Parshas Shelach lechah - Why the generation who came out of Mitzrayim did not merit to enter Eretz Yisrael

The passuk says in this week’s sedrah (14:20 - 23)

וַיֹּאמֶר ה' סָלַחְתִּי כִּדְבָרֶךָ. וְאוּלָם חַי אָנִי וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹד ה' אֶת כָּל הָאָרֶץ. כִּי כָל הָאֲנָשִׁים הָרֹאִים אֶת כְּבֹדִי וְאֶת אֹתֹתַי אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי בְמִצְרַיִם וּבַמִּדְבָּר וַיְנַסּוּ אֹתִי זֶה עֶשֶׂר פְּעָמִים וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ בְּקוֹלִי. אִם יִרְאוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לַאֲבֹתָם וְכָל מְנַאֲצַי לֹא יִרְאוּהָ.

And Hashem said, “I have forgiven according to your words. However as I am alive and the glory of Hashem will fill the whole world. That all the men who saw My glory and My signs which I performed in Mitzrayim and in the desert and they have tested Me these ten times and they did not listen to My voice. If they will see the land that I swore to their forefathers and all those who provoke Me will not see it.”

• The words וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ בְּקוֹלִי are in the past tense. Following the same construction, it would seem that the passuk should have said כי כל האנשים שראו את כבודי – all the men who saw My glory. Why does the passuk use the present tense and say הָאֲנָשִׁים הָרֹאִים אֶת כְּבֹדִי – which can be understood to mean “the men who see My glory”?

In Tehillim (106: 24 – 27) the gezerah that came about because of the meraglim is recounted as follows:

וַיִּמְאֲסוּ בְּאֶרֶץ חֶמְדָּה לֹא הֶאֱמִינוּ לִדְבָרוֹ... וַיִּשָּׂא יָדוֹ לָהֶם לְהַפִּיל אוֹתָם בַּמִּדְבָּר. וּלְהַפִּיל זַרְעָם בַּגּוֹיִם וּלְזָרוֹתָם בָּאֲרָצוֹת

And they despised the treasured land, and did not believe in His word… And He raised His hand to cause them to fall in the desert. And to disperse their descendants amongst the nations, and to scatter them throughout the lands.

• If part of the primary gezerah that was decreed because of the חטא המרגלים was that the בני ישראל would go into galus, why does the Torah not specify this explicitly?

The Pachad Yitzchak explains as follows:

The Medrash says on Shir ha’Shirim (8:6)

אמר ר' איבו, שני דברים שאלו ישראל מלפני הקדוש ברוך הוא ולא שאלו כהוגן, עמדו הנביאים ותקנו על ידיהם. ישראל אמרו (הושע ו') ויבא כגשם לנו. אמרו להן הנביאים, לא שאלתם כהוגן שהגשמים הללו סימן טירחות הן לעולם, יוצאי דרכים מצירין בהם, מפרישי ימים מצירין בהם, טחי גגות מצירין בהם, דורכי גיתות מצירין בהם, עומסי גרנות מצירין בהם, מי שבורו מלא מים וגתו מלא יין מצירין בהם, ואתם אומרים ויבא כגשם לנו? ועמדו הנביאים ותקנו (שם י"ד) אהיה כטל לישראל.

Rabbi Eyvu said, “The benei yisrael asked two things from Hashem inappropriately and the nevi’im stood up and corrected their request. The benei yisrael said, ‘Hashem should be like rain to us.’ The nevi’im said to them, ‘You did not ask correctly because people are often bothered by rain. Wayfarers, sailors, people who plaster roofs, people who press wine, people who harvest grain and people who are concerned that the water will overflow and dilute their wine in the wine pit, are all bothered by rain. And you say, ‘Hashem should be like rain to us?’ Rather the nevi’im stood up and they prophesised that Hashem says, ‘I will be like dew to the benei yisrael’.”

