The 12 Biblical Spies and the Trump Administration

Every year, I write reflections for Passover. I take current issues and relate them to the Israelite Exodus from Egypt. These often include topics of conversation for the Seder table and, hopefully, a way to find current relevance in an old story,

In 2023, the reflections were imbued with a sense of ferocity and anger about the attempted judicial coup in Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu and the months of protests which ensued. Last year, writing from Riyadh, the reflections imbued with great anguish about the Hamas Massacres and the Gaza War.

Though there is much still to say about the judicial coup and the Gaza War, this year I am torn asunder by what is happening in the United States where I live.

Each morning, we wake to a hodgepodge of misguided executive orders, calumnies against various agencies, people and projects (designed for the greater good), the erasure of the experiences and contributions of minority groups in America, a panoply of mixed messages about the US withdrawal from the world and conterminous attempts to bully the world – tariffs being just one example.

Moreover, Trump’s anti-constitutional actions have been undertaken with no audible sign of protest from a pusillanimous Republican majority in Congress – not even a defense of Congress as an institution.

Invariably, each morning my mind goes to the weakness each insular action portrays to ourselves and to the world. As Passover approaches, the biblical story of the 12 spies also comes to mind.

To recap the story: Within a year of the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites approached the land of Canaan – the Promised Land. Moses sent forth twelve spies – a leader of each tribe – to scout the land. The spies spent 40 days in multiples cities.

Upon their return, 10 of spies said the land was bountiful but the cities were fortified, the people giants and proclaimed: “we are like grasshoppers to them.” The two dissenters, Joshua (Moses’ eventual successor) and Caleb took a different tack. Their position was: the walled cities were not signs of strength, that the land was indeed bountiful and could be conquered (especially in light of God’s promised support).

The Israelites, however, followed the 10 and for the fourth time since the exodus wailed, “we should go back to Egypt” – to what was familiar – to slavery. God was incensed and the Israelites were told they would wander in the desert for 40 years. It is said that it took the Israelites one day to get out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of the Israelites.

What does this have to do with the Trump administration? Walling off the world, ruling by fiat (executive order), trampling on the Constitution, demanding obsequiousness through fear and intimidation – and succeeding as we see with major law firms and universities, cutting off crisis hot lines for our veterans, eviscerating social safety nets for the poor and weak – is not a sign of the country which had been the leader of the free world for over a century. It is a sign of debility and moral vacuousness.

Until recently, there was always a certain glory to America. A beckoning. Emma Lazarus wrote in 1883, Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Now, Emma Lazarus has been rejected. America is full.

To be clear, America has always been better in its professed ideals and rhetoric than in its practice. President Trump, I fear, has obliterated any aspiration to American exceptionalism and, as a result, will bury America’s future. Like living in walled city – America now evinces weakness.

The second element that drew me to the spy story is the desolate vision of the future the 10 spies promoted. The 10 spies saw the bounty of the land yet were obsessed with the obstacles and lacked faith. Their story caused the Israelites to champion a return to slavery in Egypt. The lack of vision was the spies’ monumental failure and not worthy of those who come forth from slavery.

Similarly, I am disquieted by the Trump administration not merely for what they are doing today but for the bleak vision of the future they espouse. An America without science, healthcare, public services, and critically, a vision of an America without empathy – which Elon Musk has declared a weakness. No one should aspire to live without empathy, let alone an America without empathy!

As punishment for the 10 spies and the retrenchment it engendered among the people, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Will America wander in a desert of its own making for 40 years?

The world needs America as the leader of the free world. Will that ever be possible again?