Chasidut zu Schemot 16:1
וַיִּסְעוּ֙ מֵֽאֵילִ֔ם וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ כָּל־עֲדַ֤ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶל־מִדְבַּר־סִ֔ין אֲשֶׁ֥ר בֵּין־אֵילִ֖ם וּבֵ֣ין סִינָ֑י בַּחֲמִשָּׁ֨ה עָשָׂ֥ר יוֹם֙ לַחֹ֣דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֔י לְצֵאתָ֖ם מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Die Gemeinde der Kinder Israel zog von Elim und kam am fünfzehnten Tage des zweiten Monats, nach ihrem Auszug aus dem Lande Ägypten, nach der Wüste Sin, die zwischen Elim und Sinai.
Kedushat Levi
Exodus 16,1 “after the death of two of Aaron’s son when they came (too) near to the Presence of Hashem and died (as a result).”
There is a disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua concerning the precise meaning of our verse. Rabbi Eliezer holds that these two sons of Aaron were guilty of giving halachic rulings in the presence of their teachers, i.e. pre-empting them. Rabbi Joshua holds that their sin consisted in entering sacred precincts in a state of drunkenness. (Compare Vayikra Rabbah 20,7 and 9 respectively) We need to understand how Rabbi Eliezer deduced that the sons of Aaron issued a halachic ruling without consulting their teachers from the words: בקרבתם לפני ה' וימותו. If the reason they died was that they had not asked permission from Moses or Aaron to enter the sacred grounds, why did the Torah omit mentioning the most important reason for their death? Rabbi Joshua’s claim that they were drunk is also apparently unsupported by the text.
In order to better understand the opinion that these sons of Aaron were guilty of bypassing their teachers in not asking permission to enter the holy precincts of the Tabernacle, we must first understand why a sin described as failing to ask permission from their teachers should carry the death penalty at the hands of G’d. After all, they had not given an erroneous ruling, so that their sin would seem to have been only “bad manners.”
We must understand that when G’d created the world He also created boundaries between different domains both on earth and in the celestial regions. Any angel that enters a domain that is not his without express permission to do so, is immediately burned up. The chain of the domains in the universe begins (top) with the domain of the angels known as Seraphim, the domain containing G’d’s throne. The next lower domain is the domain of the angels known as chayot. The next lower level in the celestial domains is that known as ophanim. Starting with the next “lower” domain we enter the world of tzimtzum, described in the Kabbalistic texts as the 10 emanations, ספירות. If any angel enters a domain above the level he has been assigned, he simply disappears into nothingness.
There is a similar system of varying domains among the Jewish people. G’d had first condensed His brilliance so that Moses could bear it. Moses in turn had to condense it further for the protection of his brother Aaron when he spoke to him. This process continued with Aaron’s sons followed by the elders, followed again by the prophets, and thence eventually comprised all the Israelites. We know this on the authority of the Talmud in Eyruvin 54 in the paragraph commencing with the words: כיצד סדר משנה?, “what was the order in which the Torah was taught to the Israelite people originally?” The problem with Aaron’s sons was that they wanted to skip a rank to a higher level than that which had been assigned to them. They had not bothered to ask either Moses or Aaron who belonged to a higher domain permission to do so. They simply “presented themselves” before G’d without having obtained the credentials that would have made them welcome. As a result they were removed from earth. What happened to them could equally have happened to any other Israelite on a lower level who had presumed to “promote” himself without the blessing of his spiritual mentors. The principle known in the Talmud as המורה הלכה בפני רבו, “teaching halachic rulings in the presence of one’s teachers” i.e. trying to jumpstart closer relations to Hashem without their mentors’ approval is a severe enough sin to warrant the death penalty at the hands of G’d.
[When Pinchas, almost 40 years later did something, which on the face of it appeared as similar, this was not only not punishable but deserved reward as he was fully aware that he risked his life by doing so, but he did not do so from a feeling of superiority to his mentors but to save the lives of many thousands of Israelites who were already becoming victims of a plague that raged in the camp. (Numbers 25,6-8) Ed.]
After this tragic occurrence, the Torah, in order to make this point clear once and for all, legislates that even the High Priest Aaron, an intimate of G’d, allowed to pronounce the holy name of G’d, should know that even he could not arbitrarily choose when to invoke this intimacy and that he could enter the holy of Holies in the Tabernacle only when invited to do so, or when the ritual prescribed by the Torah for certain days in the calendar made this an annual event. (Compare 15,2)
There is a disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua concerning the precise meaning of our verse. Rabbi Eliezer holds that these two sons of Aaron were guilty of giving halachic rulings in the presence of their teachers, i.e. pre-empting them. Rabbi Joshua holds that their sin consisted in entering sacred precincts in a state of drunkenness. (Compare Vayikra Rabbah 20,7 and 9 respectively) We need to understand how Rabbi Eliezer deduced that the sons of Aaron issued a halachic ruling without consulting their teachers from the words: בקרבתם לפני ה' וימותו. If the reason they died was that they had not asked permission from Moses or Aaron to enter the sacred grounds, why did the Torah omit mentioning the most important reason for their death? Rabbi Joshua’s claim that they were drunk is also apparently unsupported by the text.
In order to better understand the opinion that these sons of Aaron were guilty of bypassing their teachers in not asking permission to enter the holy precincts of the Tabernacle, we must first understand why a sin described as failing to ask permission from their teachers should carry the death penalty at the hands of G’d. After all, they had not given an erroneous ruling, so that their sin would seem to have been only “bad manners.”
We must understand that when G’d created the world He also created boundaries between different domains both on earth and in the celestial regions. Any angel that enters a domain that is not his without express permission to do so, is immediately burned up. The chain of the domains in the universe begins (top) with the domain of the angels known as Seraphim, the domain containing G’d’s throne. The next lower domain is the domain of the angels known as chayot. The next lower level in the celestial domains is that known as ophanim. Starting with the next “lower” domain we enter the world of tzimtzum, described in the Kabbalistic texts as the 10 emanations, ספירות. If any angel enters a domain above the level he has been assigned, he simply disappears into nothingness.
There is a similar system of varying domains among the Jewish people. G’d had first condensed His brilliance so that Moses could bear it. Moses in turn had to condense it further for the protection of his brother Aaron when he spoke to him. This process continued with Aaron’s sons followed by the elders, followed again by the prophets, and thence eventually comprised all the Israelites. We know this on the authority of the Talmud in Eyruvin 54 in the paragraph commencing with the words: כיצד סדר משנה?, “what was the order in which the Torah was taught to the Israelite people originally?” The problem with Aaron’s sons was that they wanted to skip a rank to a higher level than that which had been assigned to them. They had not bothered to ask either Moses or Aaron who belonged to a higher domain permission to do so. They simply “presented themselves” before G’d without having obtained the credentials that would have made them welcome. As a result they were removed from earth. What happened to them could equally have happened to any other Israelite on a lower level who had presumed to “promote” himself without the blessing of his spiritual mentors. The principle known in the Talmud as המורה הלכה בפני רבו, “teaching halachic rulings in the presence of one’s teachers” i.e. trying to jumpstart closer relations to Hashem without their mentors’ approval is a severe enough sin to warrant the death penalty at the hands of G’d.
[When Pinchas, almost 40 years later did something, which on the face of it appeared as similar, this was not only not punishable but deserved reward as he was fully aware that he risked his life by doing so, but he did not do so from a feeling of superiority to his mentors but to save the lives of many thousands of Israelites who were already becoming victims of a plague that raged in the camp. (Numbers 25,6-8) Ed.]
After this tragic occurrence, the Torah, in order to make this point clear once and for all, legislates that even the High Priest Aaron, an intimate of G’d, allowed to pronounce the holy name of G’d, should know that even he could not arbitrarily choose when to invoke this intimacy and that he could enter the holy of Holies in the Tabernacle only when invited to do so, or when the ritual prescribed by the Torah for certain days in the calendar made this an annual event. (Compare 15,2)
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Kedushat Levi
Exodus 16:1 “He flung horse and its rider high into the sea.” We need to understand why Moses described the “tossing” of the Egyptian cavalry into the sea by using a word referring to an upward motion of G’d’s arm, instead of simply writing הפיל בים, “He dropped them into the sea.” Besides, seeing that in verse 4 Moses describes Hashem as מרכבות פרעה וחילו ירה בים, “G’d threw (same word as “he shot,”) the chariots of Pharaoh and his army into the sea,” why did Moses choose the word רמה in verse 1? Since the only kind of shooting in those days was the shooting of arrows, it was mandatory that the trajectory first involve the rising of the arrow before it could descend and hit its target, so that there was no reason for Moses not to have used the customary word for “shooting.”
Our sages in the Mishnah Sanhedrin 6,4 describe the platform or the “house,” בית הסקילה, from which the penalty of stoning to death was carried out as being two stories (the height of two average sized persons) high. From that platform the criminal or sinner convicted to death by stoning would be pushed down. The “stoning” would commence after the fall if it had not been fatal. The wording in the Torah is: סקול יסקל או ירה יירה, “he will surely be stoned or shot,” (Exodus 19,13). The word ירה alone therefore might have been misleading.
Another expression which poses a difficulty in our verse is: ומבחר שלישיו טבעו בים, “and the choicest of his officers drowned in the sea.” It would have sufficed to state that “his officers drowned;” that would have included both the junior and the senior officers.
The answer to these questions may be gleaned from the words of the Midrash (Yalkut Reuveni, B’shalach) where the protective angel, שר, of the Egyptians is quoted as having complained that seeing that both the Israelites and the Egyptians had been idol worshippers, why would the Egyptians be singled out for such harsh punishment.
We further need to understand why G’d resorted to the stratagem of encouraging the Egyptians to pursue the Israelites through commanding the Israelites to turn back at Baal Tzefon (Exodus 14,2), after they had already left Egypt and both politically and economically, the Super Power Egypt had suffered a lethal blow. Had G’d not found an excuse that misled the Egyptians to believe that their deity had frightened the Israelites, the entire pursuit of the Israelites and the resultant drowning of the Egyptian army would never have taken place. We must therefore conclude that G’d paid heed to the complaint of the protective angel of the Egyptians, and had to show him that his protégées were totally wicked, having reneged on their not only having released the Israelites but having expelled them. (Exodus 12,33 and 39). The words רמה בים, may be understood as a reference to the illusion that the Egyptians harboured that they might succeed due to favourable astrological constellations at the sea where they had failed on land. Secondly, the word מבחר, instead of being a reference to the choicest of the Egyptian officers, is an allusion to the freedom of choice, בחירה, that G’d gave the Egyptians at that time, i.e. they had brought their death upon themselves by having made the wrong choice in pursuing the Israelites, even after witnessing that the G’d of the Israelites had split the sea for them. After having seen this, even the protective angel of the Egyptians no longer had any complaint against G’d.
Our sages in the Mishnah Sanhedrin 6,4 describe the platform or the “house,” בית הסקילה, from which the penalty of stoning to death was carried out as being two stories (the height of two average sized persons) high. From that platform the criminal or sinner convicted to death by stoning would be pushed down. The “stoning” would commence after the fall if it had not been fatal. The wording in the Torah is: סקול יסקל או ירה יירה, “he will surely be stoned or shot,” (Exodus 19,13). The word ירה alone therefore might have been misleading.
Another expression which poses a difficulty in our verse is: ומבחר שלישיו טבעו בים, “and the choicest of his officers drowned in the sea.” It would have sufficed to state that “his officers drowned;” that would have included both the junior and the senior officers.
The answer to these questions may be gleaned from the words of the Midrash (Yalkut Reuveni, B’shalach) where the protective angel, שר, of the Egyptians is quoted as having complained that seeing that both the Israelites and the Egyptians had been idol worshippers, why would the Egyptians be singled out for such harsh punishment.
We further need to understand why G’d resorted to the stratagem of encouraging the Egyptians to pursue the Israelites through commanding the Israelites to turn back at Baal Tzefon (Exodus 14,2), after they had already left Egypt and both politically and economically, the Super Power Egypt had suffered a lethal blow. Had G’d not found an excuse that misled the Egyptians to believe that their deity had frightened the Israelites, the entire pursuit of the Israelites and the resultant drowning of the Egyptian army would never have taken place. We must therefore conclude that G’d paid heed to the complaint of the protective angel of the Egyptians, and had to show him that his protégées were totally wicked, having reneged on their not only having released the Israelites but having expelled them. (Exodus 12,33 and 39). The words רמה בים, may be understood as a reference to the illusion that the Egyptians harboured that they might succeed due to favourable astrological constellations at the sea where they had failed on land. Secondly, the word מבחר, instead of being a reference to the choicest of the Egyptian officers, is an allusion to the freedom of choice, בחירה, that G’d gave the Egyptians at that time, i.e. they had brought their death upon themselves by having made the wrong choice in pursuing the Israelites, even after witnessing that the G’d of the Israelites had split the sea for them. After having seen this, even the protective angel of the Egyptians no longer had any complaint against G’d.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy