By Yoni Applebaum * (June 16, 2025)
"And they told him, and said: 'We came to the land to which you sent us, and indeed it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are fierce, and the cities are very greatly fortified, and we also saw the offspring of the giants there.” (Bamidbar 13:27-28)
Many great minds have debated the nature of the spies' sin, but that is not the focus of this article. Instead, I've chosen to linger on a single word amid the multitude of interpretations — especially because, at the time I was asked to write these few words, it happened to be the yahrzeit of Kafka. I believe the intersection of these two topics holds particularly interesting potential.
The Ramban notes that the spies did not lie — on the contrary: “Did he send them with the expectation they would testify falsely?" Indeed, the cities were large and fortified, and the land was abundant with fruit. So, what was their sin? The Ramban continues:
"But their wickedness lies in the word 'efes' ['nevertheless'], which connotes nullification and impossibility — something entirely beyond human reach. As in the expressions: 'He’afes lanetzach chasdo – Has His kindness ceased forever?' (Tehillim 77:9) or ‘There is no one else efes besides God' (Yeshayahu 45:14)[1]. And thus they said to him: the land is rich and flows with milk and honey, and its fruit is good but it is impossible to conquer it, for the people are strong, the cities are very greatly fortified, and we even saw giants there.”
According to the Ramban, the critical issue lies in their use of the word efes - the shift away from the positive: the land is good — cloaked in a kind of cynicism, as if to say, “Yes, it's very good but there's no chance we'll ever reach it. It's too good to be true."
This rhetorical move - acknowledging the goodness only to negate it - is the essence of their sin. In effect, the spies hollowed out the profound seriousness of the true, ultimate claim — the very purpose of the journey — and turned it into something superficial. "Efes, poor us!" The good land? Suddenly, it no longer seems worth the trials of the desert — precisely because it is so good.
In his book Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a collection of notes the Italian writer Italo Calvino prepared for a prestigious lecture series at an American university (the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures), he outlines six literary values to preserve for the coming millennium. The first is “lightness” not as escapism, but as a response to the heaviness of reality: rigid institutions, habitual ways of thinking, or linguistic weight. For Calvino, lightness is a value to be preserved and cultivated.
And returning to the spies, we noted that the word efes is unique in that it takes a given reality and turns it on its head. From statements that are themselves positive and true, the spies slid into a grievous sin - a single word that renders the entire weight of their claim trivial. This is precisely the kind of paradox that Calvino identifies in Kafka[2] — though he sees it in a positive light. And I believe that perhaps even within our own tradition, we can find an intriguing use of this same rhetorical move, long before Kafka.
As we learned during our time in yeshiva, intertextual interpretations shine brilliantly in the Torah. Indeed, the phrase used by the spies — "the cities are great and fortified” — ultimately enjoys a rather successful afterlife, revealing something about the Torah's own capacity to neutralize what many commentators initially viewed as a wholly negative and exclusive expression of the spies. In the book of Devarim, Moshe himself quotes the very claims that arose during the sin of the spies:
"Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: 'The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to the heavens, and we also saw the children of the giants there.'[3]
"Hear, O Israel, today you are crossing the Jordan to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens.” (Devarim 1:28; 9:1)
The Ramban notices this and continues his commentary in Bamidbar: "Behold, Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to their children in similar terms - and even exaggerated the strength of the people and the fortification of their cities, and the might of the giants, beyond what the spies had told their parents, as it is written: 'Hear, O Israel, you are crossing the Jordan to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens, a great and tall people, children of the giants, whom you know and of whom you have heard - who can stand before the children of the giant?' (Devarim 9:1-2). And if this was the spies' crime, why would Moshe dishearten the hearts of their children as the spies did to their parents?"
The Ramban expresses surprise that Moshe would say these things to the current generation — one that did not belong to the generation of the spies and even more so after opening with the words "Hear, O Israel." His words seem to offer a defense of the spies - that they had spoken truthfully. The Ramban's answer, as we saw above, once again focuses on the precise meaning of the word efes. It was not only permitted but necessary to report on the great and fortified cities. But the addition of the word efes - "however” or “nevertheless" - lies at the heart of the sin. That word is the very crux of the matter, and it is what enables Moshe to later reuse the same claim without alteration — this time as a constructive teaching.[4]
Calvino mentions Kafka's[5] story that led him to reflect on this elusive quality of lightness and what it encapsulates. In the short story "The Bucket Rider," a poor man goes out on a bitter winter night in search of coal. He rides an empty coal bucket, asks for help - and is rejected. The story ends on a surreal note, as the coal-seeker rides his empty bucket beyond the ice mountains. Kafka writes that the bucket is so light it carries the man upon it.
