Timeless Torah

On the surface, it was the story of a minyan of timid spies not yet ready for freedom. True, the land was “flowing with milk and honey,” they said, but the people were strong and the cities well fortified. Worse, “We were in our eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”
Thirty nine years later, a parallel episode, which is read (most appropriately) as this week’s haftorah, tells how the next Jewish leader, Joshua, sent spies to Jericho. The mood inside Canaan was thus described. “All are melting in fear. We have heard how the L-rd dried up the water of the Red Sea...what you did to the two kings...east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts sank and everyone’s courage failed.”
This report, by a local in the know, explicitly countered what the spies believed. Far from grasshoppers in the eyes of giants, the Israelites were giants in the eyes of grasshoppers. The spies should have known this. A year earlier at the Sea, they themselves had sung, “The nations will hear and tremble. Anguish will grip the people of Philistia. The chiefs of Edom will be terrified. The leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling. The people of Canaan will melt away.”
Though our Biblical section begins with the spies it ends with the law of tzitzis, which we recite in the Shema: “Throughout their generations you are to make fringes on the corners of your garments...you shall see them and remember all the commandments of the L-rd. You will then not go your own wanton ways, led astray by your own hearts and eyes.”
On the face of it there is no connection between these two passages. One is a narrative, the other law. The first describes a moment in history, the second a command for eternity. Yet, there are two ‘verbal’ links between them. The first is when Moses commands the spies, “Ur-isem - and you shall see the land;” of the fringes he says, “You shall see them and remember all the commandments.”
More conspicuously, the Torah uses an unusual word to describe the key activity of the story, namely ‘to spy’, commonly termed le-ragel. When the brothers came before Joseph to buy food, he accused them of being meraglim-spies. When Moses, toward the end of his life, recalled this episode, he too used the verb le-ragel. Similarly, when Joshua sent spies, they were referred to as meraglim.
In our passage however, the term used is lasur, precisely the same verb as in the section of tzitzis, which is meant to prevent sasuru-being led astray. In translation this connection is absent, since to spy-yasuru and to be led astray-sasuru, are quite different in English. But in Hebrew they are linked. Both address the issue of perception.
Judging others can be difficult. People have hidden thoughts, emotions, and motives. Surface appearances can be deceiving. Still, we make judgments of character on that flimsy basis. A Wall Street Journal survey showed that tall college graduates (6’2' and over) received starting salaries 12.4% higher than those under 6 feet. During the 20th century, our country elected presidents who were almost invariably taller than their opponent. Over three thousand years ago the Torah indicated how fallacious this was. The first man chosen to be king, Saul, was “A head taller than anyone else.” However, he proved to be a man of weak character. When G-d sent Samuel to anoint another, the prophet was ‘visibly’ impressed. But G-d said, “Take no account if he is handsome and tall...Men judge by appearances, but the L-rd judges by the heart.” That is the story, and error, of the spies.
When they said, “We were in our eyes like grasshoppers,” they were entitled, because it described how they felt. But their addendum, “So we were in their eyes,” was a blunder. They had no idea how they appeared to others. They assumed and projected their sense of inadequacy. So, instead of people, they saw giants; instead of cities, impregnable fortresses. They were afraid; therefore they saw reasons to be afraid. Their fear was not in the world but in the mind.
Millennia before the birth of psychology, the Torah signaled that there is no such thing as the ‘innocent eye’. We do not simply see what is there. We select. We make inferences on the basis of pre-judgments. The result is that we believe what we think we see. The Torah conveys this with stunning elegance and brevity - by using the one word, la-sur, which means both to see and to be led astray.
The antidote is Tzitzis. They help us see what is actually there, not what we fear is there. Its key phrase, “Led astray by your own hearts and eyes,” seems out of order. We would have expected eyes first and hearts second. As Rashi comments, “The eye sees, (and then) the heart desires.” The Torah is however making a point. The heart determines what the eye sees.
Thus the spies attributed to objective reality (sight) what was in fact, subjective self-doubt. Had that been a rare phenomenon, the Torah would not have legislated against it. Sadly, it is one of man’s most common and fateful errors.
Tzitzis are more than an outward sign of Jewish identity. They are a call from G-d to see the world through the prism of faith. We are often guilty of defeatist thinking, blaming the world for what are, in fact, failings in ourselves. This was the spies’ mistake, and it cost an entire generation the chance to enter the Promised Land.
Do we have faith to see things as they are? By looking at the tzitzis, we are reminded that with G-d at our side, we can face all. Not by accident, does this command to see follow the Shema which is about hearing (Hear O Israel). Because, first we must hear with our heart before we can learn to see with our eyes