Parshat Shelach: Talk yourself up, talk yourself down

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By Rabbi Avi Billet

Issue of June 4, 2010 / 22 Sivan 5770

In the last verse of their statement the spies say, “And there we saw the Nefilim, the sons of the [original] giant of the Nefilim. In our own eyes we felt like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes [as well].” (13:33)

How did they know how the Nefilim viewed them?

Rashi says they heard the Nefilim saying to one another, “There are ants (N’malim) in the vineyards that look like men.”

Siftei Chachamim asks, if they were like grasshoppers, why would Rashi say they were like ants?

There are a few answers to this question.

Some super-commentaries on Rashi suggest that there are always two perspectives. The smaller person always thinks he is bigger than how the bigger person perceives him, while the bigger person always views the smaller person as even smaller than the smaller person perceives himself. Think of how you view houses when you are flying over them in a plane. The house might be huge, but from the plane it is tiny.

In some Chumashim, the text of Rashi includes the word they heard the Nefilim use to describe them in the Torah, Chagavim, in parentheses next to “N’malim” (ants). As such, there are differences of opinion as to what Rashi wrote, even though the standard text has Rashi using the word for ants.

Rashi is actually quoting a passage in Sotah 35a that says the spies were looking around, and when the locals spotted them, they hid in trees. At that point they heard the Nefilim say, “We’ve seen men that look like ‘Kamtzei’ hiding in the trees.” According to the Jastrow dictionary, Kamtzei might be locusts, ants or snails.

Either way, Chizkuni says when the Torah uses the word “Chagavim” (grasshoppers) it is not a direct quote of what they said, because the term “Chagavim” is used elsewhere as well to refer to small critters. (Isaiah 40:22)

Does it matter how they were perceived? Grasshoppers, ants, locusts, snails? Who cares?

No matter how we translate the term, they were quoting others who said they looked like tiny creatures. The Kotsker Rebbe calls this statement one of the spies’ greatest flaws. It is one thing to come back with a negative report. It is another thing to say you view yourself as a lowly person in comparison to others.

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