Parashat Devarim – Gainesville
Let’s go back to near the book of Numbers and play a little Columbo episode.
Remember the story of the spies that Moses sent into the Land of Israel? Well, in our parasha this week, Moses recalls that episode. But when we put on our detective Columbo eyes, we see some glaring differences.
You see, the story of the spies as he tells it here is very different indeed from the version in Shelach Lecha (Num. 13-14), which describes the events as they happened at the time, almost 39 years earlier. The discrepancies between the two accounts are glaring and numerous. Let’s look at two big differences.
First: who proposed sending the spies? In Numbers, it was God who told Moses to. In our parsha, it was the people who requested it. So, who was it: God or the people? This is, in rabbinic parlance, a big kasheh – a big problem. Who gave the instruction to go into the Land and how could the Torah have made a mistake like that? That is the first problem.
The second problem is a bit more subtle: what was their mission of the spies? And, to add to the confusion, you will see in a minute that the very use of the word ‘spies’ in our portion actually sets the tone and biases the reader to, at least unconsciously, associate the spies as sort of a Israelite James Bond! In fact, in our portion the text says clearly, “…(the people said) Let us send men to spy out [veyachperu] the land for us” And, the twelve men “made for the hill country, came to the wadi Eshcol, and spied it out [vayeraglu]” In other words, our parsha uses the two Hebrew verbs, lachpor and leragel, that mean to spy. Pretty clear terms if you want to convey surreptitious scouting around.
But, here is the problem: In Numbers, when we first have the story of the 12 scouts, the Torah uses a completely different word that has a completely different meaning. In fact, the word ‘spies’ or ‘spying’ never occurs. It uses the word ‘latur’ – which means to ‘parambulate’ – a fancy word for ‘walk around and take in the sights.’ By the way, I am pretty sure that our English word ‘to tour’ and ‘tourist’ comes from this Hebrew word, ‘latur.’ In no way does that denote spying.
One commentator picked up on this and said it perfectly: latur means to seek out what is good about a place. Lachpor and leragel mean to seek out what is weak, vulnerable, exposed, defenceless. Touring and spying are completely different activities, so why does the account in our parsha present what happened as a spying mission, which the account in Numbers does not? There are so many questions. And, yet, the answers are oddly familiar.
Each of us carries myths about ourselves, our families, our country. For example, I have often come across Jews from a variety of backgrounds and levels of Jewish practice who have convinced themselves that their great-grandfather was a rabbi. Fair enough. But, without casting aspersions on their great grandfather, he was, more than likely, one of the educated Jews in the shtetl in a village long gone whose name is lost to history. But the myth endured. There is historical truth and there is the truth that we want to live by.
The same is happening here.
These two stories that seem so different from one another are not two different versions of the same event. They are the same version of the same event, but split in two, half told there, half here. Yes, in Numbers, it was the people who requested spies. Moses took their request to God. God agreed but when God gave the instruction to Moses, God did not say, “You must send” but rather to the request, but as a concession, not a command: “You may send,” not the command worded harshly, “You must send.” Small word. Big difference.
Moses wanted the men to tour the land. See what’s good. See the promise of the new Land. In fact, Moses gave the scouts the same instruction that Thomas Jefferson gave Lewis and Clark: go to the land and report back on the possibilities for settlement, for trade, diplomatic relations. Get us excited for the new place we can call home. Moses knew what the people did not: he knew the people needed assurance of the beauty and fruitfulness of the land to which they had been travelling. Spies give out warning. Tourists give out travel brochures.
But Moses made a big mistake: When he gave the instruction in the book of Numbers he said, “See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified?” This sounds dangerously like instructions for a spying mission.
As a modern commentator noted, “When ten of the men came back with a demoralising report and the people panicked, at least part of the blame lay with Moses. The people had asked for spies. He should have made it clear that the men he was sending were not to act as spies.”
This was a big mistake on Moses’ part. But it was really expected. Rashi suggests an answer. Our parsha says: “Then all of you came to me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us.” The English barely conveys the sense of menace in the original. They came, says Rashi, “in a crowd,” without respect, protocol or order. They were a mob, and they were potentially dangerous. In other words, Moses got scared. He wanted tourists but, under pressure, created spies. Because of his fear or his loss of self for that moment, he allowed the story to change. For two generations by now, it was told how God gave the instruction to Moses to send spies. Only years later had it become clear that it was Moses’ mangled instructions came from the pressure he had been feeling. The people were getting impatient. They wanted answers. They wanted to know now. And they wanted to know if the so-called Promised Land was really that much of a promise. They were ready for disappointment because they had been wandering for more than 40 years. They were used to kvetching and they pressured Moses with that same kvetching. By the time we get to our portion in Deuteronomy, Moses finally speaks his truth and reminds the people that they almost lost it all because of their parents impatience and cowardice.
Too often we allow our impatience to get what we want. To draw from relatively modern culture, Varuka Salt of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is remembered for one thing only: her demands to her father by kvetching incessantly, ‘I want it and I want it now.’
And yet, too often, we end up submitting to the impulse. Instead of stepping back and reassessing, taking stock and thinking as a community we act as a demanding mob and end up nearly destroying or actually destroying what it took generations to build. Any number of things can generate that sense of despair: fear, jealousy, anger, unresolved childhood issues, anything.
The story is instructive for us because it does the most Jewish of things. It asks the question: how often have our impulses for immediate satisfaction and gratification marred our vision of the future? How often, in the course of want to be something, or build something, or create something have we become angry and frustrated at the lack of progress. And how often have we taken it out on the teacher, a parent, a rabbi, a doctor when things don’t go our way with either the speed we demand or the immediate results we expected?
There is always room for questions in Jewish life. But every question ought to be for learning or sharing, not threatening. We have enough prosecutors in the world. We need more peace-makers.
Moses wasn’t perfect. Sometimes the wrong words are used. But the people’s impatience didn’t help. That is always a bad combination and always makes a bad situation so much worse. By the time we figure out what happened and set course to correct it, we may not be able to enter the promised land we craved. I would rather give our children and grandchildren a job we haven’t quite finished rather than the ruins of a community or a society that wasn’t quite the way wanted it. As Rabbi Tarfon said, ‘It is not up to us to complete the work, but neither are we free to refrain for doing the work.’ The work of building always goes on. But how we get there together is the mortar that keeps us bound together.
