After experiencing complete and direct Divine Guidance for over a year, Klal Yisroel were already accustomed to living in a state of extremism, every action either punishable by death or rewarded with supernatural goodness. Such a relationship is not a truly mutual one, for only when actions have no immediately apparent reaction do they really express feelings sincerely; only when you're offguard do your true intentions become apparent.
Our Beloved Father wanted to put us in a land where He wouldn't need to constantly change the course of nature to direct us in the right path. Eretz Yisroel is a unique piece of land, for it doesn't really have a 'nature', it is merely a physical expression of the 'topography' of the Divine. It is a physical reflection of the Sefira of Malchus, the Sefira that brings all the Sefiros above It to Their realization. Klal Yisroel didn't understand the value of living in this type of providence, they preferred the stark direct divine guidance they enjoyed in the wilderness. The Sefira of Malchus, being the most 'passive' Sefira, leaves room for the mistaken impression that It is not truly and completely Holy, not perfectly divine. The land of Israel also seems to allow a person to think that it is simply a piece of earth, a place divorced from Hashem's direct intervention. But this Attribute itself is actually the ultimate goodness, the ultimate G-dliness, for only when the nation is put in a situation that they can forget their Divine Origin do they show their sanctity by remembering Him in every one of their mundane actions.
In the previous Parsha we learned that Hashem wants us only to participate in His goals, not to achieve them. The humility of the Master of the Universe in wanting a truly mutual relationship with his own handiwork is beyond our understanding. Yet Klal Yisroel rejected this offer and told Hashem "we cannot conquer the land". Undeterred, Hashem promised the land to their children and let the parents complete the conquest of the four major Forces of Evil, all manifest in the wilderness — the Snake (Nachash), the Serpent (Saraf), the Scorpion and Thirst — ten years each, totaling forty years of struggle. He also chastised them and showed them what they were missing: how a simple beast can become a divine sacrifice, how even the dough of one's daily bread requires sanctification, how even spiritual defects like idolatry can be rectified by physical means, and particularly how our lives literally depend on the Holy Shabbos, the embodiment of Malchus in time, which catapults the Jew from his dreary existence up to the sublime. We tie tzizis to the lowermost part of our garment to signify and remind us of the need to connect Malchus to the Sefiros above it. Thinking the world is an unspiritual place is a notion that we need to eradicate from our thought patterns entirely.
Based on Rabbi Vali's book on Vayikra. Questions and subscriptions can be mailed to: the Yeshiva