Parashat Shelah is famous for the story of the meragelim, the spies. Moshe Rabbenu sent twelve men, one from each tribe, to scout the Land of Israel and report their findings. When they returned, ten spies frightened the people. They acknowledged the special quality of the land and its fruit, but then they spoke of the large, powerful armies of the nations in the land, and of the fortified cities which would be impossible to conquer. The other two, Kalev and Yehoshua, tried to convince the people that they had nothing to fear, that Hashem would help them capture the land.
The people listened to the ten spies, and decided they did not want to enter the Land of Israel. Hashem was very angry, and decreed that the entire generation would perish in the desert. The ten spies who frightened the people were killed immediately by a plague. Yehoshua and Kalev survived, and ultimately entered the Land of Israel forty years later.
When reading this story, we are struck by one very simple question:
What did the spies do wrong?
Moshe specifically asked them to survey the land, to see what kind of people live there, and whether their cities were open or fortified with walls. It appears that they did exactly what Moshe had asked them to do!
Actually, this question is even stronger. In the Book of Devarim (chapter 9), Moshe Rabbenu himself tells the people the exact same thing that the spies had told them. Speaking to Beneh Yisrael shortly before his death, Moshe informed the people that the nations they would encounter in Eretz Yisrael were very strong, and their cities with fortified with walls that extended “to the heavens.” Why was it ok for Moshe to frighten the people, but not for the scouts?
I remember once speaking to somebody and asking whether he was still learning with a havruta (study partner) with whom he had been learning. He answered, “With him? Nech!”
I’m not sure exactly what “nech” means, but all it took was for him to say “nech” instead of “no” for me to understand what he was getting at. Without saying anything untrue, and without even giving me any concrete information, this fellow was expressing that he did not think very highly of that havruta, to put it mildly.
The spies gave over the information they were asked to provide, but they did so with a clear agenda. They gave it a negative spin. Any piece of information we convey can be spun in very different ways. And the spies spun the information in a negative way, convincing the people that they should not proceed into the land.
When Moshe spoke to the people, he spun it the opposite way. He described to them the military might and fortresses of the people in the land, but then assured them that Hashem would help them. This is the opposite of what the spies did – describing the land in a way that frightened and discouraged the people.
We live in an age of professional marketing, when everything is made to look good. Advertisers make their products look so appealing. Cigarette ads show healthy, happy people having a great time smoking. They don’t show what smoking does a person’s health and his life generally. Movies and television series with very inappropriate content are presented as respectable forms of entertainment. Events here in the community are innocently billed as “engagement parties” or “get togethers” but include large amounts of alcohol and even drugs. People are misled to think there’s nothing wrong with these events because of the way they are marketed.
As Torah Jews, we must beware the marketing. Just as the meragelim were able to make Eretz Yisrael look like a terrible place, people in our society routinely make very inappropriate things look respectable and appealing. We need to have the strength and courage of Kalev and Yehoshua, who stood up to the “marketers” and were not misled. We must remain true to our principles rather than be fooled by the “packaging,” and always remember what is appropriate and what is not.