[Avodah] Shelach

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 01:57:01PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> : No, he doesn't.   He sends actual spies, secret agents whose names
> : are not revealed, whom he chooses for their expertise, and trusts to
> : report to him *in secret* on the enemy's military position and what
> : weaknesses might be exploited....
> 
> But the medrash has him picking two prominent people as Kaleiv was one
> of the people sent on MRAH's political junket and the other was in line
> to be kohein gadol (Rashi 25:15, based on Zecachim 111b), if he wasn't
> the kohein gadol yet..

There's nothing that says famous people *can't* be competent spies.
Mata Hari was both, using her public career as a cover for her espionage.
Being a member of a political delegation might in fact be a good cover
for a real spy.  If one were writing this as fiction, one might look at
Kalev's private side-trip to Chevron, and wonder whether he might not
have had private orders from Moshe.  But the point is that, famous or
not, when he's in his role as meragel he's not named, even after his
death, and it remains for the Medrash ~1500 years later to reveal the
secret.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher