“…a very, very good land.” (Bamidbar 14:7)

“…a land which flows with milk and honey. “ (Bamidbar 14:8)

When thinking about Eretz Yisrael, the words of the Torah “A land flowing with milk and honey” conjure up images in our minds of Heaven on Earth, and we understand that Hashem is giving us the best of the physical world. Yet in next week’s parsha (16:13), Doson and Aviram referred to Egypt as “a land flowing with milk and honey”! Is there really a difference between the land of Israel and the land of Egypt, or are they both equally praiseworthy?

I used to think that the answer to this question was “our memories are selective”. We often blot out the bad experiences and amplify the good ones in order to make our memories more comfortable for us. But indeed, there is no comparison between the two lands. Chazal say that the worst of the land of Israel is seven times better than the best of Egypt!

When I was growing up and someone said, “I can’t do it”, they meant they really couldn’t do it. Today, it often means “I don’t want to do it.” The challenge in our lives is to overcome and to do what seems difficult. We set limits for ourselves even though we can really do better if we put in a little bit of extra effort. Many times we are too emotionally or physically spent to muster up the internal power to do “the impossible.” However, with proper coaching we can sometimes – even without realizing it – give a person the strength to overcome his challenges. Very often the issue is how the person perceives the situation.

A friend of mine was helping his parents move from their large house into a small condo. The limitless number of boxes was daunting even to the professional movers. Towards the end of the day one mover said, “We don’t have any more strength. We need to come back tomorrow to finish off the job.” This didn’t work well for my friend’s family. So he opened his wallet, took out two fifty dollar bills, and said to the two movers “If it is all done within the next hour, there is an extra fifty here for each of you.” All of a sudden, the workman said to his associate “Let’s go and get those boxes!” and the job was finished a short time thereafter.

We learn from this story that we just have to access our hidden reserves of energy by whetting our appetite to achieve the impossible.

The spies came back from Eretz Yisrael and explained in no uncertain terms that it would be virtually impossible to succeed in capturing Eretz Yisrael. This news brought the Jewish people to a state of hopelessness. Before Kalev and Yehoshua spoke about the “land flowing with milk and honey” they said that “the Land is very, very good.” It wasn’t just a “good” land, but it is a “very, very good” land. Their goal was to emphasize that while both the Land of Israel and Egypt were lands flowing with “milk and honey”, there is “milk and honey” of Egypt and there is “MILK AND HONEY!!” of the Land of Israel. They wanted the Jewish people to remember that the best of Egypt is only one seventh the quality of the least desireable aspects of the Land of Israel, and then become energized with the desire to achieve that which seemed impossible.

How can we take this story of these encouraging words of Kalev and Yehoshua and make them relevant for our own service of Hashem?

When you are confronted with a mitzvah, whether it might be helping out someone physically or emotionally, or simply listening to him, your first reaction might be “I can’t do it”. However, you know deep down that it is probably within your power. Therefore, you should practice saying the words of Kalev and Yehoshua, “doing a mitzvah is very, very good”, and then when the next mitzvah comes your way, you’ll jump to do it!