In this session we will examine the words of the spies in their report to Moshe and the people. Is it falsehood? We will then study the response of the people, and finally the consequences of the people’s rejection of the Land. The texts we will be using will be first of all the relevant verses in Bemidbar chapters 13 and 14 and Devarim chapter 1, and, additionally, selected statements in the Talmud and midrashim so that we can see the ways that the sages of the Talmudic period understood the behavior of the spies and the people, and how they saw the consequences and decree of G-d as appropriate for them.
I have posted here for your convenience the Talmudic and midrashic sources that we will study. As stated above, the verses that we will examine from the Torah are in Bemidbar chapters 13 and 14 and Devarim chapter 1.