In this week’s Parsha, Bnei Yisroel come to Moshe and ask him to send spies to scout out Eretz Yisroel. Moshe consults with Hashem and is told ” I am not commanding or forbidding you to send. If you want to send, go ahead”. The commentators ask the obvious question. We see the devastating affects of the episode of the spies. Why did Hashem allow them to go and stop this terrible episode from happening? Rav Ovadia Yosef has a beautiful answer. At this point in time, Bnei Yisroel had only learned from Moshe for 5 months. If they didn’t sin, they would have gone straight into Eretz Yisroel. But Moshe was destined to die prior to the nation entering the Land. As a result of this sin, and the decree that the nation must stay in the desert for 40 years, Bnei Yisroel would now have the opportunity to learn Torah directly from Moshe. Even though the sin caused a lot of darkness to come into the world, this benefit, of more time to learn directly under Moshe was such a great benefit, that Hashem chose not to stop them from sending the spies.
