I hope the ideas contained below, will provide you with some topics for discussion, at your Shabbos table.

The tale is told in the Midrash, of the saintly man whose father was a terrible drunkard. The father regularly used to drink until he collapsed in the street, and was laughed at, and ridiculed by passers-by. His son was overcome with shame and embarrassment.
One day the son saw another drunkard lying in the street, ridiculed and despised by everyone who went past him. He thought to himself, I will show this to my father when he is sober, perhaps it will shock him so much, he will stop becoming drunk himself. He brought his father to the scene, but his father did not notice the the disgrace and the humiliation the drunkard was suffering. He just went over to the drunkard and said to him “where did you get such wonderful wine?”
People only notice those events, or those parts of events, which they are interested in seeing. The ten spies noticed a lot of people being buried, as they travelled through Israel, and concluded it was an unhealthy place to live in. It did not occur to them that Hashem had made this happen, so that people would be distracted, and not notice them passing through. According to the Zohar, they subconsciously did not want to enter the Land of Israel, because they were afraid of losing their high position, so they only thought of reasons not to enter the land.
Some people always have real-life stories to tell you, which make you disillusioned, cynical and anti-religious. Other people always have stories from daily life to tell you, which are uplifting and inspiring.
Both sets of stories are true. There are some people whose behaviour makes you wonder, what happened to all the high ideals they were taught. But there are other people, who put into action the ideals they have been taught, and whose behaviour is fantastic and uplifting. We have the choice of deciding which people or events we want to concentrate on. We should learn to concentrate on those which inspire us.

SOURCES; Midrash Tanchumah Shemini 11 & Zohar quoted Sefer Mesillas Yeshorim Chap. 11
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QUESTION FOR THE WEEK;

In Chap. 13 Verse 22 it says that the spies came to Chevron, and names the three giants who lived there. Why does it mention the giants who lived there. What relevance does it have to the main narrative?

ANSWER;
According to Rashi, only Calev came. It mentions the giants there, to show that although it was dangerous, Calev still came there to pray that he should not be influenced by the spies.

SOURCES; Zohar quoted Sefer Zichron Moshe.

If you have any comments, answers, or information, on any of the above, please E-mail me, or tell me. My E-mail address is mail@rabbij.plus.com