shelach

When the meraglim were delivering their report, the posuk says, ויהס כלב את העם אל משה; and כלב hushed the people toward Moshe. Rashi says that כלב quieted them all down to listen to what he had to say about Moshe. Then he raised his voice & said, “is this the only thing Moshe did to us? No!” Now everyone quieted down, for they were all upset because of the meraglim’s report and thought that Calev, too, was going to denounce Moshe. So, they stopped complaining for a minute to listen. However, כלב went on to say he also split the sea for us ,he took us out of Egypt, he gave us the מן. Once they heard he was praising Moshe instead of denouncing him, they stopped listening & went back to their complaining.   Later on, when 'ה says He's giving כלב the land of Chevron,  Rashi says it was because he was able to silence the people. The אוצרות התורה asks, “what was so great about silencing them for a minute when they just went right back to complaining? What did כלב think he would gain?” Then, 'ה tells Moshe that He's going to destroy the people instantly. Moshe answers, “wait; what are the Mitzrim going to say?” That You weren't able to bring them into the land that you promised, so You slaughtered them in the desert? Which causes 'ה to say that I forgive them. How is it that 'ה is worried about what people are going to say? There's a story told by the ספר חסידים about a man who honored his father in a superior fashion &, when the  father was leaving this world, he told his son " you honored me while I was alive & I want you to honor me when I'm dead also. I want you to promise me one thing, that whenever you get angry, don't react right away, but wait overnight & then deal with it". After the death of his father, this man had to go overseas for business & left his wife, who unknown to him, was pregnant. Unfortunately, he was delayed for a long time & ended up being away for many years. Finally, he made his way home & arrived late at night. As he was nearing his wife's room, he heard her laughing & talking to  another man! He quickly drew his sword & was about to barge in & kill both of them, when he remembered his promise to his father. He put the sword back & turned around to wait until morning. As he was starting to go, he heard her talking, saying to her son, "if only your father would know that he had a son, he would have come home already!" As he heard those words, he realized what he had almost done & he gave thanks to his father who made him promise to hold his anger. Maybe this is what כלב wanted to accomplish; to get them to stop for a minute & think what they were doing & then they would have no recourse. This could be what 'ה was teaching us too. Had Moshe not stopped His anger, the whole nation would have been destroyed in an instant. 'ה didn't really care what the people would say but once Moshe talked to Him, His anger, so to speak, subsided a little & he recanted. This method of taking a step back & waiting a little until the initial anger subsides, teaches us how to act when we get angry, We need to react rationally just like ר' אליהו לאפיאן who wouldn't admonish his children when he saw them doing something wrong until after his anger passed. It happened that once, one of his children did something very wrong & he didn't say anything for 70 days until every bit of anger was gone & only then did he say something, teaching us how careful we have to be not to let our anger control us!