14 Jul PARSHA IN PRACTICE: SKILLS FOR BETTER LIVING DEVARIM – A PROJECTION OF DESTRUCTION

It’s easy to accuse
someone else of being
defensive.
It is no coincidence
that Parshas Devarim
is always read on the
Shabbos before Tisha B’Av, as Moshe recounts
the tragedy of the meraglim. Chazal teach that
this episode not only occurred on the Ninth of
Av, but became the root of every future calamity
that would unfold on this mournful day (Taanis
29a).
How could an entire nation have fallen for
the spies’ report? After everything they had
witnessed in Egypt and the desert, how
could they have concluded that Hashem had
abandoned them?
Moshe provides a clue in his retelling of the
story, a detail omitted from the original account
in Parshas Shelach. After the spies returned,
Moshe says, “You slandered Hashem in your
tents, saying, ‘Hashem took us out of Egypt
because He hates us’” (Devarim 1:27).
Rashi comments that the opposite was true.
Hashem loved the Jewish people; it was they who
hated Hashem. Then Rashi makes a remarkable
observation about human nature: the way you
feel toward your friend is the way you imagine
he feels toward you. Because Bnei Yisrael had
grown distant from Hashem, they assumed that

He had grown distant from them.
Chazal were identifying a striking feature
of human psychology long before it was
formally described. Modern psychology calls it
projection. Freud defined projection as a defense
mechanism in which a person unconsciously
attributes his own uncomfortable thoughts or
feelings to someone else. Unable to tolerate what
he senses within himself, he becomes convinced
that those feelings must belong to the other
person instead.
This sheds new light on the episode of the
meraglim.
Leaving Egypt required faith. Living in the desert
required faith. But entering Eretz Yisrael would
require something new. The era of open miracles
was coming to an end. They would need to wage
wars, cultivate the land, build homes, and serve
Hashem amidst the routines and struggles of
ordinary life. The relationship was demanding a
deeper commitment.
That transition exposed anxieties that had
quietly been growing beneath the surface. The
people sensed that something had changed
in their relationship with Hashem, but they
misdiagnosed the source of the distance. When
the spies returned with frightening reports
of fortified cities and powerful enemies, it
confirmed every fear they already harbored.
They concluded that Hashem no longer loved
them.
But they had the relationship backwards.
The distance they felt was real. The source of that
distance was not.
It was not Hashem who had withdrawn. It was
the people who had begun pulling away. After
receiving endless miracles and unconditional
care, they recoiled when the relationship
demanded reciprocal trust. Rather than
acknowledging their own wavering faith, they
projected it onto Hashem Himself. “Hashem
hates us,” they insisted, because they could not
bear to admit that they had begun turning away
from Him.
Perhaps this explains why Chazal identify the sin
of the meraglim as the seed from which every
future Tisha B’Av tragedy would grow.
The First Beis HaMikdash was destroyed
because we pursued our own desires and shifted
our devotion away from Hashem (Yoma 9b). Yet
when the prophets pleaded with the nation to
return, the people responded as though Hashem
had rejected them first. Once again, the rupture
was real, but the blame was projected outward.
The same pattern resurfaced during the era of the
Second Beis HaMikdash, which was destroyed
because of sinas chinam (ibid.). Unfixable hatred
thrives when every conflict is viewed through
this distorted lens. “I don’t resent him,” each side
tells itself. “He’s the one who resents me.” Once

I become convinced that the other person is the
source of the hostility, my own bitterness feels
justified. Projection doesn’t merely excuse my
behavior – it transforms me into the victim.
That is what makes this tendency so destructive.
Projection makes teshuvah nearly impossible.
As long as the problem always lies with someone
else, there is nothing within me to examine,
nothing for which to apologize, and nothing to
change.
Before Tisha B’Av, Rashi invites us to ask a
difficult question. When I sense distance in a
relationship – with Hashem, with my spouse,
with a friend, or with a fellow Jew -is it always
because the other person has pulled away? Or is
it possible that some of that distance began with
me?
Rebuilding the Beis HaMikdash begins the
same way every healthy relationship does: not
by assigning blame, but by having the courage
to own our side of the relationship. Sometimes
the first step toward repairing what feels broken
is discovering that the change we are waiting for
in someone else needs to start within ourselves.