We're good at selective hearing. Well, Jewish tradition suggests this happened big time with the story of the spies sent to scout the land of Canaan.

Our story comes from Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar in Hebrew). It’s a treasure trove of insights, and this particular passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 16 is The text asks a pointed question: Why does God command Moses to "send men to scout" immediately after the episode where Miriam, Moses' sister, and Aaron, his brother, speak against Moses (Numbers 12:1)? It seems almost… deliberate.

The verse quoted from Isaiah (44:18) paints a vivid picture: "They do not know and they do not understand, for their eyes are smeared and don’t see." It suggests a kind of willful blindness. What was God anticipating?

Bamidbar Rabbah tells us that God knew the spies would speak negatively, even slanderously, about the Land of Israel. But why, then, command that they be sent at all? The answer is quite profound. God, blessed be He, wanted to make sure they couldn't later claim ignorance of the consequences of lashon hara, evil speech. He didn't want them to say, "We didn't know the punishment for slander!"

See, God deliberately placed these two events side-by-side. Miriam had just been struck with tzara'at, often translated as leprosy (though likely a different condition), as punishment for speaking against her brother. This was a HUGE red flag! A clear, undeniable consequence of harmful speech. Everyone knew about it. It was public knowledge.

So, the idea is, when the spies were tempted to badmouth the land, they should have remembered what happened to Miriam. They should have thought twice, knowing the potential repercussions of negative talk.

But, according to Bamidbar Rabbah, they didn't. They simply didn't want to learn. Hence the verse from Isaiah: "They do not know and they do not understand, for their eyes are smeared and don’t see." They chose to ignore the warning sign, blinded by their own fears and biases. It's a sobering thought, isn't it? How often do we see the consequences of certain actions and still choose to ignore them? How often are our eyes "smeared," preventing us from truly seeing?

It's a reminder to pay attention, not just to what's happening around us, but to the lessons embedded within those events. Because sometimes, the most important messages are the ones we choose to ignore. And the consequences, as the story of the spies painfully illustrates, can be devastating.