Making sense of the sedra: Shelach Lecha

Spying has long been a key method of succeeding in military missions.

In the book of Joshua, resident Canaanites assisted the incoming Israelites in taking the city of Luz: “they showed them the [secret] entrance to the city” (Judges1: 23-26). This city was, psychologically vital for the Israelites as it represented the return of the descendants of Jacob to the land of their ancestor; Luz was the place where Jacob was blessed after the vision of the ladder reaching heaven; he renamed the location Bethel, House or God.

The prophetic reading of this week’s spy mission sent by Moses to discover the land of Canaan, is a repeat spy mission to Jericho. Joshua sent spies to locate Rehab, who dwelt in the wall of the city. Joshua sent the men heresh lemor (silent to report back) (Joshua 2:1).

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Joshua himself was the lead spy in the time of Moses, as part of a group of 12 representing the tribes of Israel. Joshua and his colleague Caleb demonstrate that espionage is interpretable, subjective to the view of the perceiver. They saw the size of fruit brought back as encouraging evidence of the country’s potential. Their other ten colleagues presented matters very differently when delivering their report back to the Israelites. For them, Israel’s fate was sealed by Canaan’s might, and the evidence was the self-same fruit.

Recent events in Israel raise the same concerns only on the flip side of the same coin. Hezbollah has publicised virally high resolution photographs of sensitive security installations deep inside Israel. If nothing else, this exposure, achieved by drones, is precipitating the sending of tanks to the northern border in advance of a likely invasion of south Lebanon. In adaptation of Joseph’s postulation to his brothers, the message back to Hezbollah is: “You are spies! You have come to see the land in its nakedness!” (Genesis 42:9).

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Spying is an enterprise which from the outset received mixed feelings among our ancestral rabbinic class. Commentaries surmise that the idea of sending spies out to Canaan was not a great idea, motivated by a political gesture from Moses to the leaders of Israel and not by Divine design.

In an apologetic for the spying mission, God is seen to agree de facto to Moses’s plan, but in fact Moses had not a priori consulted God as he is seen to have done on other occasions. Would not a divine promise stand as satisfactory for the people? Why did they need a reconnaissance trip? Was the ‘recce’ military, or purely a political affair of state? The outcome was, in any event, a disaster for them all.

Thirty-eight years of national inertia ensued, the leaders of Israel in a hostile stalemate with their lawmaker, deliverer and saviour, Moses. It is not the spying itself which might compromise a mission; militarily it is crucial. What risks its success is the motive for which it is carried out. Security is a legitimate aim; political gaming risks a catastrophe for everyone involved.