I was 6 years old when CNN,
the Cable News Network, first started broadcasting. It was one of those
stations I used to flip past as absolutely too boring to watch, until 1991. It
was a watershed year for the channel as millions of people tuned in to follow
the Gulf War. I was so desperate to follow the unrest in the Middle East that I
watched CNN even while on a vacation in the Caribbean.
When I was a student, I was
taught that journalism differed from other writing in that a news reporter was
meant to be committed to reporting the news objectively. In history class we
learned about the development of “Yellow Journalism,” newspapers written to be
sensationalist, and it was definitely a negative lesson.
As a lover of words, I have
noticed (as have so many) how, over the last ** years, an objective journalist
has become a rare gem. Even when journalists don’t outrightly state their preferences,
the way they choose their words often leaves one heavily favoring one position
or another. And while this may have always been the case, perhaps in earlier
times the reporters were just better at being subtle in their preferences.
These were the thoughts that
crossed my mind as I reviewed this week’s parsha, Parshat Shelach. It’s a
pretty famous parsha, the majority of which presents an account of the men sent
to scout the Promised Land. Twelve men leave the nation and return 40 day
later. Their first report appears to be a straightforward response to the task
they were given, which was to “See the Land - How is it? And the people that
dwell in it - is it strong or weak? Is it few or numerous? And how is the Land
in which it dwells - is it good or is it bad? And how are the cities in which
it dwells - are they open or are they fortified? And how is the earth - is it
fertile or is it lean? Are there trees in it or not?” (13:18-20).
When the scouts return, their
initial report was short and seemingly objective: “The land flows with milk and
honey, and this is its fruit. Efes - the people that dwell in the Land
is powerful, the cities are very greatly fortified, and we also say that the
offspring of the giant. Amalek dwells in the area of the south, the Hittite,
the Jebusite, and the Emorite dwell on the mountain, and the Canaanite dwells
by the Sea” (13:27-29).
Efes.
In most English translations this is rendered as “But,” a word that certainly
has the capacity to transform the tone of any sentence. However, the Torah does
not say Aval, the Hebrew word for 'but.' Rather it uses Efes, the
Hebrew word for 'zero.' As Rav Hirsch says: “literally, nothing: but all this
is nothing, loses all value for us, for the people are too strong for us.” It’s
amazing what one word, subtly injected amidst the rest of the seemingly
objective statements, can do to transform the sentence.
And perhaps the subtlety of
the report would have been lost on the majority, perhaps they would have spoken
with one another about the report and then looked at Moshe to decide what to
make of it. But Kalev heard the Efes and he jumped in to support forward
motion, he “stilled the people” (from their questioning each other) and
encouraged them that “we can surely do it!” (Now you know where Nike got it!)
If the scouts had left it
there, perhaps the people would have rallied or perhaps they would have feared.
But the scouts assumed that the people didn’t understand their message and so
they gave an out and out subjective report, declaring the impossibility of
conquest. It is interesting to note that some commentators have said that the
scouts' negative report was based on their fear of leaving the special Divine
protection they enjoyed in the Wilderness. They did not care to be contradicted
and spoke up without any pretense of objectivity, even drawing on hyperbole:
the land consumes its inhabitants, the sons of the giants are so great that we
are as grasshoppers in their eyes.
The People of Israel who
gathered together to hear the report of the scouts had each been witness to a
host of miracles. Their own common-sense knowledge and experience should have
guided them and given them the security of knowing that if God promised them
this land, He was going to give it to them. This was why the Divine consequence
to their action was that none (ok, almost none) of that generation could enter
into the Promised Land. Their throw-back identity as slaves inhibited their
ability to trust their inner voices, and they would never have the courage to
stand up and be God’s army and claim the land.
In 2019, we are surrounded
with a constant stream of “reporting.” What is true, what is objective, what is
fact without bias...this is something that we have to continually strive to
find. So often we have our common-sense knowledge, things we feel are
inherently true, and we let ourselves get waylaid by “talking heads.” The
voices of others who want us to agree with them.
If you are political, you may
be nodding your head and saying. Yup, we gotta shut those ___ down, they use
such ill-conceived arguments and logic. And while I do tend, politically, to
veer to the right, I am most definitely criticizing both the conservatives and
the liberals. It’s time for the return of objective reporting, to letting the
people develop their own opinions, and for reporting the facts - and just the
facts with zero else (no ifs, ands, or buts).
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