THE MISSION
The children of Israel are in the desert, just weeks away from arriving in the Promised Land. To ensure the success of their military expedition, Moses sends 12 men as spies on an intelligence mission. These men, the leaders of the tribes, were asked to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the people living there, whom they would soon have to face. The information they would bring back would be crucial for military success.
After forty days of exploring the land from south to north and from east to west, the spies finally return to the camp.
The information was to be transmitted only to Moses, who was the commander-in-chief of Israel’s army. But something unexpected happened: when the children of Israel found out about the spies’ return, they surrounded the spies and stayed there to listen to their report.
Without thinking about the consequences of this small change of plans, the spies, instead of privately informing Moses – and naturally motivated by the temptation to be heard by hundreds of thousands of people – presented their report publicly, starting a chain of tragic events that no one could have anticipated.
THE INTELLIGENCE REPORT
At first, the spies praised the land and even proudly showed off the huge fruits of the place, which everyone saw with astonishment. But then, the narrative changed. Most of the spies, ten of the twelve, began to verbalize their doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with the plan to conquer the land of Canaan.
The long list of doubts includes the following:
GRASSHOPPERS
“The men we will have to fight are giants… we saw ourselves as grasshoppers, and so they saw us.”
When you are possessed by fear, you see –you “need” to see– reality through negative lenses, the lenses of the impossible. That is a point of view, real or imaginary that, far from dispelling fear, justifies it. The spies were not objective: they did not mention that they were much more numerous than their enemies. And instead of emphasizing this advantage, they described themselves as subhuman (insects) and the enemy as superhuman (giants).
This psychological defeatism is also revealed in a detail that I had never noticed before: if you see yourself as small as an insect, why not describe yourself as an ant, a bee, or a wasp (the famous Tzir’a that the Tora sometimes mentions)? Why use the “grasshopper” for the metaphor? I believe they chose to compare themselves to grasshoppers because these insects “have no stingers”; that is, they cannot defend themselves or their colony, even when numerically superior: the spies saw themselves as small and also vulnerable, unable to fight back. Moreover, according to the gastronomic culture of those times, locusts were edible (many species are Kosher), and perhaps unconsciously, they were describing themselves as “food” for the enemy.
AL-QAEDA AND AMALEQ
The Israelites did not know the enemies they would face except for one of them: Amaleq. Although Amaleq had been defeated in a previous war, he created and left trauma and psychological fear in the Jewish people, as they were the first to attack Israel, not from the front but from the rear: Amaleq attacked women, children, and the elderly. Amaleq showed no mercy and was not dissuaded by the fact that Israel is God’s protected people. The spies mentioned Amaleq because they projected their own fears toward an enemy who does not hesitate to inflict pain and death and practices terrorism more than war. Mentioning Amaleq terrified the Israelites, like mentioning ISIS or Al Qaeda to the victims of terror in the Middle East.
THE LAND THAT SWALLOWS
They also mentioned the land of Israel. First, positively: the milk -a product of livestock- and honey, the syrup of dates -a product of agriculture. But then the narrative changed. And the words that the spies used to describe Israel were: “a land that swallows its inhabitants”. What were they trying to say with this completely false description of Israel’s topography? I believe that the subliminal message of this geographical demonization was the following: even if, in the best-case scenario, we manage to defeat the native peoples, the land is not worth it! Since it “devours its inhabitants”. The spies painted an unreal, horrific, and false image of Israel, likening it to a volcanic and dry region prone to seismic activity. In other words, and this is the fundamental message of the spies: Israel as a land is worse than the desert where we live right now… so it’s better if we stay here!
THE REACTION
Upon hearing this report, things went completely out of control: the people began to cry, scream, and protest. It was no use that Joshua and Caleb tried to reason with them. The mob wanted to kill them. God had to intervene directly to prevent the uprising. There were casualties – the ten spies and many more. God punished them in the worst possible way. If they did not want to go to the promised land, they would stay in the desert until they died, waiting for a generational reset.
It was such a tragic night that we remember it in mourning every year on the 9th of the month of Ab.
BUT WHY?
I confess that for many years I adopted the opinion of commentators who blamed the ten spies and saw them as political instigators with personal agendas: they did not “want” to conquer Israel and preferred to return to Egypt and be welcomed there as heroes, etc. (see here). This year, I’m embracing a different approach: perhaps the spies were victims of their own panic. An uncontrollable fear that took hold of them even before the spying operation had begun. Perhaps when they gave their report, they did not plan to discourage the people, and they were “venting” their personal fears, but in the wrong theatre: in front of everyone else.
ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM
What led me to think this way is having recently reread Eric Fromm’s book, “Escape from Freedom” (or in the Spanish version I read: “Fear of Freedom”, which, ironically, captures better the idea I am trying to express). The spies were the “leaders of Israel,” but we cannot forget for a second that just a couple of years ago, they were “slaves”: they were born and raised in a system of physical and mental abuse. They had been trained by their masters for generations not to defend themselves or fight for their rights. They were programmed to “not dream” of a better future. And to suppress any desire for freedom or success.
Probably due to this “personality disorder,” the spies verbalized their panic, activating the most important instinct of a slave: survival, which includes “not taking any unnecessary risks”.
Following the ideas of Eric Fromm, the Jewish slaves were incapable of fully exercising their freedom, which includes the responsibility to fight and risk their lives for it. Without realizing it, they were terrified of freedom and ironically, they did everything possible not to achieve it. Perhaps in a Freudian lapse, they described themselves as “grasshoppers” and not as “ants” because they were unconsciously choosing to “fly” instead of “fight with the sting until death “.
As a South American, I can hear the subconscious echoes of a similar mental situation in the anthems of Argentina or Uruguay: Libertad o con Gloria morir”, “Freedom or dying with glory”. These words, perhaps, do not express what the caudillo leaders of the 19th century felt, but the idea that they were trying to convey to reprogram the subjugated natives to embrace the price of freedom and be willing to take the risk of “dying with glory” on the battlefield. Something that the generation of the desert did not know how to achieve. The fear of freedom, as Fromm asserts, led them literally to self-destruction.
I believe that if the spies had first spoken with Moses instead of presenting their report to the people, he could have dissuaded them from mutiny. Moshe would have calmly conveyed to them the “Emuna”, the certainty that God was with them, and shown them that everything the Almighty had promised them had been fulfilled. Perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided if they had spoken first with Moses, as the original plan indicated. But tragically, once they verbalized their fears in public, things went completely out of control, because panic is contagious, and fear made an entire generation forget their faith.
