Is It All That Severe?

2 questions;

One – why was the punishment for listening to the spies’ slander so severe – a year for each day – doesn’t that sound like a lot?

Two – Rashi explains that stayed in the Desert forty years in order that all those who would die there should live out their lives to at least sixty years of age. The youngest were twenty, and needed to stay for forty years so that even they reach sixty. This appears to be in direct contradiction to the stated reason for forty years as a year for each day!

We suggested that the two questions answer each other; Hashem wanted to gift them with reaching at least sixty. But there needed to be some legal justification for a sixty year punishment. And that was what the Torah indicated; a year for each day. In reality this was Hashem’s favor to us, not a severity but rather a kindness.