THE SPIES – FOOLS, SCOUNDRELS OR TZADDIKIM?
The reader of the “meraglim” (the spies) narrative
discerns that the Torah does not call the group of men sent by Moshe to tour
the Land ‘meraglim’; that appellation was applied to them by our Sages.
The Torah does employ the term, but
places it in the mouth of Yosef, as he accuses his brothers: “And Yosef recalled the dreams which he
had dreamt, and he
said
to them: You are meraglim –to seek the weakness of the land. have you come.”
(Bereishit 42:9)
‘Meragel’ is, in this
context, one who has come to scout “the weakness of the land”.
Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher, author of
the commentary Baal Haturim, links Yosef’s ‘accusation’ of his brothers
to our parasha’s story of the meraglim, and these are his words: “You
are spies!” – This means “you
and not I, for Yehoshua, who will descend from me, was not partner
to the spies’ scheme.” And they said: “Your
servants were not spies” - Yehuda was the one who spoke, for he was the
main speaker; “and from me will descend Calev who was not partner to the spies’
scheme.” “. . . were not . . .” is the gematriya equivalent of
‘Calev’.
(Baal
HaTurim, Bereishit 42:9)
The
Torah designates the spies ‘anashim’ – ‘men’ – denoting honorable men,
even brave men. For example, Rashi:
“All
of them men” The term ‘anashim’ in Scripture always denotes
importance, and at that moment they were all honorable men.
Or
Ibn Ezra:
And
the reason for [calling them] “anashim”:
They were renowned and were heroes.
And
also Sforno:
“All
of them men” – brave men. “And
these are their names” – all
important, each by his name according to their qualities.
Our
Sages of the midrash sensed the difficulty, and dealt with the question of the
character of those “spies.”
“He
who sends a message by a dullard will wear out legs and must put up with
lawlessness.” Were the spies dullards? Has it not been said “Send you
men [anashim]”, and whenever scripture says ‘men’ it indicates they are
righteous men! Similarly it says (Shemot 17): “And Moshe
said to Yehoshua, Chose for us men.” And thus does it say (I Samuel 17) “And in the days of Saul the man was
already old, advanced in years.” And also (I Samuel 1) “And
if You will grant your maidservant a male child [literally – seed of men]”. Are
all these to be termed ‘dullards’? They,
the spies, were called ‘dullards’ because they spoke slanderously of the Land,
as is written (Proverbs 10) “He who spreads calumny is a dullard”. Despite this,
they were great men, but they made
dullards of themselves, and about them Moshe said (Devarim
32): “Indeed, a generation of overturning are
they, children in whom one cannot trust.” They were chosen from among all Israel by
The Holy One, Blessed Be He, and by
Moshe, as is written (Ibid 1) “The matter was good in my eyes, so I took
from among you twelve men” – indicating that they were tzaddikim
in the eyes of Israel and in the eyes of
Moshe, but Moshe was reluctant to send them without consulting with The Holy
One, Blessed Be He, regarding each one
of them, “So-and-so from this tribe” and He said, “They are suitable”. And from where do we learn that The Holy One,
Blessed Be He, said that they were
suitable? It is written (Bemidbar 13) “So
Moshe sent them from the Wilderness of
Paran, by order of God” and afterwards, at the end of forty days, they
turned around and generated all the
trouble, and caused that generation to suffer that punishment, as is written, “ a
generation of overturning are they”, for
they were chosen as tzaddikim, and turned about, and therefore does it say, “Send
for yourself men . . . and these were
the names of the men.”
(Bemidbar Rabba, Bemidbar, Parasha 15:5)
Our Sages are, in effect, emphatically
stressing the careful process of selection which the spies underwent. They were
tzaddikim in the eyes of Israel and of Moshe, and even received a ‘hechsher’
from The Holy One, Blessed Be He, Himself.
It
is, therefore, difficult to understand “How did the mighty fall?” This was not a group whose slander of the Land
could have been foreseen. They were not the kind of people who could be
expected to demoralize the nation and lead to the tragic consequences described
by the Torah and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 90a):
“The spies have no portion in the world to come”
and “The Generation
of the Wilderness has no portion of the
world to come.”
The
sin of the meraglim and of the generation which was swayed by them was
so great that not only were they denied entry into the Land of Israel, but they
will also never reach the world to come – even though “All Israel has a portion
in the world to come.”
We may ask two penetrating questions:
1.
How is it that such righteous and heroic men should stumble in their
mission?
2.
What was so grave about their actions that brought about their
non-admittance into the Land of Israel, and deprivation of their portion of the
world to come?
The above-quoted midrash refers to them as ‘a generation of
overturning’, but
states
that they changed from tzaddikim to
‘dullards’ – but not necessary to wicked men.
Rashi, however, following the
Tanhuma, terms them ‘wicked’ because they “failed to learn the moral of the
lesson of Miriam.”
It must be mentioned that the Talmud
(Sotah 35a) presents the view of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai: “[Their] going is compared
to [their] coming; just as their coming was with bad counsel, so was their
going with bad counsel.”
But
the prevailing view seems to be that – even according to the plain reading of
Scripture – we are dealing with people who had exceptionally fine qualities,
who committed a most serious transgression.
Many
explanations have been offered as to the seriousness of their sin. Was it their
complaint and the devastating influence upon the nation? Was there a lack of
faith? Is it that they were assigned to
describe what they saw, and they sinned
by failing to discriminate between factual report and judgmental evaluation, as
often happens today with tendentious and selective reporting?
I
would like to suggest another perspective, based upon a plain reading of the
text.
In
Chapter 13, verses 30-31, we read Calev’s reaction to the words of the spies: “Now
Calev hushed the people before Moshe and said: Let us go up, yes, up, and possess it, for we can prevail, yes,
prevail against it. But the men who went
up with him said: We are not able to go up against the population, for it is
stronger than we!”
The
addition of the argument “for it is stronger than we!” – is
explained by Rashi, following the Talmud in Sotah: “They said this, as it were,
against God.” [Note: the Hebrew for ‘than we’ – mimenu – can also mean
“than he”]. In other words, the
population is not stronger than we, but stronger, as it were, than The Holy
One, Blessed Be He. This explanation sheds
light on the severe mistake of the men, leading to their punishment and to
their being branded ‘spies.’
When
acting out of deep awareness of justice and of fulfilling the will of God,
motives must be pure. The spies began to relate to the struggle over the Land
in terms of weakness and strength. Power,
as the central factor in determination of the destiny of men and nations,
became for them the idol to which they bowed. It makes no difference that in
this particular case they considered themselves the weak and the inhabitants of
the land as the strong; the determining factor is power, not the will of God
and His promise. Rashi’s explication (“stronger than, as it were, He”)
underscores the important distinction
between these two sets of values. There
can be no connection between the belief that history unfolds according to
Divine law – which moves towards perfection of the world under the reign of God
-- and the belief in the ability of
military might to solve human problems. These are two separate and
contradictory value systems. Maybe this is the reason that the spies and the
Generation of the Wilderness are unable to reach the world to come; the concept
of a world to come demands man’s maximum
closeness to the spiritual dimension which is in opposition to any power
principle. The important conclusion
which this story has for all generations is that no man – even tzaddik and sage – is immune to the danger of confusing
power with the principle of justice. Any
man can easily be tempted to believe in solutions based on the exercise of
power. Every one of us can be either
“man” or “spy”. Said God to Zerubavel (Zecharya
4, the Haftara of Behaalotcha): “Not by
might, nor by power, but by My spirit – said the Lord of Hosts.”
