Parashat Shelach (5760)
With God's help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath of Parashat Shelach, 5760
'After your hearts and after your eyes' (Numbers 15:39): Seeing, values, and reality
Our portion deals with the spies whom Moses our teacher sent to scout the land of Canaan before its conquest. They returned
to report to the Israelites, and besides their admiration for the land and its fruit, most of them expressed grave doubts
about the ability to conquer the land, which is inhabited by giants and whose cities are fortified up to the heavens.
As a result of these descriptions, the people weeps, rends its garments, and asks to return to Egypt. Only Joshua
son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh stand opposed and describe the land as 'very, very good' (Numbers 14:7). The Holy One, blessed be He,
is angered at the Israelites and swears that none of them will enter the land. The Sages expand the implications
of the sin of the spies, which took place on the Ninth of Av, and tell us that we continue to 'eat'
its rotten fruits throughout the generations (especially on the Ninth of Av, a date marked for calamity throughout history: 'You
wept a gratuitous cry, and I will establish for you a cry for generations' [Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 29a]).
There are many difficulties in this portion. First, seemingly the spies merely reported what they saw, for
that is precisely why they were sent, so why should they have had to lie? The function of a spy is to report, not to preserve
public morale (see the example of 'Carmela Menashe'). Joshua and Caleb reply to the people
and the spies: 'The land is very, very good' (Numbers 14:7). This is a puzzling response, for the spies do not deny
this; they are merely pessimistic about the chances of conquering it. Moreover, if the spies' assessment indeed was
that the land was not good ('a land that devours its inhabitants' [Numbers 13:32]), why are Joshua and Caleb, who merely
evaluated the matter differently, any better?
Simply put, the spies' sin lay in the fact that they did not content themselves with reporting the facts, but added
their own assessments as well. Assessments do not depend only on the facts, and in forming them one must take into account factors
beyond the facts (divine assistance, morale, and the like). The people too sinned by accepting their assessments,
when it should have related only to the facts and, on that basis, determined the plan of campaign. According to this
interpretive approach, Joshua and Caleb differ from the spies not in their optimism but in their restraint
to a purely factual report. The land is good; that is a fact accepted even by their sinful colleagues. The
assessments they leave to the leader.
A second layer of the sin lies even in the very perception of reality. There are eyes through which the land appears
to be 'a land that devours its inhabitants' (Numbers 13:32), and there are eyes that see that 'the land is very, very good' (Numbers 14:7). Even what ordinarily
appears to be reality is the result of the mode of observation and the assumptions that underlie it. The Sages tell us
that the spies saw the inhabitants of the land frequently burying their dead, and therefore concluded that the land devours
its inhabitants. The truth was that the land was very, very good, and the Holy One, blessed be He, performed a miracle so that many of the inhabitants of
the land would die, so that its residents would not discover the Jewish spies. Thus, reality itself is also a matter
of interpretation: with a good eye, reality is good; with an evil eye, the reverse.
These two dimensions of the sin are highly relevant in our own day as well, perhaps more than ever. The mixing of
facts and assessments is a social disease that has spread in various contexts in our time. Political
and security issues, such as relinquishing territory in exchange for peace, and various value judgments (abortion, the status of
homosexuals, and the like), are issues heavily laden with values, and decision in such matters is not the province
of experts of any kind. When people say that homosexuality was removed by the American Psychiatric Association
from the list of illnesses (an argument that recurs many times in public debate),
that is nothing but demagoguery. One may debate, at the level of values, the various approaches to this question,
but the psychiatrist has nothing to add regarding it. He can try to determine its source (whether
it is genetic or not), its prevalence in society, and so forth; but on the question whether it is an illness or a
'normal' phenomenon, he has nothing to add beyond his personal position, like any other person.
Political and security questions too, such as relinquishing territory and the like, are often assigned
to 'experts.' Quite apart from the question whether there are any 'experts' at all in these fields (in my personal opinion:
there are not, and in this I wholeheartedly support the 'Four Mothers' organization, which helped us break free of this fixation
), the decision about the step to be taken always has value dimensions. It cannot
be reduced to facts alone.
The sin of the spies is more relevant today, in the age of 'experts' for every field, than ever before. Precisely
today it is important that we notice that the decisions are always ours. We cannot exempt ourselves by
placing responsibility on 'the professional echelon'; we must consult it, but we are the ones who decide. A wrong is committed when
a member of the professional echelon introduces into his professional assessments values that lie beyond his expertise,
thereby assuming a professional mantle to which he is not rightfully entitled, and the public, and the public figure as well, are likewise at fault
when they allow him to do so.
The basic democratic structure rests squarely on this assumption. At the head of every political system stands
a person (minister, secretary, prime minister, president, etc.) who is not necessarily an expert in the field for which he is
responsible. In my opinion it is very desirable that he not be an expert, for otherwise he may treat value assumptions
that are conventional in his field as facts, whereas in decision-making it is desirable that other positions as well be taken into account,
perhaps even ones that are less popular.
Parashat 'Shelach' concludes with the commandment of fringes: 'And you shall see them' (Numbers 15:39), and with the prohibition, 'and you shall not stray
after your hearts and after your eyes' (Numbers 15:39). These are the conclusions from the two layers we saw in the sin of the spies: one must
learn to look and see correctly with one's eyes, and it is of the greatest importance not to mix the heart (= values)
into one's evaluation of reality.
Have a peaceful Sabbath
It may be left for respectful disposal in any synagogue or yeshiva. Comments and responses are welcome.
Biton43.doc