I’m always so amazed by optimists, I honestly am. With the insanity and craziness which we are struck by, on a daily basis, it is sometimes so very hard to see the beauty within everything.

Our parsha of the week speaks of leaders of the Jewish People who are sent out to scout the land of Israel, the beautiful little piece of land which was promised and destined to us by the One Above, before entering and settling.

We all know what happens. After they come back and speak of what they saw, we were severely punished with a forty year detour in the desert.

Now we usually describe their sin as ‘lashon hara’, speaking of the evil tongue. But one second … they didn’t speak lashon hara, they spoke the truth, they spoke of what they actually really did see, with their own eyes. How then could we all be so greatly punished for telling the truth?

Our great master, The Ba’al Shem Tov explains that everything in the world really is naturally beautiful. However, if you look at someone and you see that they are ugly… nebech, you are so ugly inside. Inside, deep down inside of your being, there is something so off and ugly that lets you see something bad in another person.

In our parsha, the Master Of The World is sharing with us some of the most important and crucial elements of faith. G-d needed to let us clearly understand that to come into the Holy Land means that we have to change our whole perspective of how we see the world. This is the Land of seeing the ‘tzelem elokim’, the G-dly image in every aspect. Erets Yisrael is a whole nother ballgame.

The real people of today are in a place where they literally cannot see any ugliness when looking at the ugliest and lowest person in the world. It is completely beyond them.

Lashon Hara doesn’t necessarily mean telling lies about someone. It can also mean when you spoke the truth, reporting about your eyes and ears heard and saw, but this sin is so heavy. It is such a heavy transgression because when saying it, we are basically showing another person how we are the ones who are so empty inside. Who are we to talk so lowly of ourselves?

We should be blessed to see nothing but beauty, pride and true longing for the real thing whenever we look into each other’s eyes.