Musar על חגיגה 29:21

אם חבול תחבול שלמת רעך, Rashi explains that the subject matter is a garment worn by day. This is difficult, since the Torah continues "when he lies down at night, what will he (the indigent debtor) cover himself with?" From this it seems obvious that the Torah must have referred to a cover the debtor needs at night! Perhaps the bed the Torah has in mind is one which is used as a "table" at meal times. The verse may however contain a meaning in the mystical realm. Sometimes a person "grabs" the מצות, i.e. the reward for them which should by rights have accrued to someone else. The Zohar illustrates this in connection with כסוי חטאה in Psalms 32,1, and it is dealt with in Pardes Rimonim, in the seventh chapter dealing with the soul. The upshot is that even if a person has committed so many sins, i.e. is so indebted to G–d that his "clothing" (i.e. body) is pledged in payment, it is never too late to repent and to reverse the process of indebtedness to G–d. G–d says to the person who has sinned almost till the end of his life i.e. עד בא השמש, that his garment will be restored if he repents. The garment is a euphemism for the body. Were the person not to repent, his soul would be exposed, return "naked" to G–d once the body dies it had inhabited. The words והיה כי יצעק אלי ושמעתי כי חנון אני, "when he will cry out I will listen, for I am gracious," is a reference to the prayer for forgiveness of the repentant sinner.

– and that Rashi's subsequent comment that the words "חזק הוא ממנו," "he is stronger than we," really refer to G–d Himself. The whole world asks where Rashi got his homiletics from. Perhaps the words all have to be understood quite simply and there is no place for homiletics. The answer is simply that though the spies were wicked, they were certainly not ordinary fools. They reported about the strength of the land's inhabitants and the fortified cities they had seen. When Caleb made the statement that ascent was possible, he did not deny anything the others had said. It would not have been clever to do so. He silenced the others by agreeing that indeed their report was factual, the people were strong, the cities seemed impregnable. He added that in spite of all this, with the help of G–d, "עלה נעלה" we will ascend, even if it involves building ladders as high as the sky at G–d's command, etc. Since this is so, the statement by the other spies subsequently "we will not be able to ascend," can certainly not be interpreted at face value, meaning that the reason they could not ascend was the prowess of the inhabitants. Had they merely meant this they need not have troubled themselves, seeing that Caleb had previously conceded that point. The spies had therefore been goaded into saying that the inhabitants of the land were stronger even than G–d. Rashi's comments are therefore very appropriate. This latter statement of the spies constituted the ultimate libel against the land of Israel in the Celestial Regions (the counterpart to what we have on earth). That land is generally called ארץ החיים "the land of the living,” as is well known to students of metaphysics. When the spies were cut off this earth down here, they simultaneously lost their share in the ארץ החיים. The statement in 14,38, that Joshua and Caleb were the only ones among those men who חיו, lived, means that they received their share both in the land down here, and in its counterpart in the Celestial Regions. The צדיק receives the portion that had been allocated to him as well as the portion forfeited by the רשע, the evil person.