The final words said by the scouts in their successful attempt to dissuade Benei Yisrael from proceeding to the Land of Israel were, “we were grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes” (13:33). Upon seeing the large, formidable warriors in Canaan, the scouts felt small and feeble, and assumed that this is also how they were perceived.
The Rebbe of Kotzk reportedly pointed to these words as the crux of the scouts’ sin. He quipped, “It is one thing if you think that you are a grasshopper – but what do you care what other people think?” According to the Kotzker Rebbe, the scouts failed because they put too much stock into the way they were perceived by the people of Canaan. Once God had promised their success in conquering the land, it should not have made any difference whether the Canaanites viewed them as feeble or mighty. If we worry too much about what people think of us, we will be discouraged and stifled. We must be prepared to make the right decisions and do what we have determined to be prudent and necessary even if it arouses the jeers and negativity of other people.
We might add that besides the mistake of “this is what we were in their eyes,” the scouts’ downfall also stemmed from the fact that “we were grasshoppers in our eyes.” Insincere humility can often be as harmful and destructive as arrogance. Just as the arrogant person will rest on his laurels, content with what he has achieved and feeling no need to continue growing and improving, similarly, an underachieving person will decide that he cannot do much and thus won’t bother trying. “I can’t” and “I’m not good enough” are oftentimes excuses to justify indifference and passivity fueled by nothing more than plain laziness. And it could certainly be argued that this was the underlying mistake of the meragelim. They should have felt confident and empowered by God’s promise that they would succeed in capturing Canaan. This knowledge should have driven them to meet the challenge of conquest head-on, without fear or intimidation. However, it was far easier and more convenient to say, “We are grasshoppers,” that they were unworthy of, or unfit for, this bold undertaking. And they thus concluded, “We cannot go up against the nation, because it is stronger than us” (13:31).
The smaller we see ourselves, the more likely we will be to view challenges as “stronger than us.” The mistake of the meragelim teaches us to consider very carefully when saying, “I can’t” or “I don’t have the time” whether this is truly the case, or merely an excuse to absolve ourselves of a difficult but important undertaking.
Courtesy of Yeshivat Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il