The rather odd and somewhat morbid title of this section is
based on two extreme circumstances which arose in Jewish
History, which are very hard for us to relate to, but which
serve to show us, from the negative side, how special the Jewish
People are. The first occurred as a result of the Sin of the
Jewish People in connection with the "Meraglim"/Spies. This is
when those Spies, returning from the Land of Israel on the Ninth
of Av, issued a slanderous report about the Land. More
correctly, they agreed that the Land was indeed beautiful, and
"flowed with milk and honey," as advertised. However, they
claimed that the Land was nevertheless populated by nations of
fierce giants about whom the Spies said, "We were like
grasshoppers in our own eyes and," in modern terminology
projecting their feelings of vast inferiority upon their
observers, "so were we in their eyes." No matter what miracles
G-d had performed for them in taking them out of Egypt, there
was no way that the Jewish People, they argued, with or wit