From: JoshHoff@aol.com

Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 7:19 PM

To: JoshHoff@aol.com

Subject: Netvort: parshas Beshalach, 5769

                                     Take the Money and Run
                By Rabbi Joshua (logically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


  !!!!ONE DOZEN!!!!   

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!With gratitude to the Almighty, beginning our twelfth year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!ONE DOZEN!!!!




In memory of my mother, Yonina bas Tzvi Hirsch, whose twenty- seventh yahrzeit occurs this Shabbos, the thirteenth of Shevat. May her memory be a blessing.


The Torah tells us that when the Israelites left Egypt, Moshe took Yosef's bones with him, because Yosef had imposed an oath on his brothers, to have their descendants take his remains with them when they were redeemed, and bury him in the land of Cana'an ( Shemos, 13:19). . The Talmud in Sotah, 13a, commenting  on Moshe's actions, notes that they were a reflection of how beloved  the mitzvos were to him, because, while the rest of the nation was busying itself with carrying off the riches they had received from the Egyptians, Moshe took care of the  remains of  Yosef. The Talmud, in this regard  ascribes to Moshe the verse, " a man of wise heart seizes  mitzvos" ( Mishlei, 10:8). .Rabbi Shaul of Amsterdam, a grandson of the famed  Rav Tzvi Ashkenazi, or Chacham Tzvi, asks, in his commentary Chadrei Torah, a number of question on this Talmudic passage. Among   these questions, he asks why Moshe's actions are described as emanating from his wisdom, rather than his piety. Moreover, even if we concede that wisdom was involved, why does the Talmud bring a verse tat speaks of the 'wise of heart'? What does the heart have to do with it?  Perhaps most perplexing is the question of why Moshe alone is said to have been occupied in mitzvos at the time. Didn't God  command  Moshe to ask the nation to  'borrow'   the  gold, silver and garments of the Egyptians , so that He could report back to Avraham that He had fulfilled His promise that after the four hundred years of exile, they would leave with great wealth?  Rabbi Shaul answers goes on to give an elaborate discourse on the meaning of this Talmudic passage,l which the interested reader is invited to study.  I would like to extract some of his points, and add some others, based on a principle I learned from my revered teacher, Ha Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt'l, in relation to the nature of wisdom itself.

Rav Aharon zt'l noted that there is a dispute in the midrash between Rav Yehoshua and Rav Eliezer as to where the seat of wisdom is located. One says that it is located in the heart, and the other says it is located in the brain. In truth, said Rav Aharon , while our initial reaction  would be to ascribe wisdom to the brain, we also find verses in Scripture that attribute it to the heart. For example, in Koheles, King Shlomo says, " my heart has seen much wisdom." In truth,  Rav Aharon explained , both opines are true, because there are two kinds of wisdom, one intellectual, based in the brain, and one emotional, based in the heart. In any matter one takes into consideration, both the logic of the heart and the logic of the mind must be employed. The only question is, which element should be emphasized in a given situation. In regard to Eretz Yisroel, for example, one's emotional intelligence should be the predominating factor, since Eretz Yisroel is referred to in Tehillim as a desirous land ( 'eretz chemdah'). The mistake of the ten spies who Moshe sent to tour the land was that they  emphasized the logic of the mind rather than the logic of the heart, while Yehoshua and Caleiv, in contrast, emphasized the logic of the heart. Based on this dual aspect of wisdom, I believe we can better understand the nature of Moshe's actions, as presented in the gemara in Sotah.



Rabbi Shaul of  Amsterdam, in his explanation, notes that the Torah says that Moshe took the bones of Yosef 'with him.' meaning that he alone carried them. One of the reasons that Rabbi Shaul gives for this is that he did not want to deprive anyone in the nation of the riches he could have gathered had he not busied himself with Yosef's remains. In this way, Moshe was employing  his emotional intelligence, his logic of  the heart, as the true shepherd of his people that he was. In this way, he was actually following the example of Yosef himself, who provided for his family's sustenance while they were in Egypt. Perhaps that is why Moshe wanted to carry Yosef's remains by himself,  in his role as the leader of the  nation, and allow the  rest of the nation to fulfill God's request  to carry off the riches of Egypt, to indicate to the people that, as God's agent, he would provide them with their needs as they journeyed to the Holy Land, just as Yosef, as God;s agent,  provided for their needs while he was in Egypt.  

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