From: JoshHoff@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 4:30 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort:parshas Shelach, 5768
Don't Mention It
By Rabbi Joshua ( unmentionably known as The Hoffer ) Hoffman
Ya'akov, in his blessings to his children before he died, prayed that his name
not be mentioned together with those of Shimon and Levi: " Shimon
and Levi are brothers, instruments of violence are their means of acquisition.
May my will not be mentioned in their councils " ( Bersisshis, 49:5-6).
The Talmud in Sanhedrin, 109b, explains that 'their councils' refers to the
incident of the spies. Apparently, then, Shimon and Levi were the primary
agitators who brought the nation to resist entering the Holy
Land, and who put the process into motion. Rabbi Shmuel
Edels, known as the Maharsha, in his comment to this passage, notes that
no spies were sent from the tribe of Levi, so that, of the two brothers,
it was only the tribe of Shimon that sent a spy.How did the rabbis of the
Talmud know that it was Shimon from among the tribes who instigated the
negative reaction from among the people? The Maharsha answers that the rabbis
had a tradition, or mesorah, to this effect. Still, we need to understand
why it was the spy sent from Shimon, and the person he spoke to, who was
presumably from Levi, who led the people in their reaction, when, as the Torah
tells us, " And they said one man to his brother, ' Let us appoint a
leader over us and let us return to Egypt.' " ( Bamidbar, 11:4).What was
it about these two brothers that led them to reject God's plan for the entrance
of the nation into the Holy Land
I would like to suggest that it was the actions of Shimon and Levi in
connection with the rape of their sister Dinah that made Ya'akov believe that
tey would not follow the proper path in understanding the way in which the
nation was to enter the land. Rashi in parshas Beha'aloscha writes that when
Moshe spoke to his father-in-law about accompanying the nation into Eretz
Yisroel, ,it was getting ready to enter the land within the next
three days. According to the midrash, the nation was poised to enter the
land without a fight. Had they remained faithful to God and trusted in His
promise, thy would have entered the land in three days without a fight. This
was actually the preferred method of entering, and the way to maintain the
sanctity of the land on a permanent basis.The Rambam ,in the sixth chapter of
his Laws of the Chosen House, or Hilchos Beis Ha Bechira, writes
that the sanctity of the land that was initiated by Yehoshua was temporary,
because it was brought about by conquest, while the sanctity of the land
brought about by Ezra is permanent, because it came about through
settling and cultivating the land. according to Rav Nisaen Alpert in his
Limudei Nissan , the reason that Moshe told the spies to bring back some fruit
of the land with them was in order to inculcate in the people's minds that
after entering the land they were to settle it and view it as their land in
which they were to live on a long-term basis. Therefore,he told them not
simply to consider,on their mission, how to capture the land on a strategic
basis,but to Shimon and Levi, however, when it came to
dealing with Chamor and his son Shecehm in trying to secure the release of
their sister Dinah, who had ben attacked and raped by Shechem,ended up wiping
out the entire city. Their approach to entering the land, then was set by
a tone of violence, and this was how the spy from the tribe of Shimon
viewed his mission when he was sent out with the other spies to scout out the
land. Moshe, however, told them to bring back fruits of the land, because he
wanted them to view the land as a place to live on a permanent basis, and for
this approach to inform their mission and their subsequent report to the
nation. Entering the land in this way would constitute chazakah, and would
endow the land with sanctity of a permanent nature. since the spy from the
tribe of Shimon viewed the land as a place to conquer through military means,
and argued to the nation that it would be difficult to conquer. Because of
this, the nation was punished and did not immediately enter the land. They had
to stay in the wilderness for forty years, until the next generation was ready
to enter. when they would enter, it would be through military conquest, with
all which that entailed, including the subjection of the land's sanctity to
expiration once it was captured by the enemy. Since it was Shimon and Levi who
brought about this change, Ya'akov did not want to be mentioned in connection
with them.
Following our analysis, we can understand why, when Moshe prayed that
Yehoshua not be taken in by the evil designs of the spies, he changed Yehoshu'a
name and referred to him as Hoshea, which means to save, and said that God
should save him from the councils of the spies. The rabbis tell us that the
extra 'yud,' representing God's name, was taken from the name Sarai, which was
Sarah's original name. what was the connection between Yehoshua and Sarah?
Rashi at the end of parshas Chayei Sarah mentions that there was always a cloud
of holiness hovering over Sarah's tent, representing the shechinah, or divine
presence. It was Sarah who cultivated this sense of permanence in her family's
presence in Eretz Yisroel. Ramban, in his introduction to Shemos, writes that
the redemption process from Egypt was not complete until the nation returned to
the state in which their forefathers lived, with the divine presence hovering
over their tents. This was accomplished when the divine presence hovered over
the mishkan. The ideal situation for entering Eretz Yisroel would have been for
the aron, or holy ark, to proceed the nation and drive out their enemies from
the land without need for a military conquest. In this way, possession of the
land would proceed through a process of cultivation, and would the sanctity
with which it was endowed would have been of a permanent basis. Because Shimon
and Levi viewed the possession of the land from a military standpoint, as a
continuation of their initial act of violence in the case of Shechem , the
entire history of the nation in regard to the land was changed, and this
was why Ya'akov, who opposed their actions in Shechem, did not want to be
mentioned in their councils regarding the mission of the spies.
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