To Scout and to See: On Two Conceptions of Reality

With God’s help

Our portion (Shelach-Lecha) deals with the spies whom Moses our teacher sent to scout out the land of Canaan before its conquest. They returned to report to the children of Israel, and in addition to their admiration for the land and its fruits, most of them expressed grave doubts regarding the ability to conquer the land inhabited by giants, whose cities were fortified up to the heavens. As a result of these descriptions, the people weep, tear their garments, and ask to return to Egypt. Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh stand opposed and describe the land as ‘very, very good.’ The Holy One, blessed be He, grows angry with the children of Israel and swears that none of them will enter the land. The Sages expand the consequences of the sin of the spies, which occurred on Tisha Be’Av, and tell us that we have been “eating” its rotten fruits throughout the generations (especially on the date of Tisha Be’Av, which has been a time prone to calamity throughout history: You wept a needless weeping, and I will establish for you weeping for generations).

There are many difficulties in this passage. First, prima facie the spies merely reported what they saw, for that is exactly why they were sent, so why should they have lied? The task of a spy is to report, not to preserve public morale. Intelligence that operates in order to preserve the morale of the people is failed intelligence, one that subordinates reality to the interests of propaganda. This is a recipe for disaster. The same phenomenon can be seen on the positive side as well: Joshua and Caleb respond to the people and the spies: “The land is very, very good.” This is a puzzling response, for the spies do not deny that; they are only pessimistic about the chances of conquering it. Beyond that, if their assessment really was that the land was not good (“a land that devours its inhabitants”), why are Joshua and Caleb, who merely assessed matters differently, better than they are?

Some have explained that the spies’ sin lay in the fact that they did not confine themselves to reporting the facts, but added their own assessments as well. Assessments do not depend only on facts, and in formulating them one must take additional factors into account (divine assistance, morale, and the like). The people too sinned in accepting their assessments, whereas they should have related only to the facts and then determined the battle plan accordingly. According to this interpretive approach, Joshua and Caleb differ from the spies not in their optimism but in their restricting themselves to purely factual reporting. The land is good; that is a fact on which even their sinful colleagues agreed. The assessments they leave to the leadership. I am not entirely sure that the scout himself is not supposed to try to offer his own assessments. After all, he is the one who was there and saw things first-hand. But precisely the approach that expands the role of intelligence and expects it to provide assessments brings me to the fundamental problematic aspect reflected in the functioning of the twelve spies.

It seems that the primary layer of the sin lies in the very seeing of reality. There are eyes through which the land appears as a land that devours its inhabitants, and there are eyes that see that “the land is very, very good.” This depends, to some extent, on one’s point of view. Again, I do not mean that they should have prettified reality and arbitrarily chosen an optimistic lens. My claim is that an unbiased but deeper vision would have led them to a different factual assessment. The basis of the matter is that even what usually appears to us as reality is the result of the observer’s mode of looking and underlying assumptions. The Sages tell us that the spies saw the inhabitants of the land repeatedly burying their dead, and from that they inferred that the land devoured its inhabitants. The truth was that the land really was very good, except that the Holy One, blessed be He, performed a miracle for them, causing many of the land’s inhabitants to die so that its residents would not notice and discover the Jewish spies. Thus, reality too is a matter of interpretation: through a good eye reality is good, and through an evil eye the opposite.

Throughout the whole passage there is a verb that recurs again and again: to scout out. It begins already with the Holy One’s initial command at the beginning of the portion (verse 2): "Send for yourself men, and let them scout out the land of Canaan…". And in verse 16 there is a report: "These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to scout out the land…". Immediately afterward, in verse 17: "And Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan…". Then in verse 21 comes the actual fulfillment: "And they went up and scouted out the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at Lebo-Hamath." In verse 25 they return: "And they returned from scouting out the land at the end of forty days." And in verse 32 the spies summarize, with the verb appearing twice in that same verse: "And they spread an evil report of the land that they had scouted out to the children of Israel, saying: The land through which we passed to scout it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it were men of great stature.". Finally, in verses 6-7 of the next chapter, Joshua and Caleb stand on the other side, but they too are among those who scouted the land: "And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, from among those who had scouted out the land, tore their garments. And they said to the entire congregation of the children of Israel, saying: The land through which we passed to scout it out is a very, very good land.".

