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Harav Hagaon Meir Tzvi Shpitzer Shlita

Ignore the Naysayers

Parashas Shelach

Harav Hagaon Meir Tzvi Shpitzer

After Moshe Rabbeinu sends the meraglim, the passuk says, וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד נַחַל אֶשְׁכֹּל — they arrived in a place called Nachal Eshkol. The mefarshim wonder, what is the significance of the fact that they came to this place in particular? The Midrash says that this Nachal Eshkol is the place where Avraham Avinu’s friend Eshkol lived. He was one of Avraham Avinu’s three friends: Aner, Eshkol, and Mamrei.

The Minchas Ani, by the Aruch Laner, in his peirush al haTorah, explains that when Avraham Avinu was instructed to perform a bris milah, he went to ask his friends their opinion, and only Mamrei advised him to go ahead and do the bris milah. As a reward, Hashem later appeared to Avraham Avinu in Elonei Mamrei.

Aner and Eshkol felt differently, arguing, “Milah is a good thing, an instruction of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but what will the goyim around you say?”

Eshkol, then, was of the opinion that however good and correct something is, you should still refrain from doing it because people won’t understand, and they’ll look down on you and think you’re strange for doing it. That was his advice.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that Eretz Yisrael is a good place and that Klal Yisrael would be successful there. But when the meraglim arrived in Eretz Yisrael, they heard the Canaanim talking about them with disdain and scorn, thinking of them as mere grasshoppers: וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם. In the meraglim’s view, although it was good for Klal Yisrael to enter Eretz Yisrael, the fact that the Canaanim looked down on them was a reason not to do what was right. They were guilty of exactly the same mistake as was Eshkol, in his advice to Avraham Avinu, and the passuk therefore stresses that they arrived at Nachal Eshkol — the place that represents this opinion, which was mirrored in the advice of the meraglim that Klal Yisrael should not enter Eretz Yisrael, because of the way other people will look at them and think about them.

What’s the truth?

The Double Nisayon

The Sefer Hachinuch teaches, in the hakdamah, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a very big, wide world, but the best part is always only a small portion. The world spans huge expanses of land, but there are only certain small areas, which Chazal term “idis” — a good investment, arable land. Similarly, of all the many nations of the world and the billions of people Hakadosh Baruch Hu created, Am Yisrael is small in number. And Eretz Yisrael is but a tiny speck on the globe, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu invested it with so much kedushah, making it the correct place for Klal Yisrael. Ignore the fact that most people in the world don’t understand us and look down upon us, urges the Sefer Hachinuch. That doesn’t make a difference, because that which is meaningful and important is only the small minority. The tiny nation of Klal Yisrael has the ability to be better and different from the rest of the world, and especially for them Hakadosh Baruch Hu created Eretz Yisrael, which, tiny as it is, is better and different from any other land, the idei idis of the world. And therefore, it is very befitting that Klal Yisrael should go to Eretz Yisrael, in spite of the way the world looks at it.

The meraglim  said, however: “Look at how the nations of the world look at us! It’s not worth going to Eretz Yisrael.”

This was the point of contention between the ten meraglim and Yehoshua and Kalev. The Torah says, וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן וְכָלֵב בֶּן יְפֻנֶּה חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵם הַהֹלְכִים לָתוּר אֶת הָאָרֶץ, and the simple meaning of this passuk is that they were the only ones to survive. The Gemara teaches, however, that the words חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים indicate that Yehoshua and Kalev received the portion in Eretz Yisrael that was destined for the other meraglim. R’ Aharon  זצ”לand others wonder, what was the significance of this schar, and how was it a middah k’neged middah reward?

The answer is that Yehoshua and Kalev experienced a double nisayon in precisely this point of resisting the concern of “what are other people going to say.” Not only did they have to grapple with the Canaanim and the nations looking down upon them, and advise the Yidden to resist world opinion by entering Eretz Yisrael, they also had to resist the opinion of the other ten meraglim. Yehoshua and Kalev had to be so convinced that their path was correct that they were able to muster the fortitude to maintain their view in spite of the opinion of the other ten meraglim. And since these other meraglim made it more difficult for Yehoshua and Kalev to stand up for their conviction, they were rewarded with the portions of those meraglim, whose opinions they had to ignore.

Meriting the Extra Reward

As Klal Yisrael endures thousands of years of galus, our nisyonos become greater and greater, and we must continually struggle against the concern of “mah yomru habriyos — what will other people say about us?” What we need to remember is: If I know that this is right, if this is what the halacha tells me to do, then I lift my head up high and I do it, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Not only does their opinion make no difference, we’re actually going to get more s’char — חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים — proportional to the number of people who tried to discourage us or thought that we should have done otherwise.

This is a concept that we find throughout the Torah. For instance, Yaakov Avinu comes back to his brother Eisav and tells him: עִם לָבָן גַּרְתִּי וָאֵחַר עַד עָתָּה. R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky זצ”ל explains that Yaakov was saying, “I lived with Lavan, but I didn’t change my opinion an iota because of the way he looked at me, nor am I going to change anything because of what you, Eisav, might think of me.” Yaakov then adds, in his message to Eisav, וַיְהִי לִי שׁוֹר וַחֲמוֹר.

The Brisker Rav used to relate a chassidishe pshat: עִם לָבָן גַּרְתִּי, I lived with Lavan for twenty years. How did I survive? How did I keep my hashkafah straight? How did I do everything the way Hashem wanted it to be done in spite of the influence of Lavan? The answer is, וַיְהִי לִי שׁוֹר וַחֲמוֹר – I looked upon him as though he was an ox or a donkey.

A person ignores the opinion of an ox or a donkey, because he understands that these animals are not blessed with intelligence and cannot dictate our decisions, and that is the way I looked at Lavan. If he doesn’t see the light and doesn’t understand what Hakadosh Baruch Hu really wants of me in this world, then he’s just an ox or a donkey.

Reframing Alexander’s Question

The Gemara (Tamid 32) relates that Alexander the Great came to Eretz Yisrael, and when he met the zekeinim there he asked them, “Who is called a chacham by you Jews?” They answered him: איזהו חכם הרואה את הנולד. The mefarshim note that Alexander was the one who asked the question, so the answer should seemingly have been: הרואה את הנולד. Why did the zekeinim have to repeat the question, asking איזהו חכם, before giving their answer?

The answer, say the mefarshim, is that there was a subtle, but crucial difference in their rephrasing of the question. Alexander didn’t ask who is a chacham; he asked, “Who is called a chacham?” His definition of a chacham depends on how people view the person: Who is recognized as a chacham in this country?

When the zekeinim answered him, they redefined the question — because to Klal Yisrael, it makes no difference what people call a chacham, or whether people understand something to be right or wrong. Alexander’s question is not a question at all. To us, the question is – who is intrinsically a chacham? That’s the way we approach wisdom. Once that question is asked, the answer is: הרואה את הנולד. It might not always be popular to be הרואה את הנולד; you might not be called a chacham, but you will be a chacham.

When Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah answered Nevuchadnezzar, they said,  למלכא נבוכדנצר  — referring to him both as an individual and as the king. The Midrash wonders: Why did they address him with this double title, Nevuchadnezzar and the king? The Midrash explains that they were telling Nevuchadnezzar, “You have two titles. If you want us to pay taxes, keep the law, and follow your instructions, in that regard you are our king, and we must obey you. But if you want us to forgo any part of our Yiddishkeit, then in our eyes you’re not called a king anymore, you are merely Nevuchadnezzar, a simple man on the street. You’re only the king inasmuch as you conform with what the Torah demands of us.”

The Chofetz Chaim cites the Midrash that relates that when Eliyahu Hanavi was going with R’ Yehoshua ben Levi, they saw people standing in line to buy meat, and the people thought they were buying good, healthy meat, but they were really buying moldy dogs’ meat. “What you see is a mashal for what is happening in this world,” Eliyahu told R’ Yehoshua ben Levi. “There can be lines of people who want to buy something, thinking it is chashuv and believing that this is the way the world should be run. But if you have the right eyes, you’ll see that what they’re pursuing is moldy dogs’ meat, not healthy meat.”

When Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted to appoint Moshe Rabbeinu as leader, Moshe responded, שְׁלַח נָא בְּיַד תִּשְׁלָח — “Don’t send me to be the savior of Klal Yisrael. Send the one who You are going to send many hundreds of years in the future, the person who will be the leader of Klal Yisrael.” He was referring to Rabbi Akiva, since he knew through nevuah how great Rabbi Akiva would be. What was so special about Rabbi Akiva that Moshe Rabbeinu said Hashem should send him to lead Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim?

A Message from a Donkey

The Midrash relates that until Rabbi Akiva was forty years old, he did not learn any Torah. When his wife, Rachel, told him to go learn, he replied, “If I go and learn, people will laugh at me — I’m forty years old and I don’t know anything.”  In response, she took a donkey and made it look ridiculous, and sent the donkey into the main street. The first day, people laughed when they saw the donkey. The second day, they laughed again. But by the third day, the sight was no longer spectacular, and people stopped paying attention to it. Rachel then turned to Rabbi Akiva and said, “What do you care? For one day, two days, people will laugh at you and talk about you. After that, you’ll become a talmid chacham.” Propelled and encouraged by the proof Rachel had shown him, Rabbi Akiva went to learn. At first, he sat and learned alef-beis, until eventually he became the great Rabbi Akiva.

When Moshe Rabbeinu said שְׁלַח נָא בְּיַד תִּשְׁלָח, he was expressing that he could see that there would be a leader of Klal Yisrael whose whole essence and greatness would be built upon ignoring what people would say about him. “This is what Klal Yisrael needs,” he told Hashem. But Hashem knew that the generation of the Midbar needed Moshe Rabbeinu to be their later, while the later generations would need Rabbi Akiva. Since we have gone into galus and are living among the nations of the world — for 2000 years now, we need Rabbi Akiva as our leader, the leader whose motto is, “It doesn’t make a difference what people think, you need to do what’s right.”

Rabbi Akiva himself said, “Sheli v’shelachem, shelah” — whatever I have and whatever my talmidim have, it all comes from my wife. She’s the one who understood that when something is right, you follow your principles and do what’s right, regardless of what people might think about you. Indeed, Rabbi Akiva is the one who says (Shabbos 25) that a rich person is someone who has a good wife. His wife is the one who explained to him and convinced him that this incredible middah is what Klal Yisrael needs.

We know from the Yerushalmi in Peah that Rabbi Akiva would confer with his wife at each stage; before he became a manhig, he consulted with her. She was the one who understood what Klal Yisrael needs in a leader, and what message we need to internalize in order to survive 2000 years of galus.

The passuk says (Mishlei 14:2), הוֹלֵךְ בְּיָשְׁרוֹ יְרֵא ה’ — a person who goes in his just way is the one who fears Hashem, and the Vilna Gaon explains this as follows. All the millions and billions of people in the world around us might not understand what we’re doing, and might have their own opinion about what we’re doing, but if a person keeps the 613 mitzvos because he knows it’s the right thing to do — as implied in the possessive form ofהוֹלֵךְ בְּיָשְׁרוֹ , he is the true yerei Hashem.

This was the nisayon that the meraglim faced, and for overcoming this nisayon by ignoring what the meraglim and the Canaanim had to say, Yehoshua and Kalev earned their great reward of חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים.

May Hakadosh Baruch Hu grant us the foresight and courage to understand that “what will people say” does not determine what we should do; rather, we follow what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants from us, and in that way we, too, will merit the reward of חָיוּ מִן הָאֲנָשִׁים — that every bit of difficulty along the path will become a source of additional reward and hatzlachah for us.

Gut Shabbos.

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