Parshat Shelach: The Eye of the Beholder - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

a few years ago a friend from England came to visit us in Jerusalem he was shocked he said I don't you live in this country you're living in in the third world it's dirty and dangerous it's beyond my comprehension by someone with a decent standard of living would uproot himself and live in a slum why is it that some people will see Eretz Israel is so beautiful while others struggle to see its beauty and leave disappointing the once was a beautiful princess who had many suitors for her hand in marriage obviously she could marry only one of them and so she devised the plan to select him and the young man would come to woo her her servants would usher this young man into an antechamber on the table in front of him was some fruit some books of Torah the servants told the young man that the princess would be with him shortly and they bad him make himself comfortable to help himself to some fruit what the suitor did not know was that there was a spy hole in the wall of the room through this the princess would observe the aspiring groom if he took a piece of fruit may the blessing of raha with the proper concentration if he took up a Torah book he began to learn intently then she would emerge and have fineness to power and appeared as a rare beauty however the suitor picked up an apple and wolfed it down without a blessing or he sat there and put all his thumbs idling away his time and didn't use the opportunity to learn Torah then she would put on warm rags blacken her face and teeth and emerged looking like a hag parrots Israel is that princess if a person comes to the land of Israel looking for spirituality he will be enchanted even by the physical beauty of the artists room if a person is not worthy everything will seem dirty and dingy provincial in Eretz Israel will never embarrass a person by rejecting him rather she will allow him to think that he has rejected them [Music] [Applause]