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Spymaster Lessons
What can we learn from the story of the meraglim?
The children suggested that we understand 1. the severity of lashon harah, 2. the value of Eretz Yisroel and 3. how important it is that we take example of others’ experience: the meraglim did not learn from Miriam’s suffering.
I suggest another lesson; Hashem had told Moshe to send the meraglim. However, this was not a directive, rather Hashem was merely conceding Moshe’s request. The Ibn Ezra notes that Hashem may explicitly authorize certain things, yet be against them. He allows doing them, but does not want them done. Such was the case here.
In life, as a person wishes to go, he is generally led. Success cannot help determine whether it was the right thing for him to do. He might have merely been led along the path he has chosen. This is a great lesson.
How can we calculate if we are doing what we want, or what Hashem wants?
Rav Dessler suggested this exercise: Consider what you wish to do and consider the alternative. Even when you think yourself in the right, you may agree that the other way is also correct. Perhaps it seems even more upright, although your way is okay too. That is your red flag; If the other way seems right too, chances are that it is truly the correct one, and that you are wrong…
To rephrase: your biases justify wrong. But they often don’t need to vilify right. Use that to help get past your biases and determine the real right.
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Friend Acts
The Torah records that Hashem told Moshe to send spies. ‘And Moshe sent them according to the words of Hashem…’
The plain reading is that Hashem asked them to send spies and Moshe complied. However in Dvarim the Torah says the opposite: Moshe announced to all that they had arrived at the portals of Eretz Yisroel, and told them; ‘Go ahead and enter’. The Jews then ‘approached me all together and demanded of me that they send spies… and the idea was good in my eyes and I sent 12 men…’ In other words, it was their idea, not Hashem’s at all!
The obvious resolution to this contradiction is that the pasuk here in Shlach was written by Hashem, the pasuk in Dvarim was written by Moshe. (Gemara Meggilla) Hashem knew it was not His fault, but although the Jews were wholly to blame, He accepted the blame on Himself. So He neglected to mention that the command to send spies was not unsolicited, rather it was pressed by the people. The truth, however, was what Moshe said: ‘You Jews are responsible for this debacle’.
This is how true friends act. They tend to take the blame for each other, and accept responsibility even when they can evade it.
This is how we need to act too.
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Respect In Disapproval
The Torah names the men sent to scout out Eretz Yisroel. Do we gain knowing their names?
There are three ways of dealing with good people who sin;
A. Deny the sin. Claim it never happened, or that we don’t believe it and so on,
B. Disavow; if he did that, he is now a non-entity, invisible and unmentionable,
C. Consider that he has his good points, but has slipped. This might disqualify him from his current role, or he might continue but need to rectify the situation.
The Torah names them to tell us that these were important people, each a personage in his own right. Sadly, they slipped up and died as a result. But they were still important people in the Torah’s eyes.
We need to know this nowadays; to err is Human. Good people slip too. And they still command our respect, even as we disapprove their actions….
Another thought: The saga of the meraglim is our story, our history. We prefer not discussing wicked men, but we do so when the story pertains to us and our history. We need to know our history; the good, ugly and bad. It is our makeup and our essence, built of our experience. Knowing our history is knowing ourselves. Not everything ought to be sanitized…
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Initiating Conversation
‘Motzei dibas ha’arretz’ is the Toreh epithet for the Spies. Rashi explains the term ‘Motzai Dibah’ to mean ‘those initiating talk, either good or bad’.
The spies sinned not merely by what they actually said. They had sparked bad conversations. People all over the camp began talking, debating the merits and demerits of Eretz Yisroel, questioning the wisdom of going there. Sowing of uncertainty and distrust was many times more effective than anything they had said.
It goes both ways: sparking Lashon Hara discussions is bad, but lets try to initiate discussions of Mitzvos! Initiating a worthwhile conversation carries great merit, far more than anything one can say himself.
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Bias Of The Familiar
Confronted by the frightening report about Canaan, the Jews’ reacted: ‘It would have been better had we died in Egypt or in this desert. Why is Hashem bringing us to Canaan to be killed, our wives and children taken captive?’ And they said ‘Let’s appoint a new leader, and return to Egypt’
Why didn’t they try a third possibility: neither Canaan nor Egypt? Was there no unclaimed area left in the world? Why would it be better for them to die in Egypt, where their wives and children were likewise captives, indeed, actively enslaved?
Objectively speaking, almost any option beat returning to Egypt. However they knew Egypt. They knew how to survive there, although survive is all they did. It was the known unpleasant versus the scary unknown. The known always trumps the unknown.
The lesson for us is to second-guess our decisions; are they from rational preference, or is our automatic bias towards the known influencing us?
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Being A Skeptic
The Meraglim returned with large claims. They said they had seen giants to whom a human being was small as a grasshopper.
What is the relationship between a human and a grasshopper? I’d say 1:100 is a conservative estimate. So it follows that these giants were 500 feet tall, almost half the size of the Empire State building.
What then did they eat, these people? The Meraglim had the fruit in their arms, one carrying a pomegranate, another figs and the rest dragging the huge cluster of grapes. They were huge, to be sure, as were the general population in Canaan, as it says: ‘and all the people we saw there were people of great measure’. But they were not food for 500-foot Nephilim. One of those guys could finish off a herd of cows for breakfast! For lunch he could eat out a vineyard and for supper an orchard. How long could that last?
Were there people there really of such gigantic size, or were the Meraglim making up stories in order to frighten the people? There were giants, sure, maybe even twenty or fifty feet tall. But as big as the Meraglim claimed?!
The Jews, seeing the actual size of those fruits, ought to have challenged the Meraglim. They ought to have taken a step back and seen the Meraglim were working them, manipulating the crowd to stir up panic. They ought to have rejected their testimony.
Don’t lose your head. Ever. Separate the half-truths from the lies. Keep a healthy skepticism, even when no one else is!
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Beware Empty Threats
Hashem told Moshe to tell the Jews “Indeed, As you have spoken, will it be done to you; you will die here in this desert!”
They requested that???
Rashi comments that earlier they had said “Would that we die here in this desert and not be killed by the giants, our wives and children taken captive!”
They said those words never intending them to be fulfilled. Those words were now thrown back to their faces.
As you have spoken…
B. “and your children, that you said will be captured as booty, instead they will capture the land…” I.e. exactly the opposite; rather than being captured, they will capture their enemies.
Why the difference? The difference, of course, is that in the parents’ case they deserved punishment, but not with the kids.
Both however, are linked to what they said. Words do make a difference!!
Our words carry meaning and consequences – often unintended and unwished for. The gemarah tells how Pinchas, brother of the sage Shmuel, was sitting shivah for his son. When Shmuel came to comfort him he noticed how long his fingernails were and asked him why wasn’t he cutting them. Pinchas answered “Were your son were to die, would you cut your nails?!” Next week Shmuel’s son died. When Pinchas came to comfort Shmuel, Shmuel bitterly threw fingernails at him ‘Don’t you know that the lips have the power over life and death? Murderer!! You killed my son!!’
The gemarrah brings a (rather strange!) source for it; Hashem told Avraham to sacrifice his son on the Mizbeach. Yet Yitzchak lived: we are his children. Why did Yitzchok survive? Because Avraham said to his servants ‘Wait here and we will return to you’ That ‘we’ – a mere slip of the tongue – returned Yitzchak safe and sound.
For good as well as bad; the tongue reigns supreme. Be wary of its power. Never say ‘I’ll never get out of this mess!’ ‘You will always fail at this!’ and so on. The saying so may well cause it to be.
Beware!
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Why Spy?
Why did Moshe send spies after being promised the good land? Did he second-guess Hashem?
The pesukim indicate something very different:
Someone can give directions to the store: ‘Go a mile and then turn right at the intersection, then keep going till you notice the store on your left”. The instructions are accurate and useful.
Another way of giving instructions is to share the experience: “As you travel down the road you will see the trees ending and the city begin, then you will hit a busy intersection. Watch out for the incoming traffic, and turn right. When you smell the cookies look to your left; you will notice the store with Mr Shmerling sitting on his chair in front”.
This second version has shared the experience, not just directions. When you get guidance like that, you know what to expect and therefore feel safe.
The Jews wanted a guided tour, a description what Eretz Yisroel was going to be like. What is the experience of living in Israel? (This was pre-YouTube, remember?) So they sent people to find out if the people lived in big groups or were spread out? Was the cities walled or open? Was there trees or fields?
They were not testing Hashem, rather they wanted the experience mapped out. (In marketing, its often a good idea to do this. It makes it easy for people to order when they know what to expect.)
But instead, the Meraglim became caught up in the moment and instead of giving a virtual tour, they relayed their opinion of the feasibility of taking the Land. That wasn’t their mandate, not at all!
What a tragedy!!
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Take Thy Medicine, Bro!
The Jews were sentenced to die in the desert when they rebelled at hearing the spies’ report. The Ibn Ezra suggests this was all predestined – they were simply unready to enter Eretz Yisrael and certainly needed the formative 40 years in the desert. However Hashem, Just and Perfect, could not simply declare that they must stay in the desert. He needed justification.
The Jews held claim to Eretz Yisroel and would never acquiesce to delaying forty years.
And so Hashem found the justification. It involved sin and heartbreak and punishment, but it was necessary, because there was no way the people would simply say Yes…
The moral of the story, it would seem to me, is this: Surrender to his will, relinquish your personal claims, and embrace His plans instead of your own. Spare Him the need to find justification.
Why go through pain and loss, when you can just eat the medicine and get over it…?