The Job of a Spy: A Drash for Parashat Sh’lach Lecha, Friday 13 June 2014

Almost everybody I know loves spy stories.  And I am no exception.  Ian Fleming’s 007 series.  John le Carre’s novels.  Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan stories.  Another author that Clara and I particularly enjoy reading is Daniel Silva.  His character, Gabriel Allon, is an Israeli Mossad agent who could only be called ‘the Reluctant Spy.’ He’d rather be working as an art restorer.  If you enjoy the spy genre but are unfamiliar with Silva’s work, we recommend you try him.

          What is it that we find attractive about spy stories?  The suspense and intrigue for one.  Most of us could not live ‘on the edge’ as spies do.  But we enjoy doing it vicariously through the authors’ prose and the characters’ work. 

We enjoy the bravery.  Most of us do not see ourselves as being particularly brave.  But reading of those who are, we take vicarious delight. 

And then the glamour.  Storybook spies live glamorous lives.  They jet around to all the world’s cities.  They have sex all the time.  Of course, it’s always good sex.  They get to shoot guns, kill bad guys.  They drink martinis, shaken…not stirred.  How could we not be attracted to these stories??!

          So when I entered the service of my country and was offered the opportunity to work in intelligence, I did not hesitate.  Sign me up!  But I became an electronic spy.  Same principle as in all the above stories.  Learn the secrets of your enemy.  Figure out what they mean.  Pass the information on to higher authority for exploitation.  So I targeted the Soviet Union during the bad old days.  I didn’t pound the pavements in Berlin and Moscow.  Rather, I flew off the coasts, sat on mountaintops and in offices deep in the Puzzle Palace where I listened to, and analyzed communications.  Not as glamorous as the spy stories.  Nor as heart-pounding, at least most of the time.  But intriguing, yes.

          So every year when we read Parashat Sh’lach Lecha, I get a bit nostalgic.  This is, after all, the portion with the narrative of the Twelve Spies.  One from each tribe, each one a ‘senior member’ of his respective tribe.  Moses sends them to scout out the Land of Israel.  To assess the strengths, and weaknesses, of the nations living there.  To prepare a report for Moses, the general, to help him plan the conquest of the land.  To do, essentially, what spies and intelligence forces have been doing throughout history, until this very day.

          I know that some people read the account of the spies and wonder, just what is the offence?  Perhaps they seem to be doing exactly what spies are supposed to do.  They scout out the enemy, return, and give their report.  Isn’t that a spy’s charter?  Why does the Torah make it clear that the spies have committed a grievous sin?  Is this an example of shooting the messenger?

          But if you think about it, the lesson registers loud and clear.  The spies go far outside their job description.  They report back, not to Moses, but to the entire people.  It’s an investigative reporter’s job to report heretofore secret information to the general public.  It’s a spy’s job to report back to his commander.  And the spies also go far beyond their charter of detailed reporting on their enemies’ strengths and weaknesses.  Instead, they spread panic.  The land is populated with giants!  We are like grasshoppers next to them!  We cannot go forward against those people!  As a result, the people begin demanding, once again, to be led back to Egypt.  Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks pinpoints it so well in his drash this week:  It’s the single greatest collective failure of leadership in the Torah.

          So what’s the lesson to take away from this piece of Torah?  I see two.

          The first lesson is about teamwork.  When operating in an organizational framework, don’t exceed your job description.  If you have been selected to fulfill a specific function, don’t misread your authority as being more than it actually is.  It helps if you have clear guidance on your job and its parameters.  It doesn’t help if your predecessors in the job habitually overstepped their charter.  But even if you such lack clear guidance, and work in the shadow of those who overstepped their bounds, it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. 

And this doesn’t mean you should stifle your initiative.  When you think you see something more clearly than someone else, there’s no offence in bringing it to others’ attention.  Even if it’s outside your own area of expertise and your particular job.  Doing so is a sign of loyalty to the organization!  True leadership prizes team members who think outside the box, who are willing to point out things that others may have missed.  True leadership does not desire a room full of ‘yes-men.’  But once you’ve brought the facts that someone else may have missed to the attention of the decision-makers then you need to back off and let them use, or not use, the information you’ve provided.

The second lesson is about confidence.  The people Israel had a Divine commission to conquer the land of Israel.  The spies’ mission was to assess the specific difficulties that lay ahead.  It was not to inject pessimism and thus discourage the people.  Yes, their information indicated that the conquest would be a challenge.  It was the job of Moses, and his closest advisors, to use their information to plan the conquest.  It was not the spies’ job to discourage Moses, much less the entire people, from the very enterprise.

So too in life.  If something is challenging, that does not necessarily call into question whether it should be done.  Sometimes the challenge simply cannot be avoided.  Sometimes, while the challenge is formidable, the potential reward indicates that the risk is worthwhile.  But if we live our lives shrinking away from every challenge, then we consign ourselves to mediocrity.  Risk aversion leads to marginality.  For individuals, and for a team.

 Most of us will never work in the intriguing world of espionage.  Most of us will never experience the excitement, or the glamour of that world.  But when we read the account of the Twelve Spies of Israel, we can learn important lessons for everyday life.  About leadership.  Specifically, as Rabbi Sacks put it, about collective leadership which means all of us.  Shabbat shalom.