Spy stories: Not what we see, it’s how we see it
In 1940 as Jews were being herded into the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe and Hitler’s hierarchy was meeting to determine the “final solution to the Jewish problem,” a small group of pioneers was preparing the groundwork for what they believed would be the influx of refugees who would need a home and a place to call their own.
It is hard to imagine the vision required for a group of Jews in 1940 to believe that there was a need to create new towns and villages in the barren lands that were years away from becoming the State of Israel, but these young men and women believed, against all the odds, that they were on the threshold of the fulfillment of a 2,000 year old dream and that the Jewish people were ready to begin coming home.
The infamous British “White Paper” severely limiting Jewish immigration to the land of Israel was in full force, and a scant 7,500 Jews from the millions desperate to get out of Europe would be allowed into a country surrounded by hostile Arabs and facing a heavy-handed British mandate resistant to their efforts.
They discovered that the land was filled with boulders and hard rock; completely untamable, the experts said. The winters were harsh, often making the meager roads impassable, and they found themselves between the very large Arab populations of Beit Lechem in the North and Hebron in the South. They saw the ancient Roman ruins; the caves, where tens of thousands of Jews had been forced to live in hiding, remained.
Against all the odds, the Etzion Bloc, four Jewish villages in the Judean hills, was born. They cleared the boulders with their hands, hauling dirt and rock with donkeys and leaving their families for an entire year, having decided that the land and the climate were too treacherous and difficult for mothers and children to join as yet. Where others saw only rocks and weeds, they saw a vibrant and living Jewish community in a modern State of Israel.
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They were mad, of course, but they were right, and today a four-lane highway with the largest bridge and tunnel system in Israel, connects nearly 30,000 people in the Gush Etzion and Hebron areas to Jerusalem, a mere 15-minute drive away. And this dream, along with all the other dreams that make up the totality of what is today the State of Israel, began with a small group on a fact-finding mission to spy out the land that they would one day call home.
This week’s portion, Sh’lach, is about just such a mission, which took place over 3,000 years ago, when a small band of men set forth from the desert to see if the land their ancestors had left behind so long ago could become once again, their home.
Only this time, it didn’t quite work out that way — or did it?
Nearly the entire portion this week speaks of this fateful mission, known as the “sin of the spies.” From the decision to send them out, to the description of what their mission was meant to be, to their return and the seemingly disastrous report they gave, this week’s portion is about a mission to spy out the land, which seems to have culminated in disaster.
The strangest part of this story is why the mission needed to take place at all.
There was a second famous spy-mission which the rabbis chose as this week’s haftorah.
The Jewish people are again on the verge of entering the land of Israel, after 40 years of wandering in the desert. Only this is the second generation, most of whom were born in freedom and are thus no longer burdened with the mentality of a slave generation.
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Poised on the banks of the Jordan River (Devarim 34:1), the mantle of leadership passes to Joshua, who is given the chance to make it right. In the haftorah, taken from the second chapter of the book of Joshua, the Jewish people are again sending men to spy out the land. Joshua was one of the original spies and has firsthand experience of what a mistake that mission turned out to be, this demands an explanation.
A closer look reveals that the mission initiated by Joshua was very different from that of Moshe sent in the desert. Considering that this second mission was successful, the difference between these missions may help us understand what was behind them, and what they really accomplished.
Moshe sends 12 men, one from each tribe, and the Torah takes a lot of time describing who they are and their high positions. In fact, they were the Nesi’im, the Princes of the tribes, and are listed by name. Joshua, on the other hand, sends only two men, and the text never tells us who they are.
Moshe’s mission, from beginning to end, was very public. The people know they are going and are involved in the initial request to send them (Devarim 1:22), and the spies return to give a report before the entire congregation (Bamidbar 13: 26).
In the book of Joshua, however, the entire mission was top secret, and there was another difference. Moshe’s spies toured the entire land (Bamidbar 13: 27-29) for 40 days.
Joshua’s spies went only to Jericho, and did not even see the city itself as they were “discovered” before leaving the home of Rachav where they had just arrived (Joshua 2:2-3). After escaping from Rachav’s home (where she hid them on her roof on the night of their arrival) they went directly to the hills above Jericho (clearly visible from across the Jordan in the Israelite camp) where they hid for three days before returning directly to Joshua (2:22-23).
So in fact they saw absolutely nothing! What sort of spies were these? What exactly did they accomplish, and why did they bother going at all?
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In Bamidbar, the spies of Moshe are never actually called spies. The Hebrew word for spies is meraglim, but these 12 men were called tarim (explorers). And despite the fact that the commentaries do describe them as meraglim, the text never does. In fact, their mission is described not as leragel, which would mean to spy, but rather latur (13:2), which really means to explore. In the book of Joshua, however, these men are not described as explorers but as meraglim (2:1), and their mission is not latur but rather lachpor, which means literally to dig, or to seek out (2: 2,3).
When Joshua sends his spies he is doing so as a military commander, so it is a secret mission, with a very clear and focused goal. Moshe, on the other hand, is trying to send a message to the Jewish people, which is why he sent nesi’im, the princes of the people. The people had heard the stories of Israel but they had never seen it, much less experienced it; they knew about it in their heads but they needed to feel it with their hearts.
Moshe commands them to “see the land: how is it?” (13:18); he wants them to see how wonderful the land is by experiencing it. This lesson was not lost on Joshua, who was one of the two (of 12) original spies who understood what Moshe his teacher was trying to say.
So, 40 years later, he does not need explorers to give this message over, nor does he need a command from G-d to begin the process. It is abundantly clear to him that if it is time to enter the land, he and the people along with him must be willing to fight for it.
Why did Joshua, need a mission at all? The only real information gleaned from the journey of his two spies to Jericho is that the people of Canaan are terrified of the Jewish people and of their G-d. Perhaps Joshua knew they would enter the land, and had no doubt they would conquer it; his question was, is it time? That the nations of Canaan so feared their coming, told him it was time for the Jewish people, at long last, to go home.
Ultimately, the story of the spies is not about what we see, but about how we choose to see it.
The princes, born in Egypt and coming of age in the slavery of Pharaoh, may not have been ready to see what being in a place like Israel was all about. But the second generation, living on a dream they had nurtured in the desert for 40 years, were ready to put what they had learned to the test.
If you were to ask those men on that rocky barren hilltop in the Hebron hills what they saw that made them decide it was time to come home, I doubt they could tell you. It wasn’t something they could explain, it was and is something you have to experience.
Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.
Rabbi Binny Freedman is Rosh Yeshiva of Orayta in Jerusalem. A version of this column was previously published.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
