Post by Rabbi Neil on Jul 24, 2020 19:45:28 GMT
As we start the Book of Deuteronomy this Shabbat, Moses turns to the people and starts teaching them before they cross into the land which he is not allowed to enter. He talks of God telling the Israelites to break camp at Sinai and he shares how leaders were appointed at that time. He describes that process as follows: “9 At that time I said to you, “You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone. 10 The Eternal your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky. 11 May the Eternal, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised! 12 But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself? 13 Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.” 14 You answered me, “What you propose to do is good.” 15 So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials. 16 And I charged your judges at that time, “Hear the disputes between your people and judge fairly, whether the case is between two Israelites or between an Israelite and a foreigner residing among you. 17 Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of anyone, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it.” 18 And at that time I told you everything you were to do.” That’s a lovely narrative of a leader delegating responsibility because of the enormity of the task facing him, but the problem is that it’s not the whole truth.
In Exodus 18, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro visits. He sees Moses sitting in judgment from morning until evening and he tells Moses that what he is doing is not good because he will surely wear himself out. It is Jethro who tells Moses that the task is too enormous for him. It is Jethro who tells Moses to seek out leaders to the people and to have only the major matters brought to him. Moses obeys his father in law and acts accordingly. What’s the difference between the two narratives? As Moses tells it, it’s his idea but in Exodus it’s Jethro’s. Does it make a big difference? Perhaps Jethro just had a quiet word in Moses’ ear but didn’t want the credit for the idea. Indeed, maybe they recognized that had the people known it came from Jethro, they wouldn’t have accepted it as easily as having it come from Moses. So, it is possible that Moses isn’t telling the whole truth for the good of the people. However, as we continue with chapter 1 of Deuteronomy, another reason suggests itself.
In describing the incident of the spies, Moses explains that the twelve spies – one from each tribe – went into the land, took some fruit and brought it back saying that the land is good. He then describes the negative reaction of the people as an act of rebellion against God, he describes their fear of the Anakites who were in the land. He describes how God became angry with the people and said that none of them save for Caleb would enter the land. This much is described, in slightly differing words, in the portion of Sh’lach L’cha, in Numbers chapter 14. But then in verse 37 in Deuteronomy 1, in this week’s portion, Moses adds an extraordinary claim. He says “Because of you the Eternal became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.” Moses is saying that the reason that he is banned from entering the land is because of the rebellion of the people, inspired by the spies. That’s just not true.
The reason Moses was banned from entering the land wasn’t because of Numbers 14, but Numbers 20. The people arrive in the Wilderness of Zin, Miriam dies, and the people run out of water. They complain to Moses and Aaron and God tells Moses to take his staff and speak to a rock so that water pours out of it. Moses is so incensed with the people, though, that instead of speaking to the rock, he strikes it twice with the staff, while calling the people “rebels.” God’s response is immediate, saying to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in Me enough to honor Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” Moses is barred from entering Canaan because he did not follow God’s command and because he got angry with the Israelites, not because of the people’s rebellion in an earlier Torah portion. So, why does Moses say that this was the reason in our Torah portion?
Medieval Biblical commentator Nachmanides says that there is no connection between the incident of the spies and the incident of Moses striking the rock but he says that Moses connects them in this week’s Torah portion because the Israelites rebelled against God with the spies and then rebelled against God with the water and it was Moses’ response to that continual rebellion that led to Moses being banned from entering the land. Rabbi Chayyim ben-Atar is not impressed with Nachmanides’ interpretation, though, and he says that Moses continues to talk about the sin of the spies afterwards, so it makes no sense for him to interrupt with the narrative of the Waters of Meribah. Saadiah Gaon has some sympathy with Nachmanides’ position, though, saying that had it not been for the sin of the spies, the Israelites would have gone right into the land and the incident with the rock would never have happened. This suggests a causal link between the two incidents, thereby giving Moses permission to conflate them both.
Saadiah Gaon explained that the sin of the spies caused the Israelites to be delayed another thirty-eight years in the wilderness, and as a result the sin at the Waters of Meribah took place, leading in turn to the edict that Moses not enter the land. If the Jews had not sinned in the matter of the spies they would have entered the land under Moses' leadership back in the second year after the exodus from Egypt. Two other commentators – Sforno and Or HaChayyim – go even further and add something that is appropriate to the coming week. They say that Numbers 14:1, which says of the people who had been kept entering the land that they “wept that night” is actually an allusion to the Ninth of Av, the day of mourning that we commemorate on Wednesday evening. They say that had Moses entered the land and built the Temple it would never have been destroyed. Therefore, the sin of the spies led to Moses’ frustration which led to him being excluded from the land which led to the Temple being built much later and it ultimately being destroyed. There is for them, then a causal chain far greater than just the spies and Moses’ exclusion from the land.
