The Israelites are in the desert, ready to conquer the promised land. Moshe decides to send twelve men on an intelligence mission, behind enemy lines, to explore the land’s strengths and weaknesses. This information is absolutely necessary for the military expedition to be a success, and to have the fewest possible casualties. The spies explore the land from South to North. After 40 days, they come back to the desert. The Israelites, understandably, were anxious to have some information about the land in which they will very soon live. They congregated around the spies to hear what they are saying to Moshe. And thus the problem begins, and a tragic situation is created that will literally “erase” an entire generation of Jews. The spies give their report not only to Moshe but now, in front of a huge and anxious audience. And the spies had an agenda. In the beginning, we do not notice it, and it seems that they all speak with the same voice. But very soon we notice that there are two groups among the spies. Those who want to go to Israel, and had faith in God, and those who did not. The speech of the spies who oppose continuing to Israel is a superb example of demagoguery and “media” rhetoric used to manipulate and persuade the masses, something of great relevance in our times of Fake News, where objective journalism virtually disappeared.
Let’s look at some illustrations.
FEAR OF FREEDOM
The Rabbis clarified in their commentaries that the spies had already an opinion and an agenda even “before” their mission began. Apparently, they were not interested–or they were very scared– to fight and risk their lives to live in an unknown land. They preferred to return to the “stability” of Egyptian slavery. Perhaps, they thought, if they would lead the people back to Egypt, they will be rewarded by the Egyptian with leadership, wealth and power. And when an individual —especially a tribe leader, i.e., a political player— already has a fixed idea of what he or she “feels”, it is very unlikely that facts or reality would change his way of thinking. A few years ago, two anti-Israeli (and anti-Semitic) US congresswomen announced to the press that they wanted to visit Israel “to see with their own eyes the situation of the Palestinians there.” Some people, very naive Jews, thought that it was an extraordinary opportunity for them to see the reality of Israel with their own eyes; understand that the Arabs living in Israel are the most privileged in the Middle East, and change their minds! The Israeli government was less naive: it doesn’t matter what they see or won’t see: the anti-Israeli opinion of these congresswomen is already formed, it is part of their platform, and nothing would succeed in changing it! Regardless of what they would see in Israel, they will come back repeating the same prejudices about Israel. It is very difficult for people to change their opinion when it has already been transformed into a “political” ideology.
PRESENT FIRST WHAT YOU OPPOSE
The ten spies surprisingly began speaking positively of Israel: “Israel is a land flowing with milk and honey”, that is, it is suitable for raising livestock (from which “milk” is obtained) and for agriculture (“honey”, which in this case refers to the sweet juice of ripe dates). Why did they start from a positive angle? When a demagogue wants to convince the audience that “A” is better than “B”, he cannot simply ignore the arguments of “B”. If he does, the people will doubt the credibility of his or her opinion. Therefore, he would briefly introduce “B”, with selected arguments, pretending that he has an objective and balanced view of the matter at hand. And when would the demagogue start introducing “A” or “B”? When at the end of a trial a judge presents his verdict, if his final veridic is for example “not guilty” he will present first the arguments for “guilty”, which he will discard. And will end up with the non-guilty arguments. When a demagogue presents two possible ideas, he would first present the idea he wants to discard.
MORE FEAR
Demagogues do not address human intelligence or logic: they usually aim their discourse toward people’s emotions. One of the easiest emotions to target in order to manipulate the masses is “fear”. It does not matter if what the demagogue says is real or is exaggerated or imaginary. Fear penetrates our emotions, bypassing the filter of the mind. You can see that in our case, after they praised the land, they now start the intimidation campaign. Examples: 1. “The men we will have to fight against are giants and savages!” No matter how strong we are, they will defeat us! 2. “They’re huge savages!, compared to them, we looked like insects. 3. “Amaleq” is there too!” Amaleq was a traumatic experience for the Jews. The first nation to attack Israel, targeting women, children, and the elderly, and they will be the first enemy that we will have to face. 4. “The land swallows its inhabitants”. In their efforts to discourage the people, the spies described Israel as if it were Iceland: a rocky, volcanic region where seismic movements abound.
The discourse of fear is always a favorite of tyrants and dictators, who usually make up an enemy to blame for all the evils “that they create”.
YOU CAN’T DO IT!
The spies were sent on an intelligence mission to objectively identify the power and weaknesses of the enemy. But instead of reporting the facts, the spies became “political advisers” and reflected their own personal fears (or personal agendas, according to others). When they said: LO NUKHAL LA’ALOT “we will not be able to conquer the land”, the people began to cry and went into a state of panic and despair. The two loyal spies, Yehoshua and Caleb, tried to calm everyone down, and offered a very rational argument: Have we forgotten that HaShem has been and is with us? Don’t you remember that He defeated Egypt and Pharaoh’s mighty army? Don’t you realize that it is God who is leading us to the Promised Land and that it is He who is giving us this land? Do not be afraid! With God’s help, we will conquer the land! ” But it was already too late. Caleb and Yehoshua’s “logical” arguments fell on deaf ears. Political ambitions and manipulation won. And we all lost.
