Seeing Yourself in Others

SHELACHThis week we receive a deeply meaningful lesson from the sin of the spies. The unforgivable mistake of the spies was not the fear itself. The challenge of conquering the Land is genuinely daunting - no one knows this better than we do, to this very day. The essential sin was that their fears about the Land reflected what was already happening inside them. Long before the Land threatened them, they had already turned against it - they simply did not want it. And for that they were punished: for their rejection of the Promised Land.