Abravanel says that Moses himself sins at the incident of the spies because he adds to the Divine command and, as a result, the people go astray. He notes that God instructed him to merely "send men to scout the land of Canaan" (Num. 13:2). However, Moses adds extensively to their mission, commanding them to see whether the inhabitants of the land are "strong or weak, few or many?” He asks them to see “Is the country ... good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? ... Is it wooded or not?" (Num. 13:18-20). With the best of intentions, then, Moses inadvertently. The punishment was not decreed until the Waters of Meribah, but it was set at the incident of the spies. This is actually a very creative reading because it picks up on the notion of Moses not trusting in God. How was striking a rock not trusting in God? Instead, perhaps not trusting God meant not trusting God’s simple mission to the spies.
As wonderful and as insightful as these traditional commentaries are, they assume Moses’ perfection and therefore miss another obvious interpretation. Moses may well have been, as Torah calls him, the greatest prophet who ever lived, but that doesn’t mean that he was a perfect human being. Prophets do not need to be perfect. Moses was a man with flaws. He argues with God against leading the people, he fails to circumcise his son to the point that God is angered with him and wants to kill him. So, he’s definitely not perfect! With that in mind, we can read Moses’s two embellishments of the truth in this week’s Torah reading very differently. In the first, Moses fails to mention his father-in-law Jethro and tells the people that the division of judgment in the camp was his idea. In the second, he tells the people that he is barred from the land because of their sin, not because of his. It’s a very human tale – he’s claiming the good as his own and blaming others for his mistake. In Deuteronomy 1, I think we see the real humanity of Moses and, unlike traditional commentaries, I don’t think that’s something we should hide from. As we start to prepare ourselves for the High Holy Days, we start to look at our own revisionist narratives – where have we convinced ourselves that we were better than we are, and where have we blamed others for the things we did wrong? We read this Torah portion and think, “If Moses does this, I probably do, too.” We give ourselves permission to deconstruct our own subjective take on life’s narrative and open ourselves up to the narrative of our lives as others would describe it. For Moses isn’t lying, he’s not being malicious in rewriting what happened, he's just so exhausted from leading the people that one bad incident blurs into another. In Deuteronomy, he puts his best foot forward, explaining that all the problems that affected the people were because of them, and despite his best efforts to protect them from themselves. The truth is more nuanced, though. As it is with Moses, so we must recognize it is with us.
This week, then, let us use the opening of Moses’ address to the people as a reminder not to believe our own truth. Let us use his fallibility to remind us of our own. Let us learn from his mistake so that we may enter our own promised land. And let us say, Amen.
In Exodus 18, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro visits. He sees Moses sitting in judgment from morning until evening and he tells Moses that what he is doing is not good because he will surely wear himself out. It is Jethro who tells Moses that the task is too enormous for him. It is Jethro who tells Moses to seek out leaders to the people and to have only the major matters brought to him. Moses obeys his father in law and acts accordingly. What’s the difference between the two narratives? As Moses tells it, it’s his idea but in Exodus it’s Jethro’s. Does it make a big difference? Perhaps Jethro just had a quiet word in Moses’ ear but didn’t want the credit for the idea. Indeed, maybe they recognized that had the people known it came from Jethro, they wouldn’t have accepted it as easily as having it come from Moses. So, it is possible that Moses isn’t telling the whole truth for the good of the people. However, as we continue with chapter 1 of Deuteronomy, another reason suggests itself.
In describing the incident of the spies, Moses explains that the twelve spies – one from each tribe – went into the land, took some fruit and brought it back saying that the land is good. He then describes the negative reaction of the people as an act of rebellion against God, he describes their fear of the Anakites who were in the land. He describes how God became angry with the people and said that none of them save for Caleb would enter the land. This much is described, in slightly differing words, in the portion of Sh’lach L’cha, in Numbers chapter 14. But then in verse 37 in Deuteronomy 1, in this week’s portion, Moses adds an extraordinary claim. He says “Because of you the Eternal became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.” Moses is saying that the reason that he is banned from entering the land is because of the rebellion of the people, inspired by the spies. That’s just not true.
The reason Moses was banned from entering the land wasn’t because of Numbers 14, but Numbers 20. The people arrive in the Wilderness of Zin, Miriam dies, and the people run out of water. They complain to Moses and Aaron and God tells Moses to take his staff and speak to a rock so that water pours out of it. Moses is so incensed with the people, though, that instead of speaking to the rock, he strikes it twice with the staff, while calling the people “rebels.” God’s response is immediate, saying to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in Me enough to honor Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” Moses is barred from entering Canaan because he did not follow God’s command and because he got angry with the Israelites, not because of the people’s rebellion in an earlier Torah portion. So, why does Moses say that this was the reason in our Torah portion?
Medieval Biblical commentator Nachmanides says that there is no connection between the incident of the spies and the incident of Moses striking the rock but he says that Moses connects them in this week’s Torah portion because the Israelites rebelled against God with the spies and then rebelled against God with the water and it was Moses’ response to that continual rebellion that led to Moses being banned from entering the land. Rabbi Chayyim ben-Atar is not impressed with Nachmanides’ interpretation, though, and he says that Moses continues to talk about the sin of the spies afterwards, so it makes no sense for him to interrupt with the narrative of the Waters of Meribah. Saadiah Gaon has some sympathy with Nachmanides’ position, though, saying that had it not been for the sin of the spies, the Israelites would have gone right into the land and the incident with the rock would never have happened. This suggests a causal link between the two incidents, thereby giving Moses permission to conflate them both.
Saadiah Gaon explained that the sin of the spies caused the Israelites to be delayed another thirty-eight years in the wilderness, and as a result the sin at the Waters of Meribah took place, leading in turn to the edict that Moses not enter the land. If the Jews had not sinned in the matter of the spies they would have entered the land under Moses' leadership back in the second year after the exodus from Egypt. Two other commentators – Sforno and Or HaChayyim – go even further and add something that is appropriate to the coming week. They say that Numbers 14:1, which says of the people who had been kept entering the land that they “wept that night” is actually an allusion to the Ninth of Av, the day of mourning that we commemorate on Wednesday evening. They say that had Moses entered the land and built the Temple it would never have been destroyed. Therefore, the sin of the spies led to Moses’ frustration which led to him being excluded from the land which led to the Temple being built much later and it ultimately being destroyed. There is for them, then a causal chain far greater than just the spies and Moses’ exclusion from the land.
Abravanel says that Moses himself sins at the incident of the spies because he adds to the Divine command and, as a result, the people go astray. He notes that God instructed him to merely "send men to scout the land of Canaan" (Num. 13:2). However, Moses adds extensively to their mission, commanding them to see whether the inhabitants of the land are "strong or weak, few or many?” He asks them to see “Is the country ... good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? ... Is it wooded or not?" (Num. 13:18-20). With the best of intentions, then, Moses inadvertently. The punishment was not decreed until the Waters of Meribah, but it was set at the incident of the spies. This is actually a very creative reading because it picks up on the notion of Moses not trusting in God. How was striking a rock not trusting in God? Instead, perhaps not trusting God meant not trusting God’s simple mission to the spies.
As wonderful and as insightful as these traditional commentaries are, they assume Moses’ perfection and therefore miss another obvious interpretation. Moses may well have been, as Torah calls him, the greatest prophet who ever lived, but that doesn’t mean that he was a perfect human being. Prophets do not need to be perfect. Moses was a man with flaws. He argues with God against leading the people, he fails to circumcise his son to the point that God is angered with him and wants to kill him. So, he’s definitely not perfect! With that in mind, we can read Moses’s two embellishments of the truth in this week’s Torah reading very differently. In the first, Moses fails to mention his father-in-law Jethro and tells the people that the division of judgment in the camp was his idea. In the second, he tells the people that he is barred from the land because of their sin, not because of his. It’s a very human tale – he’s claiming the good as his own and blaming others for his mistake. In Deuteronomy 1, I think we see the real humanity of Moses and, unlike traditional commentaries, I don’t think that’s something we should hide from. As we start to prepare ourselves for the High Holy Days, we start to look at our own revisionist narratives – where have we convinced ourselves that we were better than we are, and where have we blamed others for the things we did wrong? We read this Torah portion and think, “If Moses does this, I probably do, too.” We give ourselves permission to deconstruct our own subjective take on life’s narrative and open ourselves up to the narrative of our lives as others would describe it. For Moses isn’t lying, he’s not being malicious in rewriting what happened, he's just so exhausted from leading the people that one bad incident blurs into another. In Deuteronomy, he puts his best foot forward, explaining that all the problems that affected the people were because of them, and despite his best efforts to protect them from themselves. The truth is more nuanced, though. As it is with Moses, so we must recognize it is with us.
This week, then, let us use the opening of Moses’ address to the people as a reminder not to believe our own truth. Let us use his fallibility to remind us of our own. Let us learn from his mistake so that we may enter our own promised land. And let us say, Amen.