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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