


Those who "try out" life in Israel may be compared to the "visitors" who spied out Israel in Biblical times. Yehoshua Bin Nun and Calev Ben Yefuneh were committed to stay in Israel. The other ten spies were failures. They brought back no more than calumny. They had tested Israel, and poor Israel had failed their test.
That test, and their subsequent calumny, took place on the Ninth of Av. The horrific events that occurred subsequently throughout history on that very date are grim reminders of the results of testing Israel. The date has been a source of evil and trouble for Jews throughout history.
There is a clear moral to the Biblical story of the spies:
Don't test Israel.
Don't "try it out." Don't expect Israel to meet any criteria that you will set. If you do, Israel will inevitably fail your test, and you will fail in your venture.
As a matter of fact, most other "show me" or "prove it to me" issues or situations in life would also fail if they are tested.
Israel is a commitment. Israel is not an experiment.
Nonetheless, some people won't be able to resist the urge to test Israel. They can expect the following two results:
Thousands of years have passed since the Spies made their big mistake. Shouldn't the rest of us finally learn from their experience?
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Keywords: Attitude, Experiment, Failure, Spies
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