There’s a famous facetious adage, although somewhat heretical. If G-d would know what I know about this, He would have a different strategy or action plan. Basically it addresses second guessing Hashem. If we use 20-20 hindsight we’ll see that every situation in which the Jewish nation or a leader or an influential person had a lapse in judgment that led to an egregious transgression and ultimate failure or punishment, the beginning of it all was a second guessing of Hashem.
The Torah gave us a commandment, Lo Sosifu and Lo Sigre’u, we should neither add any commandments to the Torah nor subtract anything. We can understand the concept of subtracting from the Torah’s mitzvahs but adding. What’s wrong with adding mitzvahs? What’s wrong with becoming more frum?
Chazal tell us that in the case of Lo Sosifu, you should not add, that kol hamosif goreah, adding actually results in ruining the original. Chazal bring a well known example of this as the first time that a human second guessed Hashem. Hashem commanded Adom HoRishon not to eat from the fruits of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Adom in his zeal to assure that this wouldn’t happen told Chava that Hashem commanded him not to eat and not to touch. Doesn’t this seem commendable on his part? Aren’t we actually commanded by the Torah to set up fences so that we don’t accidently transgress an original command? But the end result was a disaster. The primordial snake pushed Chava against the Tree, nothing happened and he said just like nothing happened when you touched the tree, nothing will happen if you eat its fruit. And the rest is history.
When the fledging Jewish nation approached the future Land of Israel they came to Moshe with the request to send a reconnaissance team to report back about the land and its inhabitants. Mistake number one, they should have had complete trust in Hashem, especially after experiencing all the previous miracles. Even so Hashem agreed to this request, actually making it into a commandment. The Sfas Emes states that making it into a mitzvah made these scouts messengers to do a mitzvah who would then have that added protection against the Yetzer Hora. But it didn’t work.
Many commentaries discuss what went wrong. Many also, while not condoning their action, tried to show a rationalization for why the spies tried to keep Klal Yisroel from entering Eretz Yisroel. The Yismach Moshe says that they clearly saw the high level of holiness that Eretz Yisroel, the Land itself, held. But, they also saw the concept of zeh le’umas zeh boroh Elokim, that there also existed a high level of spiritual corruption and impurity. The Meraglim were worried that the fledgling nation was not yet at the level of being able to withstand the temptations of this rampant corruption, idolatry and licentiousness. Especially if they had to become farmers to grow these examples of the fruit of this land and would become more concerned with materialism than spirituality.
The Meraglim second guessed Hashem. Hashem told the nation to get ready to enter the Land of Canaan. Hashem through Moshe stated many times that they had nothing to worry about. The Hand of G-d that took you out of Mitzrayim, that split the Yam Suf, that gave you Mohn to eat, would do all the fighting for you in Canaan. That also meant that Hashem who took you out of your physical Golus in Mitzrayim and took you out of the 49th level of impurity to Kedusha, would also protect your holiness and spirituality in Eretz Yisroel against the temptations of Eretz Canaan. Hashem states time and time again, trust Me. Yet they didn’t trust Hashem.
In the next Parsha we see Korach second guessing Hashem, even more egregiously. Korach actually came out against Moshe and Aaron, who he clearly knew and had seen their high degree of holiness. He questioned whether Hashem really did command all these things that he argued about, Tzitzis, Mezuza, Eiruv, etc.
And we can go on and on as we see in Tanach how the actions of the leaders and influential people were affected when they second guessed Hashem. Shaul HaMelech, when he decided not to slaughter the cattle and when he did not kill Agog. Shlomo HaMelech marrying more than a few wives and going against the Torah commandment not to marry too many wives. Yerovom setting up idols because he was worried about his nation rejoining Yehuda, the Davidic dynasty, even though Hashem told him that Yerovom would be the King of a new, separate nation. These aren’t just Biblical stories. These are all examples to us of how to react to our own situations. When confronted in real life with a situation when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, put your trust in Hashem. He is the Light at the end of your dark tunnel. When you know and you understand that the best path to travel is to follow the Torah and Yiddishkeit path, you don’t question what you’re doing but go ahead and trust in Hashem’s words. This includes not going overboard and reacting by being “too frum”, by saying that even though Hashem says to do a specific action, I’ll be frummer than that. The Gerrer Rebbe Shlita said that a holier than thou person doesn’t really mean serving Hashem. It means serving themselves, their own private idea of Yiddishkeit. Just walk a straight path. Hatznei leches im Hashem.
