we are no longer merely surviving but beginning to live again as a rooted people in our Land. Yitzchak Avinu does not struggle in the same way as Yaakov. He is strong and respected . He represents the covenant of continuity and strength within Eretz Yisrael.
That covenant demands that we stop thinking like persecuted victims. It demands that we stop apologizing for existing and defending ourselves.
This does not mean triumphalism. It does not mean every policy is correct or every leader is beyond criticism. Power must be guided by Torah, wisdom, restraint, and moral seriousness.
But Jewish weakness is not a virtue. Fear is not humility. Self-erasure is not morality. And seeing ourselves through the contempt of others is not the Jewish way.
Against the collapse of the Meraglim stood Calev. He did not deny the facts. He did not pretend there were no giants. He said:
“We shall surely go up and inherit it, for we can surely do it."
Calev did not speak fantasy. He spoke faith. Faith does not mean there are no giants. Faith means the giants are not the measure of who we are.
The Jewish people need morality, but also pride. Compassion, but also courage. We must care deeply about what Hashem demands - but we must stop trembling before the eyes of those who despise us.
A Jew may not be cruel. But a Jew should stand tall. A Jewish state may not abandon its conscience. But it may not abandon its backbone.
The time for grasshoppers is over.
We are not yet at the end of history. But Hashem has brought us into a new chapter, and we must have the courage to live in it - to defend Jewish life without apology, honor those who carry the burden, demand responsibility from all parts of the nation, and above all, stop asking, “How are we in their eyes?"
The only eyes that matter are the eyes of Hashem.
Rabbi Yehuda L Oppenheimer was formerly Rav at several congregations in the United States, lives in Afula and is an educator, writer, and licensed tour guide. He eagerly looks forward to showing you our wonderful land on your next visit. He is published regularly in the Jewish Press, blogs at libibamizrach.blogspot.com and can be reached at lenopp@gmail.com or voice/WhatsApp at 053-624-1802.