In this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach-lecha, in the book of Numbers, Joshua and Caleb return from scouting out the Promised Land and report to the Israelites what they found there. Unlike other scouts from other tribes, Joshua and Caleb were realistic and hopeful. The other scouts reported that “All the people that we saw in [the land] are men of great size—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them” (Numbers 13). But Joshua and Caleb returned from the same land and said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it” (Numbers 13). They further said to the people, “The land is exceedingly good; [it is] a land that flows with milk and honey…” (Numbers 14).

Torah commentators, past and present, struggle with the message they told to the people. Were the other scouts right to tell about the harsh conditions they found there? Were Joshua and Caleb promoting a promise they couldn’t keep?

In our own troubled times, reporters of all kinds have submitted their messages about Israel for the world to evaluate. In this social media-driven world where anybody is a journalist, we have to remember that “the medium is the message.” This is attributed to Marshall McLuhan, a communication theorist. He published his theory in 1964, in his book, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. I first learned it years ago, and never forgot its importance. In 1964, television, especially, was the latest medium that would disrupt the message through advertisements, promotions, and promises. And when color television emerged, real truth and reality were displayed in technicolor. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that social media, in all its forms, has overwhelmed us with messages that base their truths in the medium and not necessarily the message, too. As long as it’s on TikTok, for example, younger generations will accept the message as true or likely true. They’re definitely not watching NBC Nightly News for another viewpoint or objectivity.

You might long for the objective journalism of Walter Cronkite, but that’s history, unfortunately. Social media has made it possible for the message and its truth to become less important than where the message lives and where it lands. Where it lives is the social media platform such as TikTok, BuzzFeed, Facebook, or Insta. Where it lands is about iPhones and digital sources where anyone can edit, crop, and deliver messages in sound bites and video blogs. While no one can battle its worst offenses successfully, some are waging war with it better than others.

Many times, you’ve asked, “How can Israel win the media war?” I’ve heard some plausible answers, but they still deny the theory that the “medium is the message.” As you know, it makes little to no difference when someone posts Israel’s contributions to science and medicine, or that Israel fights an ethical war while being held to a double-standard, or that Israel treats any victim of war in its hospitals whether Israeli or Palestinian, or that Israel wants peace with its enemies. The message is lost, dissected, ignored, and abused on social media because it’s a medium without any standards, boundaries, or civil obligations. But fighting with social media isn’t the answer. As we also know, “If you can’t beat them, join them!”

In our world where the medium can be repulsively antisemitic and xenophobic, there are three behaviors that can mitigate the damage: 1) “delete and report junk” and offensive posts and comments without responding to them; 2) support organizations that remove abusers at the source, such as www.honestreporting.com, which alerts employers, reveals antisemitic journalists, and censors false reports; and 3) flood social media with the Truth.

For those of us who have been to Israel, especially after October 7th, we have a double-duty to report what we’ve seen and heard. Social media has revealed everything to us, so there’s little point in playing down the war’s impact on the region. It’s difficult to come home from Israel, today, and say that it’s safer there than it is in Houston; but it’s fair to say that Israel still thrives and breathes even as it struggles and fights. It’s also fair to say that western perspectives on the conflict can be very different, even conspiratorial, from what we see when we’re in Israel, in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the southern cities like Sderot.

That’s why it’s important to go, if you can, and equally important to return with a report like Joshua and Caleb’s. Ours is not to deceive or promote what isn’t true; ours is to rebuild confidence, renew hope, and reclaim the future. That comes in every true and reliable message in every medium, from the pulpit and weekly blogs, to social media posts and community actions. Let’s keep faith with what we’ve been taught, “Let us by all means go up…for we shall surely overcome it…[it is] a land that flows with milk and honey…”

L’Shalom,