JUNE 23 • 2022 | 41

I

n March 2020, whilst launching a 
new book, I took part in a BBC radio 
program along with Mervyn King, 
who had been governor of the Bank 
of England at the time of the financial 
crash of 2008. He, together 
with the economist John 
Kay, had also brought 
out a new book, Radical 
Uncertainty: decision-making 
for an unknowable future. 
The coronavirus 
pandemic was just 
beginning to make itself 
felt in Britain, and it had the effect of 
making both of our books relevant in 
a way that neither of us could have 
predicted. Mine is about the precarious 
balance between the “I” and the “we”: 
individualism versus the common good. 
Theirs is about how to make decisions 
when you cannot tell what the future 
holds.
The modern response to this 
latter question has been to hone and 
refine predictive techniques using 
mathematical modeling. The trouble 

is that mathematical models work 
in a relatively abstract, delimited, 
quantifiable world and cannot deal with 
the messy, unpredictable character of 
reality. They don’t and cannot consider 
what Donald Rumsfeld called the 
“unknown unknowns” and Nicholas 
Taleb termed “black swans” — things 
that no one expected but that change 
the environment. We live in a world of 
radical uncertainty.
Accordingly, they propose a different 
approach. In any critical situation, 
ask: “What is happening?” They quote 
Richard Rumelt: “A great deal of strategy 
work is trying to figure out what is 
going on. Not just deciding what to do, 
but the more fundamental problem of 
comprehending the situation.” Narrative 
plays a major role in making good 
decisions in an uncertain world. We 
need to ask: of what story is this a part?
Neither Rumelt nor King and Kay 
quote Amy Chua, but her book Political 
Tribes is a classic account of failing 
to understand the situation. Chapter 
by chapter, she documents American 

foreign policy disasters from Vietnam 
to Iraq because policy-makers did 
not comprehend tribal societies. You 
cannot use war to turn them into liberal 
democracies. Fail to understand this and 
you will waste many years, trillions of 
dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
It might seem odd to suggest that a 
book by two contemporary economists 
holds the clue to unraveling the mystery 
of the spies in our parshah. But it does.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION
We think we know the story. Moses 
sent 12 spies to spy out the land. Ten of 
them came back with a negative report. 
The land is good, but unconquerable. 
The people are strong, the cities 
impregnable, the inhabitants are giants, 
and we are grasshoppers. Only two 
of the men, Joshua and Caleb, took a 
different view. We can win. The land is 
good. God is on our side. With His help, 
we cannot fail.
On this reading, Joshua and Caleb 
had faith, courage and confidence, 
while the other 10 did not. But this 
is hard to understand. The 10 — not 
just Joshua and Caleb — knew that 
God was with them. He had crushed 
Egypt. The Israelites had just defeated 
the Amalekites. How could these 10 — 
leaders, princes — not know that they 
could defeat the inhabitants of the land?
What if the story were not this at 
all? What if it was not about faith, 
confidence or courage? What if it 
was about “What is going on?” — 
understanding the situation and what 
happens when you don’t. The Torah tells 
us that this is the correct reading, and it 
signals it in a most striking way.
Biblical Hebrew has two verbs that 
mean “to spy”: lachpor and leragel 
(from which we get the word meraglim, 
“spies”). Neither of these words appear in 
our parshah. That is the point. Instead, 
no less than 12 times, we encounter 
the rare verb, latur. It was revived in 
modern Hebrew and means (and sounds 
like) “to tour.” Tayar is a tourist. There is 
all the difference in the world between a 
tourist and a spy.

What Is Going On?

SPIRIT

A WORD OF TORAH

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

RABBISACKS.ORG

continued on page 42

