Pure mission nullifies self-will

במדרש חביב לפני המקום מי שנשתלח לעשות מצוה ונותן נפשו בשליחותו כו'.

In the Midrash: Beloved before HaMakom (the Omnipresent) is one who is sent to perform a mitzvah and gives over his nefesh (soul/self) to his shlichus (mission), etc.

The Sefas Emes opens with the Midrash that one who is dispatched on a mission to do a mitzvah and pours his whole self into that shlichus is especially beloved to Hashem.

פי' נותן נפשו לבטל כל הרצונות כשבא לעשות רצון הבורא ית' כמ"ש בטל רצונך מפני רצונו ע"י שיש לאדם רצון אמת להשי"ת יותר מלהבלי עולם נמצא כשעוסק במצוה מתבטלין שאר הרצונות מרוב התשוקה ודביקות ברצון זה.

The meaning of "gives over his nefesh" is to nullify all other desires when he comes to do the ratzon (will) of the Creator, may He be blessed — as it is said, "Nullify your will before His will" — through the fact that a person has a true desire for Hashem greater than for the vanities of the world. It follows that when he is engaged in a mitzvah, all his other desires are nullified, out of the abundance of his yearning and deveikus (cleaving) to this one will.

Giving over one's nefesh does not mean literal self-sacrifice but bittul ratzon — nullifying every competing desire before the ratzon Hashem (Avos 2:4). When a person's deepest, truest wish is for Hashem more than for worldly vanities, then while performing a mitzvah his other desires simply dissolve in the intensity of his longing and clinging to that single will.

וז"ש ועמך לא חפצתי בארץ.

And this is the meaning of, "and beside You I desire nothing on earth."

The Sefas Emes reads the pasuk (Tehillim 73:25) as the description of this state: when one is bound to Hashem, nothing else in the world is desired.

פי' אז כשעוסק ברצון השי"ת אין בו שום תערובות רצון אחר כלל שמתבטלין כל הרצונות כנ"ל.

The meaning is: then, when one is engaged in the will of Hashem, there is in him no admixture of any other desire whatsoever, for all desires are nullified, as above.

In that moment of pure engagement with Hashem's will, the avodah is utterly unmixed — not a trace of any ulterior desire remains, because all other wills have been nullified.

ומי שהוא כן יכול לתקן הכל ע"י המצות.

And one who is in this state is able to rectify everything through the mitzvos.

Such a person, whose mitzvos are free of any self-interest, has the power to bring tikkun (rectification) to everything through them.

וכן הי' הענין בשליחות המרגלים.

And so it was with the matter of the mission of the meraglim (spies).

The Sefas Emes now applies this principle of pure shlichus to the episode of the spies sent to scout Eretz Yisrael.

דכתיב נשלחה אנשים לפנינו.

For it is written, "Let us send men ahead of us."

In Devarim (1:22), the initiative is described as coming from Bnei Yisrael themselves — "let us send."

וכאן כתיב שלח לך.

And here it is written, "Send for yourself."

Yet here in our parsha, the sending is presented as a command from Hashem to Moshe Rabbeinu — "shlach lecha."

ופשוט נראה כי באמת שניהם אמת שהשי"ת צוה לשלוח מרגלים.

And it appears plainly that in truth both are correct: that Hashem commanded to send the spies.

Both accounts are true. On one level, Hashem Himself gave the command to send the spies.

ובנ"י מעצמם רצו לשלוח.

And Bnei Yisrael, of their own accord, wished to send them.

At the same time, the impulse to send the spies arose from Bnei Yisrael's own desire.

ומצד כוונת בנ"י הי' חטא.

And from the side of Bnei Yisrael's intention, there was a sin.

The cheit lay precisely in the kavanah of Bnei Yisrael — their own self-driven desire to scout the land introduced a foreign motive into what should have been a pure shlichus.

אך אם היו המרגלים נותנים נפשם בשליחות המצוה והי' נשכח מהם לגמרי מה שהיו חפצין מעצמן לתור את הארץ והיו הולכים רק בשליחות המקום ב"ה. היו מתקנים בזה מה שאמרו נשלחה כו':

But had the spies given over their nefesh to the shlichus of the mitzvah, and had they completely forgotten what they themselves had desired — to scout out the land — and gone only on the mission of HaMakom, blessed is He, they would thereby have rectified what they had said, "Let us send," etc.

Here is the tikkun that was missed: had the meraglim poured their whole selves into the mission as a pure shlichus of Hashem, nullifying and forgetting entirely their own personal motive to investigate the land, then their journey would have been wholly Hashem's mission. That very purity would have repaired and elevated the flawed initiative of "nishlecha" — transforming a self-driven impulse into an unblemished act of avodah.

Summary: To "give over one's nefesh" to a shlichus means bittul ratzon — nullifying every competing desire so the mitzvah is performed with pure longing and deveikus to Hashem alone, which gives it the power to rectify everything. The sin of the meraglim lay not in the sending itself, which Hashem commanded, but in the self-interested kavanah of Bnei Yisrael; had the spies forgotten their own motive and gone solely on Hashem's mission, that purity would have repaired the entire episode.