THEN MOSHE SET APART THREE TOWNS

IN THE COUNTRY ACROSS THE JORDAN,

 TOWARD THE RISING OF THE SUN,

FOR FLEEING TO BY THE ACCIDENTAL MURDERER

WHO MURDERS HIS NEIGHBOR WITH NO FORETHOUGHT,

WHERE HE DID NOT BEAR HATRED TOWARD HIM

FROM YESTERDAY AND THE DAY BEFORE,

AND SO CAN FLEE TO ONE OF THESE TOWNS

AND STAY ALIVE.

(Devarim 4:41-42)

 

Even One Accused Of Murder Is Entitled To A Decent Attitude And A Just Trial

"Then Moshe set apart three towns... towards the rising of the sun" - what is the meaning of "the rising of the sun?"

Said R' Yossi, son of R' Chanina - said The Holy One, Blessed Be He, to Moshe: Cause the sun to shine for the murderer and provide him with refuge for exile, so that he not be doomed because of the sin of murder, just as the sun lights up the world.

An alternate explication: "For fleeing to by the accidental murderer" - Our Rabbis said: To what may this be compared? To an artisan who made an image of the king; as he was making it, it broke in his hands. Said the king: Had he broken it intentionally, he would have to be executed; now that he broke it unintentionally, he is sentenced to exile and travel, so did The Holy One, Blessed Be He, decree, "Whoever now sheds human blood, for that human shall his blood be shed", but one who kills without intent is exiled from his home, as is written, "He shall flee to one of these cities and will live" - said The Holy One, Blessed Be He: In this world, where the Evil Inclination is prevalent, people kill each other and they die, but in the future to come, I will uproot the Evil Inclination from you and there will be no death in the world, (Isaiah 25), "He will destroy death forever."

 (Devarim Rabba Parasha 2)

 

 

THE SUPPLICATIONS OF MOSHE

AND THE CONSOLATIONS OF ISAIAH

Pinchas Leiser

 

Moshe's fervent yearning to bring the great project of the exodus from Egypt to its conclusion, and to see the Children of Israel entering Eretz Yisrael, can be compared to the desire of parents to enjoy a little "nachat" from those children who are sometimes difficult - both in their youth and as they mature. It was also sometimes difficult for Moshe to carry the burden of this "stiff-necked" people, most of whom evinced no gratitude towards Moshe. Moshe's feelings find expression in the Torah itself and in many midrashim.

Moshe's yearning for Eretz Yisrael, his desire to enter - dead or alive - has become an inspiration for Hebrew literature throughout the generations, beginning with the writings of Chazal through the poetess Rachel, who turned "Man and his Nevo" (from the poem "From Afar") into a universal metaphor for dreams and nearly-realized longings, as with - "from afar you shall see the Land, but you shall not enter."

One of the most powerful expressions of the gap between Moshe's desire to enter the Land at any price and the absolute and cruel finality of the decree may be found in the Midrash Halacha, the Sifri (Parashat Haazinu, Piska 341):

For from afar you shall see the land, but there you shall not enter" - here it says "but there you shall not enter" and further on it says "But there you shall not cross" (Devarim 34:4). It cannot say "There you shall not cross" because it already said "There you shall not enter" and it cannot say "There you shall not enter" for it says "There you shall not cross"! What then are we to learn from "There you shall not enter" and "There you shall not cross"? Said Moshe before The Holy One, Blessed Be He: If I do not enter as king, let me enter as commoner, and if I do not enter alive, let me enter dead. Said to him The Holy One, Blessed Be He: "There you shall not enter" "There you shall not cross" - neither as king nor as commoner, not alive and not dead.

This moving drama, with its emotional power, finds its expression in our parasha in the six laconic opening verses, the words expressing the gap between yearning and disappointment being: "Now I pleaded" as against "And He would not hearken to me".

Can one imagine a greater slap in the face that this? Moshe our teacher, the greatest of all prophets, unparalleled throughout the generations, prays, pleads, and receives a negative response from The Holy One, Blessed Be He! And this, when our sources are replete with stories about prophets and other righteous persons whose prayers are answered in various situations?!

