Thought For The Week: 11 June 2015 (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 12 June 2015

Many years ago I was the Director of Operations Development for a major laboratory working in the field of high-tech communications.  Because of the nature of my position and responsibilities I needed access to the whole of our site, including those areas in which hush-hush defence work was undertaken.  My application for Ministry of Defence clearance was taking far too long, so I asked the manager of the site and security activities – who worked for me – to do some chasing.  Eventually, the clearance came through with an apology that owing to my grandparents originating in eastern Europe, extra checks had to be made.  This was, of course, during the Cold War, when suspicion between east and west was running very high and so I accepted this as reasonable.  A little later, I received a rather mysterious invitation to meet with two senior army officers, who after many questions and much hesitation, informed me that one of the managers working for me had not been entirely open in his application form for the job.  Apparently, he had previously been working for army intelligence in Northern Ireland and they needed him again for a special assignment and could I please give him time off to ‘serve his country’ is how, as I now recall, they put it.  I did wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t passed their ‘eastern European’ test, but everything was carefully prepared, except the special mission, in the event, was a failure, although I wasn’t given any details.

I was reminded of this anecdote by a story in the press this week of the concerns of the Italian Government that the thousands of migrants from north Africa might include an unspecified number of Islamic jihadists, merging in with the genuine refugees for nefarious reasons, not least as, what during the Cold War was known as, ‘sleepers’ who could be ‘woken’ – as the jargon goes – to spy on Italian and other European strategic installations.  Inevitably this is giving EU politicians even more to worry about than the UK referendum!

Spying is, of course, nothing new.  Known as the second oldest profession, we learn of their activities in this week’s Torah portion.  The ancient Israelites, having received the mitzvot, some of which can only be observed once they get to the Promised Land, were keen to arrive there and possess it.  Moses, who was more of a diplomat than a military leader, sent out spies to reconnoitre the place, checking out its strengths and weaknesses, the lie of the land, its agricultural produce.  Indeed he gave them a very full specification for their task.  However, when the spies returned, rather than meeting them and hearing what they had to say, so as to work out what spin to put on it when he reported their finding to the people at large, Moses allowed the spies direct access to the people and they turned them against the whole military campaign by frightening them.  Thus the Israelites spent another 39 years wandering through the wilderness while that generation died out.

It’s only about half that time since the ending of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ostensible ending of communism as an economic strategy.  However, the signs of a renewal of tensions between east and west are not good at all, as Presidents Putin and Obama ratchet up both the vocal and physical symbols of aggression and sanctions.  A return to the second half of twentieth century political relationships could engulf Europe in a far more dangerous situation than the presence of a few Islamic jihadists.  The G7 meeting this week versus the G8 meetings, including Russia, of the past few years is not the model that best suits the future peace of this world.