From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
1:39 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas
VeZos HaBeracha, 5768
Life Begins At
Eighty
By Rabbi Joshua (renewedly known as The Hoffer)
Hoffman
In parshas VeZos HaBeracha, Moshe, on the day of his death, bestows blessings on
eleven of the twelve tribes, excluding Shimon, because of the desecration of
God's name which it caused during the incident of Ba'al Pe'or. Interestingly,
the midrash tells us that the eleven chapters of Tehillim that are traditionally
attributed to Moshe (90 - 100), correspond to these eleven tribes,and were
actually said as an introduction to these blessings. As such, a certain passage
in the first of these Tehillim, chapter 90, which begins with the words, "A
prayer by Moshe, man of God," needs to be understood. In that chapter, Moshe
says," The days of our years among them are seventy years, and if with strength,
eighty, and their proudest success is but toil and pain (Tehillim 90:10). The
problem here is that the Torah tells us that Moshe was one hundred twenty years
when he died (Devorim 34:7), so how could he say that the our lives last seventy
or eighty years?
This question was already raised by the medieval commentators. Rabbi David
Kimche, or Radak, explains that Moshe was speaking of the normal human life
span. This is a bit difficult, because we know that Aharon and Miriam lived even
longer than Moshe,and that Yehoshua lived to the age of one hundred ten. Where
do we find that, at that time, the average age of a human being was seventy or
eighty years, unless that is something we actually learn from this verse itself?
Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra writes that Moshe may have written this chapter when he
was approaching the age of eighty, and was growing progressively weaker. It was
only after he was chosen by God to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt that he
became invigorated and youthful. Rav Ya'akov Kaminetsky supports this
explanation of the Ibn Ezra by citing a midrash which says that the Jewish
people, while slaves in Egypt, used to find relief from their suffering by
studying certain scrolls on their day off from work, which was Shabbos. Rabbi
Kaminetsky suggests that these scrolls were actually the eleven chapters of
Tehillim that Moshe wrote before he was eighty. However, if so, that midrash
would, seemingly, be in contradiction to the midrash with which we started,
according to which Moshe used these chapters as an introduction to his blessings
to the tribes before he died. I believe, however, that we can find a way of
reconciling these two midrashim, through a somewhat revised version of the Ibn
Ezra's approach to Moshe's reference to the human life
span.
I would like to suggest that Moshe wrote these chapters when he was eighty,
shortly after he accepted his mission to lead the Jews out of Egypt. At that
time, Moshe became an agent of God, dedicating his life to carrying out the
mission he was entrusted with. In that sense, his life was, in fact, beginning
anew at that point. When he referred to the human life span as being seventy or
eighty years, and consisting of toil and trouble, he was referring to life that
is lived without a sense of mission. Once a person accepts his mission in life,
however, and dedicates himself to serve as an emissary of God in the world, he
does not view his challenges as being toil and trouble, but as part of his
mission. The eleven chapters that Moshe wrote for the Jewish slaves
reminded all of them of the special mission they had, each tribe according to
its essence. The midrash tells us that the Jews did not change their names in
Egypt. According to the Shem MiShmuel, this means, in a deeper sense, that they
did not abandon their essential identity, which was communicated to them by
Ya'akov in the blessings he gave to the tribes before he died and which was
engrained in them by the scrolls they studied on Shabbos. Each tribe studied the
message meant for it, and they carried that message with them throughout the
coming week. Based on this understanding of the midrash, we can better
understand the message Moshe delivered when, before he died, he again
again used these chapters, but this time as an introduction to his blessings to
the tribes, as recorded in parshas VeZos
HaBeracha.
Moshe, in blessing the tribes, was completing the process of blessing begun by
Ya'akov, and assigning each tribe with its mission as they were about to enter
the land. He was telling them, again, that although the normal human life span
is seventy or eighty years consisting of toil and trouble, by carrying out their
missions they would avoid this fate. After all, he was then one hundred twenty
years old, and he still had his strength. He was leaving this earth because his
mission was over. The Rambam, in his Laws of Repentance, writes that every
person has the ability to be as great a tzaddik as Moshe. One explanation of
this statement is that every person has his own mission in life to fulfill, just
as Moshe did, and he has the ability to fulfill this mission, to the same degree
that Moshe did. If he dedicates himself to it in the same way. Thus, the message
that Moshe was delivering, as he was about to depart this earth, is that the
members of each tribe should aspire to reach the level of being agents of God,
totally dedicated to carrying out their mission in life. Perhaps that is why the
first of the chapters, which served as an introduction to his message, begins
with the words, "A prayer by Moshe, man of God," to indicate that Moshe's
message to all of them was to aspire to become men of God, serving as His agents
to fulfill their mission in life.
The entire Netvort staff
wishes a joyous Sukkos to all.
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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