09 Jun SHELACH: LET’S STOP RUINING OUR BLESSINGS

Parashat Shelach is
famous for the story of
the meraglim – the spies
sent by Moshe Rabbenu
to scout the land. They
returned with a
frightening report, insisting that Beneh
Yisrael were incapable of capturing the
country, and convincing them not to proceed
to the land. The nation accepted their report,
and wept. Hashem severely punished the
people, keeping them in the desert for forty
years until that entire generation perished
Interestingly, the first words
the meragelim said about the land were very
positive, and even sound enthusiastic:
We came to the land you sent us to, and it is
indeed flowing with milk and
honey… (13:27)
After this brief word of praise for the quality
of the land, the spies then told the people that
they could not possibly capture it, and that it
was not even worth capturing.
Rashi explains that the spies began with
praising the land because a lie is credible
only if it includes some truth. The spies
needed to start with the truth – that the land

is “flowing with milk and honey” – in order
to lay the groundwork for the lies they
wanted to spread.
But others explain differently.
The spies were telling the people that the
Land of Israel was so good, so desirable, that
they should have expected many surrounding
nations to want to take it over. Yet nobody
did. The reason, the spies claimed, is that the
nations in Eretz Yisrael were too powerful
for anyone to dare launch an attack. Thus,
the spies’ positive words were actually part
of their negativity. They took the great
blessing of the Land of Israel and turned it on
its head, making a complaint out of it.
I’m sorry to say this – but this is something
that we’re all guilty of.
A person is invited to a wedding, and
complains about the inconvenient time, the
hassle of having to get dressed, find a
babysitter, make the trip, buy a gift, and so
on. Two weeks later, that same person is
talking to a friend who is going to another
wedding, and responds, “What? I wasn’t
invited?!”
This sounds silly, but we all do this in one
form or another. We all complain about our

blessings. We complain about our spouse,
our kids, our house, our jobs, our rabbi, our
community, etc. etc. etc. These are all
wonderful blessings, but we complain,
because our lives aren’t perfect. What we
don’t realize is that our lives aren’t supposed
to be perfect. But they’re supposed to be
appreciated and enjoyed. And in order to
appreciate and enjoy them, we need to stop
complaining about our many blessings.
Earlier in the parashah (13:26), the Torah
says about the spies, “They went and they
came.” Rashi, based on the Gemara,
comments that this pasuk alludes to the fact
that the spies’ departure to scout the land was
similar to their return from their spy
mission. Just as they returned with the
intention of convincing the people not to
proceed to the Land of Israel, they had
initially embarked on their mission with that
same intention.
What Rashi is saying is that the spies’
negativity was not triggered by what they
saw during their mission in the land. It’s not
as though they left with a positive attitude
and were then discouraged by the things they
observed. They set out with a negative
mindset, and so they turned everything they

saw into a complaint, into something terrible.
This is what we need to stop doing. We need
to stop turning our blessings into complaints.
So many parents of engaged daughters
complain about the hassle and costs of
making a wedding. So many people with a
summer home in Deal complain about the
hassle and costs of moving in for the summer
and maintaining their homes. So many
people who can afford luxury vacations
complain about the hassle and costs of air
travel.
Do they hear themselves? Do they realize
how silly they sound complaining about
these wonderful blessings?
Let’s all stop complaining about our many
blessings, so we can, once and for all, fully
enjoy them.