The Laziness of the Spies

Bamidbar Rabbah, 16:4: “Send for yourself men” – ‘This is what the verse said: ‘Like what vinegar does to a person’s teeth and like smoke getting into a person’s eyes, this is what a lazy messenger does to the person who sent him¹.”

The Midrash on the Torah Portion of Shelach cites a verse in Proverbs to describe the damage that the ten spies did. It compares it to what vinegar does to a person’s teeth and smoke to a person’s eyes. The Vilna Gaon in his commentary to Proverbs, explains that when a person wishes to stimulate his appetite, he usually drinks something. However, if by mistake he drinks vinegar, it will certainly not stimulate his desire to eat something, rather on the contrary, it ruins his appetite because it ruins his teeth. Likewise, if a person wants light to read by, or if he needs a source of illumination for any reason, but he lights wood that is still moist, it will cause a lot of smoke and make it even more difficult for him to read or see anything. The Vilna Gaon explains that a lazy messenger is similar with regard to the person who sent him. In contrast to his expectation and hope, the lazy messenger not only does not accomplish his mission, but also causes disappointment and aggravation that is even worse than if he had never been sent in the first place. The Midrash is teaching that the spies were comparable to the lazy messenger who ultimately made things far worse and caused great aggravation and disappointment to Moshe, who sent them on their mission.

The commentaries speak very harshly of the spies and offer a number of reasons as to why their sin was so severe – they were haughty, desired honor² that led them to their grave sin, such as love of honor, seeing the bad in the land, lack of trust in God, and so on. However, laziness does not seem to be among the negative traits that led to their sin. Indeed, according to the Rashbam, they volunteered to go to the Land, which involved a great amount of effort and danger. This is not the action of a lazy person. Hence, some commentators ask where did the Midrash see the trait of laziness in their behavior?

Rabbi Chaim Dov Keller addresses this question based on a teaching of Rabbi Shneur Kotler.³ He was discussing another comment of the Vilna Gaon on Proverbs. The verse states: “How long will you be lazy, one who sleeps? When will you arise from your sleep?”

This verse seems to be repetitive in that it makes two mentions of sleeping. The Vilna Gaon explains says that the verse is alluding to two types of laziness. The first is laziness in action – this refers to laziness whereby one does not want to exert himself physically. However, there is a second type of laziness – laziness in thought. The first part of the verse is speaking about physical laziness. The second part of the verse is referring to laziness of thought. The laziness that we usually think about is physical laziness – for example when someone is too lazy to get up and do something. However, there is another, much more subtle form of laziness: Laziness of thought – this includes failing to learn lessons from events and failure to expend the mental effort to think deeply and not on a superficial level, resulting in incorrect conclusions.

It is this kind of laziness that the Midrash was addressing when it described the spies as lazy. They were certainly not lazy in their actions, but they were lazy in their thought. Where do we see this laziness of thought? The commentaries suggest two ways that their laziness was manifest.

Firstly, they cite the first Rashi in the Parsha that addresses the juxtaposition between the story about Miriam’s lashon hara at the end of Behaalotecha and the episode of the spies. Rashi writes that this comes to condemn the spies for their wickedness in that they did not learn from Miriam’s punishment for lashon hara and they spoke lashon hara about the Land.⁴ One could find differences in the two case, namely that they didn’t speak badly about a person, rather a Land, yet Chazal still criticize them for not thinking about the lessons to be learnt from the story with Miriam and applying it to their own situation. The commentaries explain that this was a manifestation of laziness in thought. They did not exert the mental energy to contemplate the ramifications of Miriam’s punishment.

Another manifestation of their laziness in thought is that they viewed the things that they saw in the Land in a superficial way. For example, one of the complaints of the spies was that Eretz Yisrael was “a land that consumes those who dwell there.”⁵ How did they come to that conclusion? Rashi explains that when they arrived in the Land, the whole country was involved with funerals. Their immediate conclusion was that it was very dangerous to live in the Land. If they would have taken the time to think about the matter, they may have considered a different option – that God caused many people to die so that they would be preoccupied with burials and mourning and would not notice the spies in their land. That, indeed was the true reason for the deaths. However, to realize that would require expending more effort to think on a deeper level, yet the spies were too lazy to do this.⁶

We have seen how, included among the negative traits of the spies was laziness of thought. This lesson is very applicable to our daily lives. It reminds us of the importance of thinking deeply about surrounding events, and applying them to our behavior. May we all merit to avoid the failings of the spies.

1. Mishlei 10:26.
2. Based on the Zohar that they did not want to enter the Land of Israel because they would lose their position as Nasi there.
3. Cited by Rabbi Yissachar Frand.
4. Rashi, Bamidbar, 13:2, Dh: Shelach lecha anashim.
5. Shelach, 13:32.
6. This is not to say that there were other causes of their negative interpretations of the land, including that they had personal reasons for not wanting to enter the Land. Nevertheless, it is evident from Rabbi’s depiction of their laziness, that this was also a factor.

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