ואתחנן אל ד' בעת ההיא לאמר כו' אעברה נא ואראה את הארץ הטובה וגו' (“And I beseeched Ha-Shem at that time, saying.... Please let me cross and see the good land....” III, 23-25.)
Moshe relates that he begged G-d to rescind the decree which He had issued in the wake of the failure at Mei M’riva (Numbers XXVII, 12-14), and allow him to enter the Holy Land. The great Chida (Rabbi Chayyim Yosef David Azulai) cites the Sifrei in his sefer Parshath Drachim (דרוש ח' דה"מ ודרך אגב) to the effect that Moshe was convinced that G-d had nullified His vow not to let Moshe enter the Holy Land, and on that basis made his petition. He goes on to quote the opinion of a contemporary of his, the Mahari Adarbi, that Moshe believed that Transjordan was, indeed, part of Eretz Yisrael, and that he reasoned that, since G-d had allowed him to enter the plains of Mo’av, He had at least partially nullified His vow, and there is a halachic principle that בטל מקצתו בטל כולו; once something has been partially nullified, it may be considered nullified in its entirety.
Later on, in his sefer Rosh David, the Chida returned to this question, and noted that the question is in fact dependent upon a dispute between Tanna’im, in this case, Rabbi Shim‘on bar Yochai and Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira; Rabbi Shim‘on bar Yochai held that Transjordan is indeed part of Eretz Yisrael, whilst Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira held that it was not. (עיי' בכורות נ"ה., וע"ע ספרי פר' מסעי, פסקא ג').
The Chida draws the obvious conclusion, namely that Moshe Rabbeinu must have held in accordance with Rabbi Shim‘on bar Yochai’s view that Transjordan is in fact an integral part of Eretz Yisrael, as well as the equally obvious conclusion that G-d begged to differ, that rather Transjordan is not part of Eretz Yisrael, as Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira held, and that therefore the Divine vow had been in no way nullified.
The Szatmárer Rebbe, Rabbi Yo’el Teitelbaum זצ"ל, revisited this issue (דברי יואל, פרשתנו, דה"מ והחיד"א ) and asked how it could be that Moshe held like Rabbi Shim‘on bar Yochai in this instance and apparently got the halacha wrong. After all, had Moshe not received the entire Torah on Mt. Sinai, to include the opinions of the Tanna’im? If so, how had he managed to miss Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira’s opinion?
B.
In order to propose an answer to the Rebbe’s question, we must first reexamine a principle which has been mentioned before in these divrei Torah (עיי' למשל א"ז ישיר לפר' לך לך, שנת תשס"ז). The principle may be summarised as follows:
The midrash (בראשית רבה פס"א סי' א') takes note of the fact that Avraham Avinu is said to have observed the entire Torah, to include the fine distinctions of the Oral Torah, and then asks: אב לא למדו ורב לא הי' לא ומהיכן למד את התורה? (“[His] father did not teach him, and he did not have a rabbi; from where did he learn the Torah?”). Avraham had to know what he was to do, after all, before he could be observant. Rabbi Shim‘on answers: זימן לו הקב"ה שתי כליותיו כמין שני רבנים והיו נובעות ומלמדות אותו תורה וחכמה (“The Holy One, Blessed is He, furnished him with his two kidneys as a sort of pair of rabbis, and they derived and taught him Torah and wisdom”).
In order fully to appreciate the implications of what Rabbi Shim‘on is suggesting, we note first the wording of Genesis XV, 4 concerning Yitzchaq, where G-d says אשר יצא ממעיך יירשך (“the one who comes out of your belly will inherit you”). Of course, Yitzchaq was born in the manner of all the rest of us, from his mother’s abdomen, but the Torah here quite clearly alludes to what was common knowledge to Chazal (עיי' למשל נדה ל:), and is confirmed by modern genetics, namely that both parents have input into the characteristics of their offspring. However, Chazal tell us that the matter goes much farther than the mere physical make-up of the children: אב ואם אית לנשמתא כמא כמא דאית אב ואם לגופא בארעא (“The soul has a father and mother, just as the body on earth has a father and mother;” זוה"ק ח"ב י"ב: וע"ע ח"ד קע"ד: ), which means that a person’s metaphysical nature is as much an inherent potential in his parents as is the physical nature.
As a prophet, Avraham had the ability to “see” not only in the physical sense, but also to “see” in a metaphysical fashion (hence, there are two verbs for “see” in the Holy Language, ראה, which is a general reference, and חזה, which appears to be a specific reference to this metaphysical phenomenon). As such, then, חזיון is a form of perception which transcends the four physical dimensions (including time) which bound and limit our world.
Nor was Avraham the only person of prophetic sensitivity who possessed such a faculty of metaphysical sight. The midrash, for instance, tells us that the conflict between Yosef and his brothers was fueled, in part, because they were aware that Yerov‘am ben Nevat, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel who deliberately introduced an idolatrous cult into his country and thereby led to the estrangement of the Ten Tribes, would be a descendant of Efrayim ben Yosef (בראשית רבה פ"ד סי' ז' מתנת כהונה שם). Similarly, Qorach was motivated in his rebellion against Moshe, in part, because he knew that amongst his descendants would be the prophet Shmuel, about whom it would be said ששקול כנגד משה ואהרן שנאמר "משה ואהרן בכהניו ושמואל בקראי שמו" (“that he was comparable to Moshe and Aharon, as it is said, ‘Moshe and Aharon with his kohanim and Shmu’el with those who call His name’ [Psalms XCIX, 6];” במדבר רבה פ"ח סי' ז' ).
Now, Moshe was the greatest of prophets, as the Torah attests: ולא קם נביא עוד בישראל כמשה (“And there did not arise another prophet in Israel like Moshe....” Deuteronomy XXXIV, 10), and as such had this faculty to an unprecedented degree. Thus, for instance, before he killed the Egyptian overseer who was beating a helpless Israelite to death, the Torah tells us וירא כי אין איש (“And he saw that there was no man;” Exodus II, 12) and Rashi explains that he looked into the miscreant’s future progeny and determined that none would be worthy, before dispatching him.
With such a capability of prophetic vision, then, we can well stipulate that, in the midst of Israel, Moshe had access to all of them, and to everything which their progeny would learn. But even this wonderful faculty had an inherent limitation: Moshe could only “read” those who were, in fact. present with him at Sinai.
C.
Elsewhere (סנהדרין צ"ב:), the Talmud tells us that a faction of the bnei Efrayim erred in attempting to calculate the end of the Egyptian exile, and therefore attempted to leave Egypt prematurely; as a result, they were slaughtered by the Plishtim. These men were the “dry bones” which were subsequently revived, during the Babylonian exile, by the prophet Yechezqel (Ezekiel XXXVII, 1-14), so that they rejoined Israel, married, and sired children. The gmara goes on to explain that Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira testified that he was descended from these men.
With this in mind, I would suggest that Moshe Rabbeinu, through his unequalled prophetic “sight,” did indeed have access to the work of all those Tanna’im and Amora’im whose ancestors were present at Mt. Sinai. For this reason, he was familiar with Rabbi Shim‘on bar Yochai’s opinion that Transjordan is a part of Eretz Yisra’él, and based his conclusions and actions on it.
However, Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira’s paternal ancestors were not present at Mt. Sinai; at that moment in history, their bones were whitening in the desert, and would only be revived by Yechezqel some nine centuries later. Hence. Moshe was unaware of his opinion, and so G-d Himself informed him of it, and that in light of it, the Divine vow had not been nullified at all.
D.
In my humble opinion, this explication of metaphysical reality goes far to explain how it was possible that Moshe Rabbeinu received the entire Torah on Mt. Sinai, to include its oral component, and yet that oral tradition, embodied for us in the Talmudim and the midrashei halacha, is in large part expressed in terms of the opinions of later scholars, many of whom lived in the Second Temple period and afterward, over a millennium after Mattan Torah.
Armed with the written Torah, the thirteen rules of Talmudic logic, the precise definitions of technical terms, and the precise values of the Torah’s weights and measures, Moshe was able to work out the rest, cross-checking and evaluating all of the input from Chazal which was available to him through the metaphysical germ plasm of their ancenstors who were present at Sinai, accessible to him through his unrivaled prophetic vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment