פרשת שלח

This week’s Parsha discusses the tragic episode of the spies that were sent out as emissaries on behalf of the Jewish people in order to survey the land and determine whether or not they felt they could competently triumph over the local inhabitants. The Torah informs us how these spies treacherously planned on undermining God’s campaign of bringing the Jewish people into the land of Israel, and falsified their reports about the land in order to instill fear in the Jewish people and dissuade them from heeding God’s command to enter into the land. In order to appreciate the gravity of what we are about to ask, we need to properly understand who these spies were. According to Rashi, each of the twelve spies were the leaders of their tribes and according to the Ramban, they were listed in order of their greatness. This means that Yehoshua and Kalev, who were listed third and fifth, were not even the greatest of the spies, yet they returned with a positive report about the land. This being said, how could these giants in Torah study and good character traits have stooped to the level in which each one of them unanimously rebelled against God and tried to convince the entire Jewish people to go along with them? Weren’t they aware of all the miracles Hashem had performed for them from the time they left Egypt up until that moment? Was it so hard to believe that Hashem could successfully bring them into the land? They even reached the point where their report convinced the Jewish people to try to murder Yehoshua and Kalev!

The Mesillas Yesharim (11) cites the Zohar which says that the twelve princes of each of the tribes were concerned that they may be stripped of their positions, and new leaders would be appointed in their place. This fear apparently generated a feeling of resentment and caused the princes to feel resistance when they were commanded to enter into the land. This resistance became so strong, that it apparently completely overtook their intellect and caused them to do all the terrible things that we mentioned previously. Chazal teach us that the pursuit of honor will bring a person out of the world. Look how true it is. These ten spies were the leaders of their generation, most probably endowed with all the great qualities that we look toward in our Gedolim today. Yet they began pursuing honor and it not only destroyed their lives, but it caused the entire Jewish people to be eradicated in the desert. Needless to say how it behooves us to distance ourselves from this terrible trait!

R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz expounds on the folly of one who pursues honor and gives us practical advice how to overcome it. R’ Chaim explains that in order to understand how irrational the pursuit of honor is, we can look toward Haman. Haman decreed and successfully implemented a law in his time that every human being in the known world was required to bow down to him when he entered into their presence. This means that there were six billion people around the world bowing down to him. The one person who wasn’t was Mordechai. Any sane person would sit back and enjoy his achievements and live a really good life. But Haman could not do this. Haman exclaimed in anger, “Nothing I have is worth anything when I see Mordechai sitting their in the courtyard of the king and not bowing down to me.” This irrational conduct is the fate that one can hope for if he begins to pursue honor.

R’ Chaim goes on to explain that the way to attempt to retaliate against this ugly trait is to begin by fostering a proper outlook about what honor is. A person has to understand that honor is a completely imaginary pleasure, with no relationship to the real universe which we occupy. A person’s honor does not reflect his achievements in any way. All the honor in the world will not change what he has done and what he hasn’t done. We find many people who have great accomplishments under their belt, yet died penniless, completely unrecognized. On the flip side, we have seen many people who have done nothing at all, and yet have been awarded boundless honor. When a person understands that there is no correlation between a person’s accomplishments, and the honor he receives, he will certainly be less likely to pursue such a counterfeit and ephemeral pleasure.

R’ Chaim once related a story which portrays how non-authentic the sensation of honor can be. R’ Chaim’s mentor and mashgiach, R’ Yerucham once received a letter from abroad in which a former student related how he told over a shiur from “R’ Chaim” and how mesmerized the audience was from this Shiur. R’ Yerucham read this letter to R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz with eyes brimming with tears from the satisfaction he got that his student R’ Chaim was able to generate such inspirational Torah which was now being passed on to the next generation. Now R’ Chaim knew that this student was not referring to him, but was actually referring to R’ Chaim Brisker, and this student had no intention whatsoever of praising R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz. R’ Chaim related that nevertheless, he couldn’t help feeling a great sense of satisfaction and pleasure out of the honor he was receiving from R’ Yerucham. R’ Chaim used this story to help his students understand the folly of one who pursues honor.

I would just like to conclude with the inspiring words of the Mishnah. The Mishnah in Avos (4:1) says, “Who is honored? The one who honors other people”. This Mishnah is absolutely bizarre. The Mishnah we mentioned previously said that one who pursues honor is removed from the world, and now we are teaching you how to acquire this repulsive trait. Is this second Mishnah in Avos teaching me how to be removed from the world?! Rather we must explain as follows: Every human being needs to be recognized. Without this fundamental sense of recognition, a person will whither and die. Yet the Mishnah is teaching us that we needn’t pursue that honor, but rather it is giving us two ways to fulfill our natural need for recognition in a healthy way. The first is to show honor to other people. The reason people need recognition is in order to reassure themselves that their existence is meaningful. By building up other people who excel in the traits that he himself possesses and admires, a person will reaffirm his own excellence in those traits, and successfully satisfy that need for reassurance in a healthy way, without having to debase himself by pursuing his own honor. Parenthetically, the Maharal says that when you pursue honor, you are always at the mercy of other people. If they give it to you, you will be content and if they don’t, you will spend your life pursuing it. On the other hand, this Mishnah is teaching us that when a person doles out the honor, he will never be dependant on other people to satisfy that need and he can always satisfy it, regardless of other people’s opinions of him. The Tiferes Yisroel adds two reasons why honoring other people will generate the necessary honor that one needs to keep balance. Aside from the rational and obvious reasons why one who gives honor to other people will be honored himself, because it is the nature of people to reciprocate honor given to them, Hashem will ensure in a miraculous way that because such a person went out of his way to honor other people, he himself will receive all the recognition and honor that he needs in order to remain healthy and happy.

May we all merit to distance ourselves from the debilitating trait of honor, yet be careful to always display the proper honor to our peers!