If They Had Withstood the Test of Not Speaking About Moshe

"Will you gouge out the eyes of these men?" - Dathan and Abiram incited the people, claiming that Moses was a fraud, G-d forbid, that he was deceiving everyone! He wants to gouge out the eyes of the people! He wants to pluck out the eyes of the people! It is all a ruse! When we said after the sin of the Golden Calf, "Let us return to Egypt!", everyone had already drowned in the sea! All the Egyptians died! Only women and children remained in Egypt; there were no soldiers! No Pharaoh! We wanted to conquer Egypt so that we would have at least some quiet corner, but Moses said, "No!! You must enter the Land of Israel!" Moses shouted, "Only the Land of Israel!" And this was after the most severe sin, the sin of the Golden Calf, which is weighed against the entire Torah, and yet Moses said that there is forgiveness, that the Land of Israel is possible, that one must enter the Land of Israel.

And now, after the sin of the spies, which is less severe than the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses says, "That is it! It is impossible to enter the Land of Israel! There is no Land of Israel! You have spoken against the Land of Israel, so it is no longer possible to enter the Land of Israel! We must remain forty years in the desert!" Everyone asked, "What is happening here? Moses!! Explain to us what is happening here?! We want a logical explanation! After the greatest sin, the sin of the Golden Calf, you say that Hashem forgave us and the Land of Israel is possible, and after we spoke about the Land of Israel, you say, "That is it! There is no forgiveness! There is no atonement! There is no Land of Israel!" What did we do, after all!? We were a little afraid for the children, we cried a little, "Our wives and our little ones will be a spoil." We did not make a calf, we did not worship idols; everyone is afraid for their own babies! The giants in the Land of Israel will kill the children! They will kill the wives! We only felt a little fear of the Land of Israel and therefore we spoke, so why this uproar that there is no forgiveness and no atonement and no Land of Israel, while for the sin of the Golden Calf, which is more severe, you say there is forgiveness and there is the Land of Israel!?

Dathan and Abiram incited and explained to everyone that it was all a ruse! That what Moses said after the sin of the Golden Calf—that there is forgiveness and there is the Land of Israel—was only because he was afraid to return to Egypt, where he would lose his authority. He was afraid that some grandson of Pharaoh would come and take his place. And what he said after the sin of the spies—that there is no forgiveness, no atonement, and no Land of Israel—was all because he was afraid of the war with Sihon and Og. With the Egyptians, he managed somehow—a few lice, a few frogs; with Pharaoh, he managed, Pharaoh was only half a meter tall! But with Sihon and Og, he is afraid, and therefore he says there is no forgiveness and leaves us in the desert for forty years.

Dathan and Abiram said, "Now the true Moses our teacher has been revealed! It has been revealed that Moses is human! He is afraid! He has no divine powers! He is deceiving everyone!" "Will you gouge out the eyes of these men?" You want to gouge out the eyes of the people! You want to mislead everyone! Now we see your mistakes! Your forgeries! You are just a coward! Now it is revealed that you are only deceiving us and leaving us in the desert for forty years just to rule over us! "To kill us in the desert, for you would also make yourself a prince over us."

The Zohar says that the true reason they could not enter the Land of Israel was that the entire desert was filled with kelipot (shells of impurity)! The entire Sinai desert was filled with terrible kelipot! After they slandered the Land of Israel, the entire desert was filled with terrible impurities! There is nothing more severe than speaking against the Land of Israel! Whoever speaks against the Land of Israel, a terrible impurity descends upon him! There is no greater impurity than this! On one hand, it is not a sin that carries the punishment of lashes, but whoever speaks against the Land of Israel and prevents people from coming to the Land of Israel brings down such kelipot and such impurities into the world that all the decrees and disasters come from these impurities.

The moment they spoke against the Land of Israel, such kelipot and such impurities descended into the desert that to rectify them and to eradicate them, forty years in the desert were required! Forty years of journeys! And nevertheless, even though they spoke against the Land of Israel, if they had stood the test and not spoken against Moses and not spoken against the tzaddik, it would have been possible to annul the decree immediately.

