This week's parsha marks one of Israel's two low points, i.e. the sin of the megalim: the other being the sin of the golden calf. At first glance there seems to be no comparison between the two sins; the latter is a sin of some form of idolatry (however we explain it), which is the worst sin In the Torah, while the former seems to be part of the usual bickering of Klal Yisroel, not so different than many other such episodes in the midbar. And yet, the sin of the mergalim is the one that has become the "night of crying" for Klal Yisroel, and was the root of the churban, the most difficult of our national experiences. What was it that made this grumbling so different?
The passuk in Tehillim (106:24) describes the event as "they despised (vayimasu) the desirable land." We note two elements in that description: that Eretz Yisroel is a "desirable" land, and that it wasn't Klal Yisroel's grumbling per se that was the core issue, rather it was the "despising" of Eretz Yisroel that was the sin. Let us ponder this point a bit.
Halachically, a marriage takes place when and man and wife enter the chuppah or, more specifically, a private space (yichud), or alternatively into the husband's dwelling (hachnassa lirishuso.). In other words, a true union takes place in a common exclusive space. At Har Sinai Hashem designated us as His beloved one, and one can compare this to kiddushin/erusin. At this point of betrothal, the woman is prohibited to all other men but is still not together with her husband. At the time of nissuin, when they enter that common space, they are in a total union. If Sinai is compared to erusin then it stands to reason that Eretz Yisroel is the nissuin, i.e. the common space shared by Klal Yisroel and the Divine Presence. It is not accident that the Gemara which deals with the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel is found is Kesuvos, the mesechta focused on nissuin.
Now let us look at the two terrible sins of Klal Yisroel. At Sinai we became betrothed to Hashem, so to speak. The main manifestation of this status is being prohibited to "other men". Indeed, the sin of the golden calf consisted of straying to a false god. This was a terrible sin, not unlike adultery. Adultery is, from one perspective, a betrayal of one's spouse, but it is not a complete rejection. However, if a woman despises her husband, this is not a mere breach in the relationship, but it means that, in effect, there is no marriage and no hope.
At the sin of the meraglim, Klal Yisroel were not merely complaining about the difficulties of conquering Eretz Yisroel, rather they were expressing a disinterest in it. It wasn't that they thought the land wasn't fertile or pleasant; the word "despised" wouldn't have described such a feeling. Rather, it was what the land meant that they spurned. They were not interested in "living with" Hashem, and that means that the union has no chance. "Living with Hashem" demands an extraordinary refined standard of morality, and they just weren't interested in that.
Eretz Yisroel is an eretz chemda, a land the needs to be craved. Its physical qualities are extraordinary, but that is not the focus of this craving. Rather it is a craving for an Eretz Yisroel as the place in which we "live with" Hashem, in which one lives with a sense of the immanence of Hashem, and in which our own behavior must bear testimony to this reality.
When the day comes that we once again crave that "living with" Hashem, the redemption will have begun.