This bucket, writes Calvino, is not merely a metaphor. It is a symbol of wanting, of longing, and searching - lifting you precisely to that point where even the humblest request, a handful of coal, can no longer be fulfilled
He goes on to say: "Many of Kafka's short stories are steeped in mystery, and this one especially. Perhaps Kafka simply meant to tell us that setting out to seek coal on a wartime winter night transforms the jostling of an empty bucket into the journey of a wandering knight, or a desert crossing atop a caravan, or flight upon a magic carpet."
It is precisely the emptiness - the literal void of the bucket, the sparseness of the story stripped of description, light as a feather - that makes flight imaginable. It is lack that opens the door to new perspectives. This is the power Calvino finds in Kafka's prose: a precise depiction of a given reality, no matter how grim, that enables a lighthearted glance at the heaviness of existence without being crushed by it. To say efes, and then discover how a fearful claim in the mouths of spies can become a confident one in the mouth of a prophet.
Let us conclude with Calvino's own parting wish:
"And so, riding our bucket, we head toward the new millennium—not hoping to find there anything other than what we bring with us. Lightness, for instance-which I have tried to evoke here."
In the harsh reality of our times, we would do well to internalize the message embedded in the Sin of the Spies — and in the inner reworking of their words by the Torah itself. It teaches us the value of understanding things with a certain lightness — not indifference, not cynicism, but a true emptiness, a "God has left me" moment, from which a new faith may be born.
Footnotes:
[1] ""But only [efes] the word that I speak to you — that you shall speak' (Bamidbar 22:35); Yeshayahu 45:6: 'For there is none [efes] besides Me; I am the Lord and there is no other.' Think also of 'There is none besides Him' [efes zulato] from Aleinu Leshabe'ach, in the Pesukei Dezimra of the Shabbat prayer."
[2] This stands in contrast to the analysis of another renowned author, David Foster Wallace, in his essay Some Remarks on Kafka's funniness. If space allowed, one could juxtapose the Italian and the American - how do they each interpret the Czech?
[3] Many scholars and commentators have noted that in the book of Devarim, Moshe - speaking to the next generation (which still included some from the Exodus generation) - places the Sin of the Spies before the sin of the Golden Calf, and not by coincidence. This verse in Devarim aligns closely with the verse in our portion: “Efes, for the people are strong."
[4] One might suggest that the shift lies in the addition of the word "heavens" [shamayim], though that would lead us into an entirely different cultural realm - a comparison more interreligious than literary. Since we have now completed the analytical-Torah portion of this dvar Torah and have entered the gates of homiletics, I'll add another comment from the Ramban. He resolves Moshe's 'dangerous' reuse of the spies' very words by framing it as an educational message. Why did Moshe take the risk of sounding like the spies? Because of the need to warn the people now poised to enter and conquer the land - against the grave spiritual danger of thinking, "My own strength and the might of my hand have made me this wealth." From here, the classic vorts are well known.
But since we've already opened a footnote, it's worth noting that this is from the only instance in which the spies' argument returns in the Bible — not as a sin, but as a superlative. We encounter it again throughout Scripture: in the book of Yehoshua, in Melachim I, and most strikingly in the opening of Nechemiah. There, in the great confession speech and the covenant renewal during the Second Temple period, Ezra indicts the people of the First Temple era (whose sins led to Israel's exile and whose descendants, the returnees from Babylon, are now struggling to reestablish life in the land with meager resources). He accuses them of eating, satisfying their bellies, and growing fat - thanks to the fortified cities they conquered and the houses full of good things they inherited in the land of Canaan.
Notably, there is no mention at all of the Sin of the Spies (!), nor the "fortified cities" of the spies' report - but fortified cities as a symbol of storage, abundance, and material prosperity. The fertile land fills man's heart with pride. This recalls the Ramban's comment: we are dealing here with a matter entirely distinct from the Sin of the Spies. In fact, the phrase has already been severed from that sin. Which brings us back to the question: why, then, were the spies punished so harshly?
[5] It's worth noting that he began his journey into the notion of 'lightness' in literature with Ovid, passed through Lucretius and Cavalcanti, moved on to Cyrano de Bergerac and Medusa, and ended with Kafka — quite the journey, all in an effort to avoid the book of Bamidbar!
* Alumnus of the Robert M. Beren Machanaim Hesder Yeshiva who is currently completing a degree in History while working at the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
[Ed. note: from OTS: Among this year's overseas students at Midreshet Lindenbaum's Maria and Joel Finkle Overseas Program, 16 young women - 27% of the cohort - have chosen to remain in Israel next year to serve the country, whether in the IDF or some other form of National Service.]
