Or HaChaim on Numbers 14:9/אור החיים על במדבר י״ד:ט׳

1 ואתם אל תיראו, "As to you, do not be afraid, etc." They admitted that any other nation would have reason to fear the inhabitants of the land of Canaan but not the Israelites. They added the letter ו before the word אתם, to say that though the people had accepted the majority report, this did not make it too late for them to change their minds and display faith in G'd.

2כי לחמנו הם, "for they are our bread." The reason Joshua and Caleb compared the Canaanites to bread is explained by the Kabbalists. The latter have researched the kind of foods animals exist on and have tried to gain an insight into the significance of the respective animals' food supply. After all, had He but wanted to, G'd could have created the animals in such a way that they did not have to depend on food at all. We know that there are species which feed merely on the spirit (air) which serves such creatures as food. Seeing this is possible, why did G'd not make the Israelites independent of food and all that its preparation entails so that they could devote their entire lives to Torah study and the performance of the commandments? Not only that, but had we been created as independent of a food supply, we would not have been exposed to many of the potential pitfalls different kinds of food represent for us.

3I would have answered that if we had not been created in such a way that we are dependent on food for our existence, we would not have been able to fulfil all the commandments in the Torah which deal with certain foods. Our dependence on certain foods enables us to perfom the various commandments in the Torah which are related to food.

4The Kabbalists (Shaar Hagilgulin chapter 4 by Rabbi Yitzchak Luria) did not answer our question in this vein. They have added an additional dimension which makes us perceive the lives of all creatures as more meaningful. All living creatures are perceived as achieving a higher level of sanctity by means of the food they consume. The very act of consuming the food helps the inherent level of sanctity they possess to become more manifest through being crystallized. This concept applies even to the "unclean" animals. None of the wicked people, not even Satan himself, is totally devoid of a certain degree of sanctity. In fact, the only reason a wicked person or Samael can continue to exist is this element of sanctity which he contains. The moment this element of sanctity is lost, the entire creature is lost, disintegrates. The same Kabbalists say in chapter 18 of the volume quoted above that it is this element of sanctity which is responsible for these creatures being able to perpetuate themselves when they mate with one another. This is explained in chapter 18 of the volume we quoted above. The spark of sanctity inside a creature is to be viewed as similar to a magnet, i.e. אבן שואבת, a stone possessing the power to attract. This concept helps us understand a saying in Shabbat 34 that when Rabbi Simon ben Yochai looked at a certain person, who had leaked matters which had been discussed amongst the scholars, with fatal consequences. As a result, that person (Rabbi Yehudah ben Gerim) turned into a heap of bones. The sanctity within that person was drawn to Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, so that as a result the person in question disintegrated as he could not survive without that spark of sanctity. Keeping these concepts in mind, Joshua and Caleb considered the Canaanites as food for the Jewish people seeing that they had already lost whatever spark of sanctity they used to possess. They elaborated on this theme when they said that the Canaanites' shadow had departed from them, i.e. the spark of sanctity which alone had kept them alive thus far was already in the process of leaving them. The fact that השם אתנו, "G'd is with us," makes us like the magnet which draws unto it these sparks of sanctity which were still within the bodies of the Canaanites. As a result, there was absolutely no reason to fear these people.