Chazon Yoshiyahu

Holy letters to guide souls and hearts to the path of the Tree of Life.
From our master, the light of the world, the Admor Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, Shlita.

Sunday, 15th of Sivan, 5786

“Shelach Lecha”

[Send for yourself] men and let them scout the land of Canaan…

Behold, our holy master the Or HaChaim explains: Initially, they gathered before Moses to send the spies, and he did not want to, and told them that G-d already promised them [the land]. And they said to him that the nations of the world know that we are coming to inherit them, and they are hiding their money, and when Israel arrives, they won’t find anything, and thus the word of G-d will be nullified, heaven forbid. And then “and the matter was good in the eyes of Moses” what they said, “and they shall scout for us the land,” meaning, the fruits [wealth] that they are hiding in them and so on. Since Moses heard this, he was caught by them, etc., and why did he feel this way?

They were the heads of the Children of Israel, great Torah scholars among the people of Israel. And the children of Israel were the “generation of knowledge” (Dor Deah) after the giving of the Torah, and after they had seen all the miracles and wonders, and Moses our teacher walked with the people of Israel in his simplicity of heart. But with the people of Israel there walked a cunning of the heart, because Moses our teacher knew that if the Holy One, Blessed be He, says a word, it will be so. And the Land of Israel is the Holy Land that the Holy One, Blessed be He, promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a land flowing with milk and honey, and it is certain that everything in the Holy Land is good. But the children of Israel had other thoughts and other intentions, and how did they take our teacher and master to agree to send spies, that there is a deficiency in faith? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said a land flowing with milk and honey, and why scout?

And behold, when we explain the matters and take a lesson for life and a warning for our soul, that behold Moses our teacher, the shepherd of all Israel, who stood and fought for the entirety of the people of Israel in all situations, standing with Israel and behaving in a very difficult way that caused a great destruction, and changed the entire existence of the people of Israel. For behold, if they had entered the Land of Israel immediately, Moses our teacher would have entered the land and the complete correction (Tikkun) would have arrived for the world.

Rather, the children of Israel came with a new claim, which was craftiness, and a claim that appeared to be for the sake of Heaven and for the honor of G-d, and it is that the land of Israel is holy and good, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, promised us their money and they know that they are arriving at the Holy Land and we will conquer them, but the children of Israel, as it were, care about the honor of G-d, and what about the promise of their money and gold that needs to be for the people of Israel? Therefore, we must send spies to scout, to see where they hid their money in pits, in walls; therefore we need spies for the sake of Heaven, for the honor of G-d.

But there was the trap, which caused a difficult destruction, and a terrible exile of another forty years in the desert, and this matter changed all the continuation of the world to a different form. Adam the First and another [generation], Moses did not enter the land, [he] thought he was doing good, and brought death to the world. The spies thought [they were doing] good in speech, but this was a great evil to scout the land, which was wrapped in the goodness of searching for the money of the Canaanites.

Behold, the great ruin and destruction caused in the world comes through advice that is for the sake of heaven. Advice that appears to be for His honor, blessed be He, and hidden in it is self-interest or personal honor or a spirit of money or pride and a momentary standing of a person, that causes a complete world of destruction, and all in the name of G-d and everything for the sake of Heaven.

And so we found with Balaam, he knows that the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not want [him] to curse the people of Israel, but he asks the messengers to stay the night, to see what the Holy One, Blessed be He, says. Disguised in the name of G-d to go curse the people of Israel. How? For you know that the Blessed be He is against [this], but in the name of G-d, for the sake of Heaven, he searches for a permit for all evil.

A person can damage the entire existence of the people of Israel through his small interest. The spies caused a weeping for generations, the destruction of the first Temple, and all the evil that resulted from that, from the entrapment that they laid for Moses our teacher for the honor of G-d. What will be with the silver and gold that the Holy One, Blessed be He, promised us? We need only to scout the land to search for the money, because we know where the inhabitants of the land are hiding it—because of that everything was destroyed.

Korach also acted thus. He knows that this is a difficult and evil dispute against G-d, but he goes in the name of G-d, for “all the congregation are all holy and G-d is among them,” in the name of war on the path of G-d he destroys the entire people of Israel, the dispute of Korach and his congregation that until today causes destruction among the people of Israel.

A person needs to consider how much advice he gave, how many wars he fights over some small matter of his honor, over his small spirit, over a thought that you don’t understand at all. But it was not comfortable for you then that the world would be destroyed, and everything for the sake of heaven—and this is the evil inclination and Satan at their most dangerous.

A person must be very careful of advice that is wrapped in righteousness, of speech that implies they are not pure and are touched by private interest. Yes, a person wants to achieve something, he presses in weakness and requests speech, and to himself feels that he is acting for the sake of heaven, but it is destruction wrapped in “for the sake of heaven,” like Adam the First in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, like the spies, like Korach, like Balaam.

And so we find in the first sin, Adam and Eve. All the eating from the Tree of Knowledge was “good and evil,” to be wiser, to be closer to the Holy One, Blessed be He. But there, the entire true creation that the Holy One, Blessed be He, intended for man was destroyed. The evil inclination comes many times to a person with advice for the “correction of the world,” for the sake of Heaven. But there is hidden the great and difficult destruction of the world.

And let a person be careful and guard himself not to enter this category, because it distances his soul from the source of living waters, and he loses a world and begins to suck from the “external forces” (Chitzonim) and not from the source of Truth.

A person is close to himself. Man, with his natural instincts and his desires, sees himself and covers this up in the name of Heaven. And he knows what is good for the world, and what is good for the Torah and for many, and he leads the world according to his interest, and causes destruction.

May the Holy One, Blessed be He, merit us for the sake of the glory of His name, and may we merit the complete redemption.

With great love,
Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto