This week’s Parshah has a very strong message for all of us.
It is the Parshah where the spies visit the Land of Israel and slander it. It is the Parshah that seals the fate of the Jews to wander 40 years in the desert for that slander. Forty years!
The message is not to slander another Jew—not even a Land.
The Brisker Rav, upon arriving in the Holy Land, took a minyan of Jews with him to the Kotel (western wall) and spent time saying Tehillim and praying that he not become a spy and slander the Land.
It is natural for someone who encounters things not to his liking to speak badly about them. I’m sure there are hundreds of things one encounters in Israel that give a person reason to reflect on his experience. Politics, right and left, religious and non-religious—you name it, you can find a topic that stirs emotions.
But we must be very careful and guard our tongues, so that we do not say anything bad about the Land, the Country, and certainly not its people.
Slander is a non-starter—but if engaged in, it could be a finisher, may HaShem spare us.
Have a great Shabbos!
