"Send men for yourself that they should tour the land." Numbers 13:2
June 30, 2016 11:42The most fundamental question about this week's sidrah is how did things go so badly wrong when Moses sent the spies to investigate the Land of Israel?
Perhaps the answer is that the spies misunderstood the purpose of their mission. Rabbinic literature and common parlance often refers to them as meraglim, which really does mean spies. But a careful examination of the verses in the sidrah shows that they were never told to be spies. Instead they were told to tour the land. There is a very big difference between the two terms.
The former involves looking for the weaknesses as well as the strengths of a place and giving a full and complete report with an assessment of the challenges and opportunities that might exist.
But the latter term is much more biased and the goal is to see the positive aspects of a place - if possible uploading exciting pictures to Facebook along the way, just as a tourist does.
The "spies" clearly didn't listen carefully enough to what they were being charged to do. They thought that they were being asked to provide a full report about the land, so that the people would be able to assess what they were told and make a decision about whether to proceed with the proposed conquest.
But in reality the goal was that they should come back with an inspirational report that would excite the people about their destination.
Had the men who went on this mission had full confidence in God's promise to them they would have realised what was expected of them. Sometimes our job in life is to present facts in an objective and dispassionate way. But sometimes we need to be committed to the success of a particular situation and then we must make sure that we focus on its positive aspects.