10) This is one he saw from a contemporary chacham. This position is that Moshe did not sin. And if you find pesukim that seem to indicate his sin, other pesukim as well are found which seem to indicate that the punishment was not for a sin Moshe committed. These pesukim are:
{Devarim 3:26}
And the intellect admits that a complete man such as Moshe would not, forfend, sin. And thus it is fitting to explain the verses which {appear to} inform about his sin, for so is the way of verses which {apparently} contradict one another. And we can say that when the verse says maaltem, meritem, lo heemantem, lo kidashtem, it would be of the same type as what was stated by Achan {in Yehoshua 7}
Bemidbar 20} says
Shemot 16:28}:
כח וַיֹּאמֶר ה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה: עַד-אָנָה, מֵאַנְתֶּם, לִשְׁמֹר מִצְוֹתַי, וְתוֹרֹתָי. | 28 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws? |
לָכֵן, לֹא תָבִיאוּ אֶת-הַקָּהָל הַזֶּה, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-נָתַתִּי לָהֶם -- "therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them" and it says לֹא תָבִיאוּ, you shall not bring, and not lo tavou, you sall not enter. For this punishment was for Israel, and not for Moshe and Aharon. And it states vayekadesh bam {in the next pasuk in Bemidbar 20
as it is stated {Tehillim 68}
אֵל יִשְׂרָאֵל-- הוּא נֹתֵן עֹז וְתַעֲצֻמוֹת לָעָם; בָּרוּךְ אֱלֹהִים. | 36 Awful is God out of thy holy places; {N} the God of Israel, He giveth strength and power unto the people; {N} blessed be God. {P} |
for it is clear that if Israel had entered the land via Moshe and Aharon, they would not have been so lazy in the conquest and land distribution, and they would not have left their enemies in the land.
{Though Abarbanel does not explicitly cite these pesukim, this channels the pesukim in Tehillim 106, when goes on from Moshe's punishment to being lazy in conquest:
And it is already found within Chazal words which support this position. They say in masechet Shabbos, perek bameh beheimah: The ministering angels asked Hashem, "why did you impose the fine of death upon the First Man. Hashem said: I commanded him a light commandment and he was unable to keep it. They said: If so, Moshe and Aharon who kept the entire Torah, why didyou impose death upon them? He said to them {Kohelet 9:2}: "It is the same happening to a righteous man and to a wicked man."
And this informs that Moshe our master did not sin, but rather that he was complete and his Torah was complete.
And this position is also not correct, for it contradicts the verses in this sidra {of Chukat} in the death of Aharon, and in the sidra of Pinchas. And at the end of the sidra of Haazina, the Torah informs that Moshe and Aharon did not enter the land because of what they sinned at Mei Merivat Kadesh, and that this was not a punishment to Israel, but rather to them.
{However, I think one might salvage some portion of this, by having certain pesukim talking about Israel's rebellion. I might add that after 40 years, Moshe and Aharon should have instilled in the Bnei Yisrael the proper attitude, and this lack on Israel's part was therefore their leaders' fault. Lo Heemantam (rather than tem) Bi, velo kidashtem et shemi. Such that the people had this reaction.}
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