Different explanations - both in the Torah and in Chazal literature - have been offered to explain why Moshe was prevented from entering Eretz Yisrael. When Moshe recounts the story before the Children of Israel (3:26), he says: "But God was cross with me on your account," alluding, perhaps, to the incident of Mei Meriva, in which Moshe reacted in anger and struck the rock; Moshe continues to be angry with the people for causing the ban on his crossing the Jordan. (There is an interesting linguistic connection between 'cross' - 'vayit'aber' - and 'conception' - 'Did I myself conceive this entire people?") Moshe does not understand the nature of the terrible and awful sin which was to be punished with such a severe penalty. This is also beyond our comprehension, and the various reasons offered by the commentators only thicken the fog surrounding the subject. One thing is clear: Moshe pleads, but The Holy One, Blessed Be He, does not grant his appeal.

Perhaps it was so decreed in God's design. Perhaps the matter can be understood through the historio-sophical perspective provided in the Yalkut Shimoni (Bemidbar 20, 764):

Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He, to Moshe: In what role to you wish to enter the land? This may be compared to a shepherd who takes the king's sheep to pasture, and the sheep are plundered. The shepherd wants to enter the hall of the king. Says the king: Why? If you enter, the people will say that you plundered the sheep. So said The Holy One, Blessed Be He, to Moshe: Will your praise be that you took out 600,000 people from Egypt and buried them in the wilderness and you are bringing in a new generation? No, they will say that the Generation of the Wilderness has no portion in the world to come! No, lie alongside them, and enter with them, as is written, : "Gathered the heads of the people", therefore it is written, "You shall not bring this assembly", which left with you.

The leader of a generation which is not ready for entry into the land, cannot abandon his followers. Moshe's fate is bound up with the fate of the Generation of the Wilderness, and he cannot cut himself off from it.

Since that time, the nation has undergone many trials and tribulations. It saw Eretz Yisrael in its grandeur and in its devastation, the temple destroyed and rebuilt, exile and return. Many generations shared Moshe's experience, seeing the land from afar, but not meriting entry. Others did not merit even that, but made do with prayer and yearning, despite the harsh exile in which they lived. The nation's narrative and the Jew's personal experience are marked by recurrent cycles of feelings of despair and feelings of hope.

In the first verse of this week's Haftara, the prophet calls for consolation: "Comfort, comfort you My people, says your God."

Our early commentators interpreted this as applying to the future:

In my opinion, all this refers to our exile, but in the book the references are to the Babylonian exile, to remind us that Koresh freed the exiles, but the end of the book speaks about the future, when possible. (Ibn Ezra, Isaiah 40:1)

And know that "Comfort, comfort you" - all these consolations are for the days of the Mashiach. (Radak, Isaiah 40:1)

Comfort, comfort" - refers to his future prophecies; because from here until the end of the book are words of consolation; this chapters separates them from the words of misfortune. Comfort, you my prophets, comfort my people. (Rashi, ibid.)

Chazal, in the midrash, describe a situation in which the nation finds it difficult to be comforted, because of the many misfortunes and the feeling of guilt-related despair. The midrash (presented here in abridged form) relates various attempts by prophets to comfort Israel, and the refusal of the people to be consoled:

Comfort, oh comfort My people" said The Holy One, Blessed Be He, to the prophets: Go and comfort Yerushalayim. When they came to her, she said to them: Are not my ears full of admonitions with which you admonished me, and now you come to comfort me? "Oh that my head were water, my eyes a fount of tears! Then would I weep day and night for the slain of my poor people" (Yirmiyahu 8:23), and, in the holy spirit, Yirmiyahu laments "Weep, yes weep in the night" - who wept? Israel wept. Some say Yirmiyahu wept. The prophets returned to The Holy One, Blessed Be He, and said: Master of the Universe, she refuses to accept our consolations. Replied The Holy One, Blessed Be He: I and you will go to comfort her, as is written "Comfort, oh comfort My people" - we will comfort my people, we will comfort the celestial beings, we will comfort mortals, we will comfort the first generations, we will comfort the last generations. (Midrash Zuta, Eicha, version 2, parasha 1).

