Shlachlachar, fear of freedom. The episode of the spies was one of the most tragic in the entire Torah,

who sent them, and to what end is not entirely clear? In this week's Parishah, the text says

that it was God who told Moses to do so. In Deuteronomy, Moses says it was the people who made

the request. Either way, the result was a disaster.

An entire generation was deprived of the chance to enter the promised land.

The entry itself was delayed by 40 years.

According to the sages, it cast its shadow long into the future.

Mosheh told the spies to go and see the land and bring back a report about it.

The people many or few, strong or weak, what is the land itself like? The spies returned with a

positive report about the land itself. It is indeed flying with milk and honey and this is its fruit.

They then followed one of the most famous buts in Jewish history,

but the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw

the descendants of Anak, the giant there. Sensing that their words were demoralizing the people,

Kalev, one of the spies, interrupted with a message of reassurance.

We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.

However, the other spies insisted, we can't attack these people. They're stronger than we are.

All the people we saw there are of great size. We seemed like grasshoppers.

The next day, the people persuaded that the challenge was completely beyond them, expressed regret that they'd ever embarked

on the exodus, and said, let's appoint a leader and go back to Egypt. Thus far the narrative.

However, it's monumentally difficult to understand. It was this that led the little Pavicharaba to give a radically revisionary interpretation of the episode.

He asked the obvious question, how could ten of the spies come back with a defeatist report?

They had seen with their own eyes.

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