At least in contemporary Hebrew, the verb "to scout out" derives from the sense of touring, that is, looking like a tourist who passes by and sees only what is on the surface. This is a superficial observation that sees a land devouring its inhabitants, who are dying in droves, without bothering to look more deeply and notice that this is happening precisely in the places through which they themselves are passing. If we compare this with Joshua’s spies, they scarcely pass through the land at all; instead, they conduct an in-depth interview with a single woman (Rahab) and learn from her about the people’s morale, and that is also the main substance of their report. This is the difference between what today is called qualitative research and systematic statistical research. In qualitative research, one conducts in-depth interviews with a few people, a small sample (and hopes it is representative), and uses those insights to draw more general conclusions. Systematic research works with large numbers and sticks to the data themselves, as far as possible without interpretations. On the face of it this is purer and cleaner science, but it is superficial. It clings to what is seen, to the objective data, and does not allow itself to ask what lies beyond them. Such questions are regarded by the practitioners of classical science as subjective speculation. They demand adherence to the objective data.

I, as one who tends toward systematic science and sees many flaws in qualitative research, nevertheless want to draw attention to the shortcomings of classical science. Sometimes clinging to appearances and to external data can mislead. True, this seems like playing it safe, sticking to the facts, but sometimes the great confidence one acquires concerns superficial and misleading data. There is no shortage of cases in which quantitative data are used in tendentious and distorted ways, and then the use of data only makes matters worse.

It seems to me that the end of the portion proposes the proper correction for the sin of the spies, once again through an inflection of the verb "to scout out" (end of chapter 15, 37-41):

And the Lord said to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and tell them that they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and they shall place upon the fringe of each corner a thread of sky-blue. And it shall be for you as fringes, and you shall see it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and you shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes, after which you go astray. So that you may remember and do all My commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord your God.

The verse teaches us what to do so that we do not follow our initial sensations, whether from the eyes or the heart (the two agents of transgression): to put on ritual fringes and contemplate them. How does that do the work? About this the Sages say (Menachot 43b and parallels):

It was taught: Rabbi Meir would say, What is different about sky-blue from all other kinds of colors? Because sky-blue resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory, as it is said: “And under His feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, and like the very heavens for purity”; and it is written: “Like the appearance of a sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne.”

Contemplating the blue thread is meant to hint at what stands behind it. We should not focus and cling only to what is directly revealed to the eyes and let that draw and lead us. The Torah demands that we think about what lies at the basis and root of the phenomena we see, and that we determine for ourselves their meaning. Instead of merely scouting things out, we must try to uncover the depth at their foundation. Perhaps this is the difference between “and you shall see it and remember…” (seeing in order to understand the depth above and at the foundation) in the case of the ritual fringes, and “to scout out the land” of the spies.

The Talmud in Berakhot 10a brings the following midrash:

Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai: What is the meaning of that which is written, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the Torah of kindness is upon her tongue”? About whom did Solomon say this verse? He said it only with reference to his father David, who dwelt in five worlds and sang praise. He dwelt in his mother’s womb and sang praise, as it is said: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.” He emerged into the air of the world, looked at the stars and constellations, and sang praise, as it is said: “Bless the Lord, His angels, mighty in strength, who perform His word, hearkening to the voice of His word. Bless the Lord, all His hosts…” He nursed from his mother’s breasts, looked at her breasts, and sang praise, as it is said: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” What is meant by “all His benefits”? Rabbi Abbahu said: That He placed her breasts near the place of understanding. What is the reason? Rav Yehuda said: So that the baby should not look upon the place of nakedness. Rav Mattana said: So that he should not nurse from a place of filth. He saw the downfall of the wicked and sang praise, as it is said: “Let sinners cease from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah.” He looked upon the day of death and sang praise, as it is said: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; O Lord my God, You are very great; You are clothed in glory and majesty.” From where is it implied that this was said about the day of death? Rabbah bar Rav Sheila said: From the end of the passage, where it is written: “You hide Your face, they are terrified; You take away their breath, they perish…”

King David underwent everything that every human being undergoes, but he knew how to reflect on the meaning of these things and to ask why they are as they are. He did not merely scout through all the stages a person passes through; rather, he sees and remembers. Therefore his gaze upon reality becomes song. When one sees the harmony that organizes the facts into one complete tapestry, one sings. In this connection it is worth seeing Rabbi Kook’s comments in Ein Ayah ad loc. (especially sections 128 through 130).[1]