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והיה אם מעיני העדה נעשתה לשגגה

And it will be, if from the eyes of the assembly it was done by error. (15:24)

Enei ha’eidah, eyes of the assembly, refer to the Sanhedrin who, as the leaders of the nation, provide guidance, vision and illumination – which are all functions of one’s eyes. As the final arbiters of Jewish law, they infuse our nation with the clarity that comes with Torah erudition and the wisdom, the result of their daas Torah, wisdom honed and inspired by the Torah. In his hesped, eulogy, for the Maharam Shick, Horav Nota Wolf, Rav of Pressburg, Hungary, and the leading elder of the Torah community, offered the following parable, which gives us a powerful insight into the…

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במדבר הזה יפלו פגריכם

In this wilderness shall your carcasses drop. (14:29)

Ever since that first Tishah B’Av, when the meraglim, spies, returned with their slanderous report of Eretz Yisrael, Tishah B’Av became a sad, fateful night for the male members of Klal Yisrael. The decree had been issued that they would not enter into the Promised Land. The wilderness would become their graveyard. Every Tishah B’Av every (eligible) Jew dug a grave for himself, lay down in it and prayed. Would he wake up in the morning, or would this be his last night on earth? Every year, fifteen thousand men did not wake up. Whoever did not arise in the…

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ותשא כל העדה ויתנו את קולם ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא

The entire assembly raised up and issued its voice; the people wept that night. (14:1)

The Talmud Sanhedrin 104b states that the fateful night on which the meraglim, spies, shared their slanderous report of Eretz Yisrael with the nation was the Ninth of Av. The people reacted with unwarranted, incessant weeping, which consumed the entire nation. The weeping was a reaction to a report that was foundless. Furthermore, they had been guided by Hashem in the wilderness under the protective shield of the Clouds of Glory. For them to cry without reason was ludicrous. Hashem said, “You cried a bchiyah shel chinam, unwarranted weeping. I will establish for you a b’chiyah l’doros, weeping for generations.”…

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ויעלו בנגב ויבוא עד חברון

They ascended in the south and he arrived at Chevron. (13:22)

From the Torah’s use of the singular va’yavo, and he came, Chazal (Sotah 34b) derive that Calev alone left the group, so that he could visit the graves of the Patriarchs to pray that they intercede on his behalf. So great was the ability of the meraglim to influence that Calev feared being influenced by them. Yehoshua had no reason to leave, since Moshe Rabbeinu had already prayed for him before they had all left the camp. In his Iyun Yaakov commentary to the Talmud, Horav Yaakov Reisher, zl, asks why Calev prayed at the graves of the Patriarchs. Chazal…

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שלח לך אנשים ויתרו את ארץ כנען

Send forth for yourself men, and let them spy out the Land of Canaan. (13:2)

Rashi comments concerning the juxtaposition of the sin of the meraglim, spies, upon the sin of Miriam, which concluded the previous parsha. The meraglim should have derived a lesson from Miriam’s punishment for speaking about her brother, Moshe Rabbeinu. If the tzadekes, righteous woman, Miriam, was punished for simply talking about Moshe in a manner that might have a negative connotation, how much more so should they have been mindful of her punishment and not spoken negatively? The question concerning Rashi’s comparison (Miriam’s lashon hora to that spoken by the meraglim) begs elucidation. Lashon hora is evil under any circumstance….

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