From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 3:31 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Masei, 5765





                                             Put It in the Book

                  By Rabbi Joshua (bookishly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman



In parshas Masei, Moshe records the forty-two journeys that the Jewish nation traveled from the time they left Egypt until they were about to enter the Holy Land. The Torah tells us, "Moshe wrote their goings forth according to their journeys by the word of God 'al pi HaShem' "(Bamidbar 33:2). There is a dispute among the commentators as to the meaning of the last three words of this verse, 'al pi HaShem,' which we have translated as 'by the word of God.' Rabbi Avrohom Ibn Ezra explains that this phrase refers back to the word - 'lemaseihem' - 'according to their journeys.' And is telling us that the journeys in the wilderness were done based on God's word, as the Torah tells us in parshas Beha'aloscha, "according to the word of God would they encamp, and according to the word of God would they journey" (Bamidbar 9:20). The Ramban, in his commentary, does not accept Ibn Ezra’s explanation, because we already know this fact from the verse in parshas Beha'aloscha. Rather, the words ‘al pi HaShem’ refer back to the beginning of the verse, so that the Torah is telling us that Moshe wrote down the journeys according to the word of God. This explanation, however, is also difficult, because, as we know, the entire torah was written down by Moshe according to the word of God. Why, then, was there a need to point that this particular section of the Torah was written in this way?


Rav Nisson Alpert, zt"l, in his Limmudei Nisson, without mentioning the Ibn Ezra or the Ramban, explains our verse in a way that conforms with both approaches, and answers the questions we have mentioned. He writes that Moshe recorded the journeys in a way that highlighted the fact that they were, in fact, directed by God. Over the course of their journeys in the wilderness, the people may have lost sight of this central factor. They witnessed the same events that Moshe did, but it was only by way of his recording them in the Torah through God’s dictation to him that the people were able  to look at them in retrospect and fully understand the extent to which divine providence guided them. In a similar way, says Rav Alpert, the rabbis, with their ‘ruach ha-kodesh,’ or spiritual vision, looked at the events that preceded the destruction of the second Temple, trying to understand what led to that tragedy. They pointed to the incident of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, in which the host of a party publicly shamed a man he disliked who was nevertheless invited due to a mistake in identity, as exemplifying the kind of fraternal hatred that was the root cause of the destruction. Just as it required the fine-tuned spiritual vision of the rabbis to understand those events, so too did it require the dictation of God to Moshe to present the journeys in the wilderness in the proper perspective.


Ramban, as mentioned, explains that the words ' al pi HaShem' refer back to the beginning of the verse, which tells us that Moshe wrote the journeys down. Rav Mordechai Gifter, zt"l, in his Pirkei Torah, raises the question of why there was a need to point out in regard to the recording of the journeys that it was done through God’s dictation, and offers a number of answers. The most plausible of these answers, I believe, is that the journeys were written down in a separate book. Although Rav Gifter does not mention this, Ramban himself says something similar in connection with the 'Sefer Milchamos HaShem,' or the 'Book of the Wars of the Lord,' referred to in parshas Chukas (Bamidbar 21:14). Ramban, in his commentary to that verse, writes that there was separate book, now lost, in which the various battles waged by the Jewish people against its enemies were recorded. In a similar way, then, Moshe wrote a separate book in which he recorded the journeys of the nation in the wilderness. Given this explanation, however, Rav Gifter finds difficulty in explaining what purpose it served. I believe, however, that a look at the Ramban's commentary to the verses immediately following the record of the journeys in the wilderness can provide us with an answer to that question.


After recording the journeys the nation went on, the Torah tells us that they encamped in the plains of Moav, and God then told Moshe to command them that when they cross the Yardein (Jordan) and enter the land of Cana'an, they should drive out the inhabitants of the land, and destroy their idols. The Torah then says, "you shall rid the land and you shall settle in it, for to you have I given the land to possess it" (Bamidbar 33:40). The Ramban, in his commentary to this verse, and at greater length in an addendum to his commentary on the Rambam's Sefer haMitzvos (Book of Commandments), writes that this verse constitutes a positive mitzvoh, to conquer the land of Israel and settle it. This commandment, he says, devolves on the nation as a whole, as well as on each individual in the nation. In the book of Devorim, the Torah constantly cautions us not to attribute any success we encounter in the Holy Land to our might. Rather, we must always remember that it is God who gives us the strength to pursue our endeavors. We can therefore understand why the command to conquer the land and dwell in it follows immediately after the recording of the journeys in the wilderness. The people need to know that just as, in the wilderness, God's providence was the driving force in all that happened, so, too, in Eretz Yisroel, God is the One who controls events. Perhaps for this reason Moshe was told to record the journeys in a separate book, to serve as a constant reminder to the people as they fulfilled the commandment of conquering the land and settling it, that it was God Who was guiding them in this process, just as He guided them throughout their journeys in the wilderness.



Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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