The Secret of the Spies
06/19/2025 06:14:46 PM
Jun19
This week, we read about two episodes of spycraft. Moses sends 12 to investigate the land of Israel and it goes poorly. A generation later, Joshua (one of just two of the original 12 who survived) sends just two, and their report is followed by a successful conquest of Jericho. It makes sense that they would send spies. In the fog of war, information is the most precious, and perishable resource. We know that from the past week: Israel has suffered grievously, but the fact there are not ten times as many casualties (and indeed that Israel even still exists) is due to the detailed information that Israel had about those who were seeking her destruction, and her ability to confuse the enemy until the last moment. When the story of this past week is written, no-one will believe what was accomplished. What accounts for this relative success? What do the Biblical spies tell us about the moment where we find ourselves?
Famously, all 12 spies come back with the same statistical data. 10 report that there are giants in the land, there are fortifications, there is enormous fruit. The two spies offer a counter report that agrees on all of those factors. Where they disagree: The 10 make an assumption that the enemy sees them as insignificant, to be crushed like a bug. Meanwhile, the two spies assert that the enemy will melt away because they have lost their divine protection. Nevertheless, they are outvoted, and the Israelites are condemned to wander for 40 years.
A generation later, the two spies come back with a surprising report. They do not reveal the thickness of the Jericho city wall, the number of troops or arrows. There is no data on the diameter of produce, or how many pomegranates the enemy has at their disposal (that line is meant to be funny if you speak Hebrew, but not worth explaining). The most important data they have is their conversation with Rachav, a prostitute, who assures them that the spirits of the enemy have fallen, and asks to throw in her lot with them.
For those of us who are not actually in the military information flow, as we hope and pray, we have many questions of factual information. Was there a launch? Where will it land? What did we stop, what got hit? Are my loved ones safe (at least until the next launch). Are we making progress in knocking out enemy launchers and centrifuges? Will we run out of defensive missiles? Can we knock out Fordow? Who will come to our assistance? It’s maddening. I’ve found that the mainstream media neither fast or reliable enough to satisfy my hunger. That hunger is bottomless, though, because five minutes later that information is no longer accurate.
I’ve found myself turning increasingly to X (formerly known as Twitter) for up-to-the second information. Not surprisingly, much of what I have found on X is wildly unreliable. Yes, I’ve found Israeli commentators and data aggregators whom I trust and rely. However, the secret of the 2 spies was not the raw data. Rather, it was making sure that they did not just guess about the enemy, but understood where they stood with them. This week I also found myself following a couple of Iranian propaganda accounts, (my family has started calling them “Dad’s Iranian Twitter Friends”). The information they post is often insanely wrong. They alternate between portraying themselves as invincible and ready to crush the Jews like a bug, and claiming to be the victims of “Zionist aggression.” There’s some pretty horrible antisemitism mixed in.
So why subject myself to that? For starters it is important to understand who the enemy is and what they stand for, to be reminded why this war is necessary in the first place. Sometimes the way someone lies is itself a useful fact. Often their most ridiculous statements are projections. When they post that some Israeli official has been assassinated, it is a fair bet that they are trying to distract from the story of the loss of yet another IGRC chief of staff.
Then there was this one guy who was posting, with pride, video of many Iranian missile launches-- high quality clips so clear you can tell how many have been launched from where. He was so efficient that I would call my family in Israel to check on them before the alerts even went out. Didn’t he realize that that information could be useful to Israel? Now that I think about it, he might actually have been a Mossad agent.
The ancient Israelites succeeded because they had God on their side, and we hope that we do as well. But their visit revealed that not all of those on the other side were the enemy. Rachav understood that God had a plan. She was not interested in fighting Israel- she wanted to save herself and her family. The reason that Israel has been so successful is that there are perhaps thousands of Iranians who feel the same way.
Much has been made of the Mossad’s role in this war. One joke going around Israel is that Iran actually hit the Mossad headquarters, but there were no injuries because the officers were empty- everyone was in Iran. I don’t know how many Israelis are active inside Iran. It’s probably not many. Rather, there are thousands of Iranians, perhaps even the majority, who have no beef with Israel. They want to be free of the radical terrorists who oppress them. They are willing to betray their government to save their nation. That is why the Iranian government has shut off the internet in their country. Tweets are the ammunition of this war just as much as bombs and missiles, and this is a war that will be won or lost by virtue of having the right spies. This is a war of survival for both Israelis and Iranians, but ironically, both end off far better if Israel wins, which I pray they will speedily and soon.
Tue, July 1 2025 5 Tammuz 5785