The cyclic process which began with yearning, with aspiration, and sometimes with longing for a reality of geula - of redemption, of a better world which we do not merit to see, even though this reality seems to us "right across from us" - only some small something separates between us and it; the cycle concludes with a perspective of generations and with looking back with some kind of acceptance - despite the difficulty - of the missed opportunities for Geula, and with the shattering of illusions, accompanied with tireless hopes for a better world, which we may never see in a perfect way. Perhaps this is the necessary process of the nation's ripening, and perhaps that of every man. It begins with Moshe's unanswered "pleadings", and it ends with Isaiah's "consolations" which open a door to hope in an unredeemed world.

Pinchas Leiser, editor of Shabbat Shalom", is psychologist.

 

 

You Are To Do What Is Right And What Is Good

The Book of Bereishit is called by the prophets "Sefer HaYashar" - The Book of the Upright". Explains R' Yochanan: This is the book of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov who were called upright, as is written "Let my soul die the death of the upright". Jews of the Second Temple period were tzaddikim, righteous, devoted to Torah study, but they were not "yesharim" - upright in worldly affairs. Because of groundless hatred, they suspected whoever feared God in a fashion different from their own of being a Sadducee and a heretic, and this led to bloodshed and all the evils of the world, until the Temple was destroyed, for The Holy One, Blessed Be He, is upright and he cannot tolerate this kind of tzaddikim. [He prefers] only those who walk in the straight path also in worldly matters, and not crookedly, even though [the crooked behavior] is for the sake of Heaven, for this leads to the destruction of creation and the devastation of civilization.

 (From the Netzsiv of Volozhin's commentary "Haamek Davar", preface to the Book of Bereishit).

 

After mentioning that one should observe these three categories of mitzvoth (Mishpatim/regulations, eidot/testimonies, hukkim/laws) and not test the Holy One, Blessed Be He, with regard to any of them, He decreed (according to the midrash) in favor of compromise on matters on which the Torah did not rule, saying - "You are to do what is right and what is good". And because it [compromise] will lead to peace, He called it "What is right and what is good in the eyes of God".

 (Rabeinu Bahayey, Devarim 6:17)

 

"Comfort, comfort you my people";

A Conditional Promise or A Spiritual Challenge?

... The chapter of the Haftara (of Shabbat Nachamu) is cut off at verse 26, and the four concluding verses are not recited, lest they - Heaven forbid - adversely affect the pleasant feeling radiated by the preceding verses of consolation and mission, verses coveted by the human soul, ideas with which the soul amuses itself.

From the words of the prophets we derive that consolation and the mission of geula are not a given reality or an event due to occur in the future. They are talking about a direction and a goal towards which one must strive, and this is, in effect, the meaning of all prophecies which contain promises.

Careful study, without prejudgments regarding the geula and the return to Zion, which are actually the content and the main subjects of the "Seven Prophecies of Comfort," will reveal - to our surprise- their true meaning: they are always interwoven with presentations of demands; were this not so, they would be devoid of any religious significance, and it would have been able to relate to them as pronouncements of the Oracle, fortune tellers, and diviners of idolaters, which existed from days of yore until this very day.

In contrast to one Chazalic opinion which claims that there are only prophecies of misfortune and that they do not materialize because of penitence which is capable of nullifying the decree, there is no denying the fact (which we tend to ignore) that there are to be found many prophecies of consolation which were never realized. On this subject, too, Talmudic literature, midrashim, and aggadot make forceful statements, such as those great consolations which Yirmiyahu predicts for Efrayim and the ten tribes, and for our mother Rachel who announces the future return of her sons. But we all know that the sons did not return, and the Kingdom of Israel has long passed from the world, despite all these prophecies.

Similarly, Amos prophesied that Israel will be exiled from its land, and in that same generation there arose in Israel Yoravam son of Yoash, the powerful leader and conqueror ' "who restored the territory of Israel from Levo-hamaath to the sea of the Arabah" (II Kings 14:25), and achieved victories and conquests hitherto unparalleled, but one generation later, the Kingdom of Efrayim ceased to exist.

 (Y. Leibowitz, Discussions About The Festivals Of Israel And Its Appointed Times, pp.146-147)

 

 

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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