Shlach Lecha: Our Emuna versus Their Emuna

“…a land that devours its inhabitants…” (Numbers 13:32).

The spies were punished for speaking slander about the Land of Israel, one of Hashem’s greatest gifts to the Jewish People. Among other detrimental things the spies said, they discouraged the Children of Israel from entering the Holy Land by saying that it is “a land that devoured its inhabitants.” Rashi explains that wherever they went, they saw funerals taking place. Unfortunately, when a person lacks emuna, he doesn’t understand what he is seeing.

Although all twelve of the spies were unquestionable tzaddikim, only Joshua and Caleb were men of true emuna. The latter two knew that if Hashem was granting them the Land of Israel, Hashem was also granting them the ability and wherewithal to conquer it from the wanton Canaanites who defiled the Holy Land with idolatry and unprecedented immorality.

What really happened?

Although the Canaanites were immoral idolaters, they believed in the power of someone who was truly righteous. They also believed in reward and punishment in life after death. If so, why weren’t they afraid of living such lust-laden, sinful lives?

Rebbe Menachem Menashe in his classic book “Ahavat Chaim” explains that the Canaanites had a ploy. During their lifetime, they’d do whatever they pleased, no holds barred. When a Canaanite died, his family would embalm the body and put it in a casket, which would be held in the family cellar. When a righteous person would die, the Canaanites would then pull all their dead loved ones out of the cellar and run and bury them at the same time that the righteous person was being buried. They surmised that if the Heavenly Gates were being opened for the righteous person tp enter, they too would seize the opportunity and rush through the pearly gates too.

On the day when the spies entered the Land of Israel, Job – the most prominent non-Jewish righteous individual of his generation – died. All over Canaan, people rushed to bury their dead. In every town and village, there were funerals. The spies recorded what was happening as if they were correspondents of CNN, Reuters or the BBC, all too ready to say something bad about Israel while looking at events with a skewed uncomprehending view. They returned and reported that Israel is “a land that devoured its inhabitants.” Lacking the facts that the Canaanite deceased had actually passed away weeks, months and even years ago, they came to the hasty and erroneous conclusion that the Holy Land is wrought with peril.

If they weren’t harboring the preconception that it’s better to stay in the desert and eat manna, they would have asked themselves, “If the Land of Israel is so terrible, then what are the Canaanites doing here? Why don’t they leave?” A clear-thinking eight-year old would have asked such a question – the sinning spies didn’t.

The Canaanite “emuna” sounds absurd, but it was nonetheless based on a belief in tzaddikim – the truly righteous – a belief in accountability and a belief in the world to come. The ten sinning spies who spoke slander about the Land of Israel lacked belief in the true tzaddik Moses. So, when it came to a test of emuna, the spies couldn’t score any higher than the Canaanites. That’s why that whole generation had to die off and it took another forty years before the Children of Israel could enter the Land of Israel.

When we look at the sin of the spies through eyes of emuna, we come to a remarkable conclusion: the conquest of our holy homeland depends on us having more emuna than our enemies. This holds true to this very day.

We look all around us; there are millions of shahidim, suicide terrorists who are ready and willing to sacrifice their lives for jihad, the Islamic holy war against the Jews. Both the Sunni Hamas and the Shiite Hezbollah – two organizations that would normally blow each other off the face of the earth, are suddenly unified when it comes to their belief in shahida, dying a martyr for what they believe.

This is our biggest challenge: if Hamas and Hezbollah have grade 96 (on a scale of 100) emuna in what they believe, then we must have at least grade 97 emuna to overcome them. Our thriving in this hostile neighborhood known as the Middle East depends simply our on emuna versus their emuna.

So who will prevail? The nation that is so fortunate to have the true tzaddik who wrote the Garden of Emuna will surely have the upper hand. Wait and see!