Subj:Netvort : parshas Devorim, 5763 
Date:08/01/2003 2:43:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:Netvort
To:JoshHoff
BCC:UncleYitz






                                                    First Things

              By Rabbi Joshua (residually known as The Hoffer) Hoffman 


 In this week's parsha, Moshe begins his farewell oration to the Jewish people, preparing them for their imminent entry into the Holy Land. Moshe recounts the history of the nation from the time it left Egypt, recalling the various times that they sinned, and the consequences of those sins. Although he was speaking to a new generation, he was, apparently, warning them not to be complacent in regard to their level of attachment to God. After all, their ancestors, who were on quite a high level, having witnessed the divine revelation at Mt. Sinai, still committed many grave sins, momentarily forgetting all that God had done for them. Therefore, Moshe told them, they needed to be on guard, to avoid making similar mistakes.

Perhaps, in addition, Moshe was telling them that there were residual effects of the previous generation's sins that still adhered to them, and so they needed to be cautious in regard to those sins. This is, in fact, the way some have explained the meaning of the statement of the rabbis in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Yoma 1:1), that any generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt is considered as if the Temple was destroyed in its time. The idea is that the residual effects of those sins that caused the destruction are still among us, and the fact that the Temple has not been rebuilt indicates that we have not corrected those sins, and to an extent are still committing them. There is one sin, moreover, in regard to which the Torah implies that its residual effects are still among us. That sin is the sin of the golden calf.  After Moshe prayed to God to forgive the people for this failure, God told him, "in the day that I visit, I will visit their sin upon them" (Shemos 32:34). Rashi there cites the Talmudic explanation that any future punishment visited upon the people would include within it some remnant of punishment for the sin of the golden calf. In order for the people to be punished for this sin, there must still remain some residual effect. Perhaps the idea is that the nation as a whole descended to a lower level because of their worship of the calf, and the consequences of that lower level will be felt until they return to their original state. 

 Given the central importance of the sin of the golden calf, it is a bit difficult to understand the manner in which Moshe broaches the topic of that sin in his farewell address to the people. He begins by mentioning the names of various places in the wilderness. Rashi explains that these places were really allusions to sins that the people committed at different locations, and that Moshe did not spell out the sins at the outset so that he would not embarrass them. We explained this idea in a general way in Netvort in 5761, but I would like to focus on the manner in which Moshe alludes to the specific sin of the golden calf. He refers to it as 'Di Zahav," or 'enough gold.' The rabbis, in Berachos (32a), explain that Moshe, by referring to that sin in this way, was placing part of the blame for it on God Himself. He argued that after God had given them so much gold and silver, how could they have avoided sinning? It is akin to a king who washed his son, clothed him in a fancy way, hung a money bag around his neck and placed him in front of a brothel. What can the son do to avoid sinning? The difficulty here is, that if Moshe was trying to warn the people not to fall into religious complacency by reminding them of the sins of the previous generation, and of the residual effect these sins had, why would he then blame God for causing that sin through his generosity in bestowing so much wealth on the people? 


Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz, in his Daas Torah, explains that Moshe's argument teaches us the importance of getting to the root of a sin in order to be able to correct it. He notes that the example of the son takes us back to the very beginning of the process that led him to sin, when his father washed him. The core idea here is that what takes place at the beginning of an endeavor has a crucial effect on whatever happens subsequently. Thus, the sin of the golden calf can be traced back to the abundance of gold that the people acquired when they left Egypt. Moshe thus may have been telling them that they need to guard themselves from sin from the beginning of the process of entering the land, because what happens then will set the tone for whatever follows, just as occurred to the previous generation in regard to the golden calf.  



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

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