(Moshe) prayed for him (Yehoshua): “May God save you from the evil counsel of the spies” (Sotah 34b). (Rashi to Bamidbar 13:16)

Rashi tells us that Moshe prayed for Yehoshua that he should be saved from the evil counsel of the spies. Upon seeing the Rashi, I wondered why Rashi used the term “counsel”? He should have said, “the sin of the spies”. Indeed, the question which must be asked, “From what counsel did he have to be saved?”

There are children’s books which are written to teach children not to lie. A relative of mine recently wrote one and it depicts a little boy who was able to rationalize every lie that came out of his mouth. For example, a boy was reading in his room, while his mother was expecting him to be getting dressed. The mother asked from the other side of the door, “Are you reading?” The boy would immediately close the book, start getting dressed, and reply, “No, I am getting dressed!” He then rationalized, “I didn’t lie – I actually said the truth!” (Though in his heart of hearts he knew that this was not the truth, and he was really lying.)

I once heard a speech by a famous Rabbi in America who was discussing statistics. He explained how savvy one must be to know the truth underlying statistics. He gave the following example: There was a small village with 10 inhabitants. Two of them had a propensity in their family for cavities in their teeth, and they decided to make an experiment and put fluoride into the town’s water. By the end of the experiment, of these two residents, one still ended up with a cavity while the other did not. At least 10 statistical reports followed: In one report it stated that 50% of people with a propensity for cavities were affected positively by fluoride in the water. Another report came out stating that of the entire test group, there was only one person who got a cavity.

Marketing savvy is used to express the information truly accurately but yet, to give an illusion of something greater than the facts. This is indeed the work of the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara often either plays down or plays up certain aspects of reality to entice the person to transgress and sin.

The spies did not just “fall into” sin; it seems to have been premeditated. They had a starting frame of reference of how to explain the facts in front of them: e.g. All the people are dying; therefore, it must be a place which eats its residents – a place with rampant disease. The Abarbanel, in discussing the responses of Yehoshua and Calev, explains how they refuted the suggested facts that were stated by the spies as follows. “We, who were travelling around, should have been more susceptible to disease than those who were taken care of in proper lodgings and an otherwise healthy environment. Our bodies were stressed by 40 days of rigorous physical exertion, and yet we remained healthy, no worse off than we started. Therefore, if you want to look at the facts, it seems to us that they are to our advantage, and therefore we should conquer Eretz Yisrael.”

We often hear about people who give in to their yetzer hara and do things which are utterly ridiculous. We wonder “What were they thinking?” Yet when we are in a similar situation, we seem to have good reasons to explain why we are different. For example, a fellow stayed up late and because of that came late to shacharis. His friend tells him, “That was foolish to stay up so late, because now you missed part of davening!” Yet when this friend is himself up late doing his own project, he is convinced that he is going to make it to shacharis on time.

The “counsel” that Moshe was talking about was the spies’ emotional bias. As Moshe blessed Yehoshua, we also ask in davening every day not to be put into situations where we are being tested, including even those tests for which we already know what the right choice should be. We ask Hashem that we should not be brought to those tests, for we know that at the time of a test it is very difficult for us to overcome our emotions intellectually, and we tend to have ways of legitimizing that which we are doing wrong. May we all be granted the strength of Yehoshua and not fall prey to the tactics of the yetzer hara.