Moshe the Postmodernist

....שלח לך SEND THEE (more lit., for thyself) — i.e. according to your own judgement: I do not command you, but if you wish to do so send them. — God said this because the Israelites came to Moses and said. “We will send men before us etc.”, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 1:22): “And you approached me, all of you, [saying, We will send men, etc.]”, and Moses took counsel with the Shechinah (the Lord)...

(25) They took some of the fruit of the land with them and brought it down to us. And they gave us this report: “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving to us.”

(6) And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes (7) and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land.”

... Why did Moshe leave out all of their evil speech and say that they said, "It is a good land?" If it was a land that eats up its inhabitants, as they had said, how was the land good? And not only that, but he said that they said, "that the Lord our God is giving to us." And it was just the opposite - they (actually the people) said (Numbers 14:2), "Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword?"

ויאמרו טובה הארץ AND THEY SAID, THE LAND IS GOOD — Who were they who spoke of it being good? Joshua and Caleb (Sifrei Devarim 23:3).

(1) AND THEY SAID: ‘GOOD IS THE LAND WHICH THE ETERNAL OUR G-D GIVETH UNTO US.’
... The correct interpretation is as I have already explained [on Bemidbar 13:32]: All the spies admitted before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation, saying, "We came unto the Land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it." Thus they were all in consensus on the goodness of the Land itself, but, with reference to the strength of those nations living there, they melted the people’s hearts. Then, when [the ten spies] saw that Joshua and Caleb were encouraging the people to wage war, the spies came to the children of Israel not in the presence of Moses and they disseminated a slanderous report about the Land to the effect that "it is a Land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof." This is [what Moses meant when he stated here], and ye murmured in your tents. The people also did not mention this slander in the presence of Moses for he would refute them because they [the spies themselves] did not say so at first [that the Land kills its inhabitants]; instead they admitted that it is a good Land, "and surely it floweth with milk and honey." Rather, they said to Moses, "Whither are we going up? our brethren have made our heart to melt, saying, 'The people is greater and taller than we.'" Therefore, Moses now said to them: “It is true as you say that that people is great and tall, but 'the Eternal will fight for you according to all that He did for you from Egypt even till now.'” This, then, is the sense of the verse, 'Yet in this thing ye do not believe the Eternal your G-d,' which means that the hindrance [to your immediate entry into the Land] was only a result of insufficient faith [you had in G-d]. Thus the whole section is explained in accordance with the simple meaning of Scripture and its purport.

For they were sent about this, to see the goodness of the land... Since they were sent about this detail, they had to give an answer to those that sent them. And they admitted about this that, "It is a good land" from the perspective of [it being], "that the Lord our God is giving [it] to us" - that if the Lord gives it to us miraculously, there is no objection about the land itself. And [Moshe] did not mention that which they said (Numbers 13:28), "However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful" - as this was not an answer, since they were not sent about this... So [the people] should not have paid attention to this, since they gave a positive answer to that which they were sent about. And regarding that which they said, "the people are powerful," they were not sent about it.

(1) The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. (2) All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness!”

(26) Yet you refused to go up, and flouted the command of the LORD your God. (27) You sulked in your tents and said, “It is because the LORD hates us that He brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to wipe us out. (28) What kind of place are we going to? Our kinsmen have taken the heart out of us, saying, ‘We saw there a people stronger and taller than we, large cities with walls sky-high, and even Anakites.’”

(29) I said to you, “Have no dread or fear of them.

(5) Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of the Israelites. (6) And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes (7) and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land.”

"And Moshe and Aharon fell on their faces": Here it is not mentioned what they said to them, but it is mentioned in [Deuteronomy].

When Yehoshua and Kalev saw that Moshe and Aharon humbled themselves before the people (by bowing down), a divine fire burned in them ... and they did not let them speak, but they spoke on their behalf.

And how did [Moshe] say, "I said to you, 'Have no dread or fear of them.'" As we did not find that Moshe said something like this or something similar to it. Rather he was quiet and fell on his face... And perhaps we can say that since Yehoshua and Kalev, his students, said to [the people] (Numbers 14:9, "Only you must not rebel against the Lord. Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our prey: their protection has departed from them, but the Lord is with us. Have no fear of them" - Moshe considered these words as if he said them himself.

(37) Because of you the LORD was incensed with me too, and He said: You shall not enter it either.

... And [Moshe] said that this thing caused God to get angry with him at the end of forty years (with the rock). For his main sin was that he did not show Israel how to fulfill their needs in a natural way... And all of this began with the story of the spies in that [the people then first] sought the natural way [of doing things].

The crux of the decree the Moshe would not enter the land was decreed as a result of the sin of the spies... But if God had been sanctified at Mei Merivah, it would have been possible to nullify the decree. But because of the sin [of Moshe] at Mei Merivah, it was not possible to change the decree.

Why did our master, Moshe, not want to inform them in this recounting how God, may He be blessed, commanded him about the sending [of the spies], with His saying, "Send spies for yourself, etc.?" Rather he attributed the thing to [the people] and to himself... And also why did he not recount the commands that our teacher, Moshe - peace be upon him - commanded the spies, that they should see the people, the land and the cities? And also why did he not present what the spies said, "it is a land that eats up its inhabitants?" The reason for all of this is that he was speaking with the second generation - their children that arose after them. And if they heard the truth of the incident as it happened, they would say that the reason for the delay in the desert was God, may He be blessed... They would say, "Why did God put a stumbling block in front of the blind?" And they would also speak about Moshe, thinking that he was also truly a cause for their delay, since he - peace be upon him - commanded things to the spies that the people had not asked for and [God] had not commanded... For behold it is these questions [of Moshe's] that necessitated [the spies'] answers... And they would say that... [God] and Moshe, his servant, were the ones that caused the delay of their fathers in the desert all of this long time. This is the opposite of what Moshe was trying to explain to them, to internalize the praise of the commandments and their observance... And Moshe also saw that if he told them what the spies had said - [that] the land was one that ate up its inhabitants - perhaps this would melt the hearts of the people now as well, and they would be afraid and intimidated from going [into the Land of Israel], like their fathers had done. Behold that it is because of this that he left out the recounting of the three things mentioned: God's command of the [mission]; Moshe's command to the spies regarding the land, the people and the cities; and the evil speech that the spies spoke. And about this did the Sages say (Yevamot 65b), "It is permitted to alter [the truth] for the sake of peace."