Perhaps you saw reports in the papers this week that Israeli computer viruses had infected the European hotels where P5 +1 talks with Iran have been taking place.
Whenever I hear about Israeli intelligence operatives getting the best of their American counterparts, I’m reminded of the old story about the American president who is flummoxed by the stream of information that Israel seems to have about his own government. The director of the CIA explains, “Mr. President, the Jews have a place they go, called ‘shul’ and that’s where they share information.” The president is intrigued and decides to go to “shul” to find out.
“Here’s how it works,” the CIA director explains. “First, you sit down next to someone and say, ‘Good Shabbos.’ Then, you say, ‘nu?’ and that’s the secret code. After you say that he’ll share what he knows.”
The president is very excited. He goes to to shul the very next Shabbat and sits himself down towards the back of the shul. He turns to the man next to him and says, “Good Shabbos.” The man says “Good Shabbos” back to him. The president then says, “nu?” And the man leans close and whispers, “Shhh. The president is in shul today.”
We do have a history, however, of espionage and we encountered two examples of spy missions this Shabbat.
Moshe sends out spies, with disastrous results in the first half of Parashat Shelach, and in our haftara, Yehoshua sends out spies, as the first step of his successful conquest of Eretz Yisrael. These two episodes of Jewish espionage are linked by the choice of the story of Yehoshua’s spies as the haftara for Parashat Shelach. Yehoshua’s spies can be read as a sort of commentary or reaction on Moshe’s spies. And Moshe’s spies can be seen as a background for Yehoshua’s own initiative. When we read the stories this way, what do we discover?
Moshe’s spies were the least secret spies in world history. Do you remember Valerie Plame? She was a CIA agent whose identity was revealed by an unknown members the Bush administration as retribution for her husband publishing an op-ed that had been critical of the president. Disclosing the name of an undercover agent was considered a major violation. In contrast the names of Moshe’s spies were announced in public before their mission had even begun! What kind of espionage is that?! They were prominent people, tribal chieftains and heads of clans. That is no way to select people for a secret mission. It was not a secret mission whatsoever. Everyone knew about the mission when they left, everyone knew the identities of the spies, and when they returned they delivered their report – not to Moshe alone, but in front of the entire population. What a predictable disaster! Indeed, the typical words in Biblical Hebrew, lahpor, or l’ragel that refer to spying are never used in connection to the so-called meraglim – Moshe’s supposed spies.
Yehoshua, by contrast, sends out his spies anonymously. There is no fanfare at their departure, they go and return without names. They give their report only to Yehoshua.
On the other hand, Moshe’s spies conduct a 40 day survey of the length and breath of Eretz Yisrael. They are fully successful in fulfilling their mission. They manage to see everything that they were asked to see, and to come back, without having been apprehended, and to present a full report.
Yehoshua’s spies, however, are discovered right away. They go to Yericho, they meet Rachav, – an innkeeper of one kind or another- and she knows who they are right away. They return to Yehoshua without discovering any strategic information about the country they are about to enter.
So who were the better spies? Were Moshe’s spies better? Did they get better information? They certainly got more information. For all of the secrecy and anonymity of Yehoshua’s spies, they were count right away and easily identified by Rachav. Were they failures as spies?
Those are the wrong questions to ask. The juxtaposition of these two stories points us in a different direction. Moshe sent spies as a prelude to the greatest disaster to befall the generation of the desert. Yehoshua sent spies as a prelude to the successful conquest of Eretz Yisrael. The different outcomes were not because of the relative quality of the espionage. Which spy mission got more information is irrelevant.
As the spies summarize their mission, they declare:
וְשָ֣ם ראִ֗ינו אֶת־הַנְפִילִ֛ים בְנֵ֥י עֲנָ֖ק מִן־הַנְפִלִ֑ים וַנְהִ֤י בְעֵינֵ֙ינו֙ כַֽחֲגָבִ֔ים וְכֵ֥ן הָיִ֖ינו בְעֵינֵיהֶֽם׃
And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.’
The spies saw giants roaming the land. These people were so large that the spies felt like grasshoppers. So far, so good. And then they add, “And so too did we appear in their eyes.” How could they know how they appeared in the eyes of the giants? This is a projection. The spies were so fearful that they projected their own sense of inadequacy onto the giants. That spirit doomed their mission. No amount of espionage, intelligence, or research could overcome a such a great deficiency in confidence.
In contrast, the spies whom Yehoshua sent did not need to conduct a thorough exploration of Canaan once they had spoken to Rachav and seen how thoroughly afraid the Canaanites had become. They had learned all that they needed to learn from speaking to Rachav.
Thursday night, the shul co-hosted a panel discussion on Jewish life on campus. We heard from students, alumni, and Hillel leadership. I was extremely impressed by the presentation and by how passionately each of the speakers explained their experiences on campus and their effective advocacy in defense of Israel. Our shul hosted true heroes on Thursday night.
But the evening also left me unsettled. Although several of the speakers acknowledged that a strong Jewish identity is the most important ingredient in defending Israel on campus, the vast majority of the energy in the room was devoted to strategies to combat BDS and other anti-Israel initiatives on campus. Of course it’s important to step forward and defend Israel against unfair and cynical attacks – but not as important as ensuring that every Jewish college student has an appealing place to share a Shabbat meal with friends and compelling opportunities to study Torah while on campus.
וַנְהִ֤י בְעֵינֵ֙ינו֙ כַֽחֲגָבִ֔ים וְכֵ֥ן הָיִ֖ינו בְעֵינֵיהֶֽם׃
We cannot be so fearful of what confronts us, that we loose sight of our true strengths and communal assets.
And we have real communal assets. The State of Israel, thank God, is strong and flourishing. It is an inspiring place to visit or a place to study. Jewish life is inspiring and offers community and a sense of belonging to modern people yearning for connections with others. Jewish life offers opportunities for meaning and transcendence to a generation yearning for those things. We need to invest in our strengths and to make use of our assets and we cannot do that if we panic in reaction to our challenges.
וַנְהִ֤י בְעֵינֵ֙ינו֙ כַֽחֲגָבִ֔ים וְכֵ֥ן הָיִ֖ינו בְעֵינֵיהֶֽם׃
We have real threats. We face real challenges and confront dangerous opponents. But we must not panic. We have to confront our fears, face, them, but not project our fears onto our adversaries.
Because we also have real strengths upon which to draw.
Just this week, in the days leading up to Parashat Shelach, a platoon of soldiers in Israel’s Nachal combat unit, took part in an unusual training exercise. They recreated the path of meraglim, of Moshe’s spies – but in reverse. They began their march in Yatir Forrest, just South of the Hevron Hills, and marched South to the Aravah towards Tel Arad. As they finished their march, approaching Kadesh Barnea, the place from which Moshe sent his ill-fated delegation 3500 years ago, these young soldiers, shouted out at the empty expanse in front of them – and shouted back towards history:
.טובה הארץ מאד מאד
This land is indeed a very good land.
Much of the Torah content of this drasha was presented in R. Nati Helfgot’s “Spymasters: Joshua 2 – The Haftara to Parashat Shelah” in Mikra and Meaning pp. 190-192
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 