The difference as to whether Hashem appears to the benei yisrael as rain or as dew is that rain is more substantial and more material than dew. That is why the word for rain is גשם, which means something which is material. Dew, on the other hand, is insubstantial and ephemeral, which is why dew was the base which מן (which was the most insubstantial type of food possible) descended on, as the passuk says (במדבר י"א, ט') וּבְרֶדֶת הַטַּל עַל-הַמַּחֲנֶה לָיְלָה יֵרֵד הַמָּן עָלָיו.

Subsequently we can understand that the medrash means to say that the benei yisrael asked that the השגות that they achieved of הקב"ה should be made permanent for them, like rain (which is palpable and נתגשם). However the nevi’im said that Hashem would always be like dew to the benei yisrael. That means that the benei yisrael would constantly have to renew their appreciation of the presence of Hashem each day, and would never be able to rely on the perception of Hashem that they had achieved in the past in order to remain close to Hashem.

Although this may prove to be harder for the benei yisrael, it nevertheless signifies that the benei yisrael constantly have a connection to the שפע ברכה which emanates from Hashem. This is why the allegory of dew is used when the passuk announces that the benei yisrael will experience תחיית המתים (Yeshaya 26:19)

הָקִיצוּ וְרַנְּנוּ שֹׁכְנֵי עָפָר כִּי טַל אוֹרֹת טַלֶּךָ

They should wake up and rejoice, those who sleep in the dust, because Your dew is a dew of light.

The madregah of constant reconnection to Hashem ensures the eternity of the lives of the benei yisrael.  This is because כי עמך מקור חיים, the source of life lies with Hashem, and so anyone who constantly reconnects themselves to Hashem is guaranteed external life and to experience תחיית המתים.

Similarly, the benei yisrael in Mitzrayim experienced a very high מדרגה of גלוי השכינה, as the Mechilta (שירת הים, ג') says

ראתה שפחה על הים מה שלא ראה יחזקאל בן בוזי בנבואתו

A maidservant saw at Krias Yam Suf that which Yechezkel did not see [in the nevuah of the kisei ha’kavod].

The benei yisrael wished to perpetuate the type of closeness to Hashem that they had experienced in Mitzrayim and at krias yam suf. However the purpose of Matan Torah was that through observance of the mitzvos, the benei yisrael would be able to reach by themselves the מרגות that they had been shown in Mitzrayim and at Krias Yam Suf.

The נסיונות in which the benei yisrael tested Hashem in the midbar were נסיונות to the extent that the benei yisrael wanted Hashem to reveal Himself to them even without their observance of the דקדוקי המצות. Since the benei yisrael wanted to continue the revelation of the shechinah that they had had in Mitzrayim before they had begun to keep the Torah, they saw the conditionality of their connection to Hashem being based on strict שמירת המצות, as an abnegation of the גילויים that they had been freely granted in Mitzrayim.

That is why the passuk says

כִּי כָל הָאֲנָשִׁים הָרֹאִים אֶת כְּבֹדִי וְאֶת אֹתֹתַי אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי בְמִצְרַיִם וּבַמִּדְבָּר

Because all of the men that see (in the present tense) My Glory  and My signs that I performed in Mitzrayim and in the desert.

This is because it was exactly because the experience of the גלוי השכינה continued to live before the eyes of the דור יוצאי מצרים that they did not want to make their השגה of the גלוי השכינה conditional on the דקדוקי תורה ומצוות that they had been commanded at Har Sinai.

In order to educate the benei yisrael as to the nature of their mistake, Hashem said - וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹד ה' אֶת כָּל הָאָרֶץ – the Glory of Hashem will fill the entire world. In this passuk, the Torah refers to the gezerah of galus which is described in Tehillim - וּלְהַפִּיל זַרְעָם בַּגּוֹיִם וּלְזָרוֹתָם בָּאֲרָצוֹת. In other words, Hashem told the benei yisrael, “You think that you are only able to perceive Me through explicit גלוי השכינה, however I will show you that when you are cast into galus and you are not even in Eretz Yisrael, that you will still perceive that the whole world is full of My Glory and that the shechinah can be found anywhere, even within the apparent darkness of galus.”