The Kedushat Levi says in a sermon for Passover: if a person does not believe in the tzaddik, he is a heretic! If a person does not connect himself to the tzaddik, does not internalize the words of the tzaddik, then he has no right to exist here in the world! "Here I am praying, I am going to the synagogue, I am putting on tefillin, I am studying, what do I need the tzaddik for!? What... do I have to nullify myself to the tzaddik!?" The Kedushat Levi says he is called a heretic regarding the fundamental principle! Since the entire creation was for the sake of the tzaddik, "The whole world was not created but to be commanded to this." The entire creation is for the sake of Abraham. (The Zohar in Parashat Tzav 30b says: "Were it not for this 'El' (G-d) that is awakened in the world, the world could not stand even for one hour because of the harsh judgments that are awakened in the world every day. This is what is written, 'These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, b'hibr'am (when they were created).' Do not read it as b'hibr'am, but rather b'Avraham (in Abraham), for through the awakening of Abraham, the heavens and the earth stand. And when Abraham is awakened in the world, all the judgments that exist every single day, he pushes them outside and they do not stand before him.") Hashem sustains the world only for the sake of the tzaddik.

The tzaddik is the head of the house of the world; he is the 'Bereshit' (Beginning). The entire world are only branches from him; all created beings are only sparks from the tzaddik. It is written in II Samuel, chapter 15, "And David came to the head." The Be'er Mayim Chayim explains that Hushai the Archite revealed to David, "You are the head! You are the Bereshit! You are the Even Shetiyah (Foundation Stone)!" He saw that David was broken, entirely in brokenheartedness, and said to him, "You are the head! You are the head of all the tzaddikim! You are the Even Shetiyah! Wherever you go, there will be the Even Shetiyah! Wherever you go, that is Jerusalem! All influences are received from the tzaddik. Jerusalem receives its influence from the tzaddik! The Even Shetiyah receives from the tzaddik! The Even Shetiyah jumped to Jacob! It is not that Jacob came to the Even Shetiyah! If there is no tzaddik, there is no Even Shetiyah! The stone will not act at all without the tzaddik! If there is no tzaddik, there is no atonement for sins! If one does not believe in the tzaddikim, there is no sweetening of judgments!

When Shimon HaTzaddik was present, all sins would be atoned for. Everyone had a thread of crimson wool in their house, and on Yom Kippur, from morning until evening, the thread of everyone would turn white; there was atonement for sins for everyone! And it was all in the merit of Shimon HaTzaddik. A person must believe and connect himself to all the tzaddikim, the great ones of the generation! Those known to him and those unknown to him. He must connect himself with all the tzaddikim who are now in the world. I do not know who is a tzaddik, who is not a tzaddik; I do not know who is one of the 36 hidden tzaddikim. A hidden tzaddik could be a simple Jew, a water-carrier, who is now crying to Hashem and shedding tears like rivers of water; this Jew sweetens all the judgments! And I connect myself to him!! I do not know who this Jew is! I do not know! It could be one Jew who does not know how to read or write! Even some woman who does not know how to read or write, and she is now sweetening all the judgments from over the people of Israel. A person must intend in all his prayers, in all his deeds, that he is connecting with all the tzaddikim, with those Jews, the tzaddikim and the simple and the innocent, who are crying to sweeten the decrees from over the people of Israel, who are now crying with a broken heart to Hashem in truth.

One does not need to know who the tzaddik is; it does not interest me who the tzaddik is. I know that there is a head of the house in Israel, there are tzaddikim in the people of Israel who sweeten the judgments, and I connect with all of them! And it could be that every moment it changes; now this one has a broken heart and he is one of the 36 tzaddikim! This one has a broken heart, this one is now crying to Hashem. One must always be connected with those who cry to Hashem, with those who have a broken heart, and to know that I am not the tzaddik! I am not the tzaddik! I do not know how to sweeten judgments, I do not know anything! On the contrary, I bring the destructions! And the holocausts! And the sufferings! I only connect with the tzaddikim known to me and those unknown to me.

A person only needs to praise the tzaddik. The Rebbe says that through praising the tzaddikim, the decrees are annulled. A person believes in the tzaddik, all the decrees are annulled. If the people of Israel had stood the test and not spoken against Moses our teacher, then the decree not to enter the Land would have been annulled immediately. The whole world are garments for the tzaddik; all created beings were created to serve the tzaddik. A person cannot move a foot without the tzaddik, cannot move a hand without the tzaddik; every movement is in the merit of the tzaddik, every breath is in the merit of the tzaddik, every word, every thought, is in the merit of the tzaddik (because the moment the tzaddik prays for the people of Israel, sweetens the judgments from over Israel, defends the people of Israel, sacrifices his soul for the people of Israel, then in his merit Hashem gives the people of Israel life, healing, parnassah, etc., and therefore every breath is in the merit of the tzaddik). And this is what the Kedushat Levi says: whoever does not believe in the tzaddik, does not connect to the tzaddik, is a heretic in everything.

Courtesy of the 'Tzmah Nafshi' newsletter