Kommentar zu Dewarim 31:18

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני מהם, not as they thought that I was no longer in their midst; wherever they are My presence is with them, as our sages said in Megillah 29 “wherever the Jewish people have been exiled G’d’s presence accompanies them. However, it does not manifest itself by saving them from their oppressor.”

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא, "But I will surely hide My face on that day, etc." The difficulty in this verse is that G'd is portrayed as hiding His face after the Israelites have already confessed their sins, and have acknowledged that their troubles were due to G'd having turned His back on them. If all our verse wanted to do was to provide us with the reason why what happened so far had occurred, there is no need for this. We already know that G'd turned His face away as a result of the Israelites flirting with local deities! Moreover, why did Moses repeat the mention of G'd hiding His face, i.e. הסתר אסתיר? Another thing which is puzzling is why Moses used such a long-winded expression as על כל הרעה, followed by כי פנה אל אלוהים אחרים.

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני, “but I will increasingly hide My presence, etc.” G’d will hide His face once more, as He had done in verse 17. This is remarkable, as we would have thought that now that the people had attributed their misfortunes to G’d withdrawing from them, G’d should respond by showering them with His loving kindness seeing that they had at least acknowledged the impotence of any other deities. The Torah explains why this is not the next scenario by writing:

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא, “as for Me, I will most certainly hide My face on that day.” G’d had already mentioned earlier (verse 17) that He would hide His face. On that occasion it referred to the exile in Babylon. Now, when He describes this “hiding” of His face in even stronger terms, it refers to the present exile under the Romans. The repetition of the word “hiding” is a warning that this second exile will be much longer than the first. On the other hand, what the Torah writes also contains a message of consolation in Leviticus 26,44 that G’d will not forsake us even when we are in exile, i.e. “the land of their enemies.”
This verse reveals to us something about the length of this exile we find ourselves in. The combined numerical value of the words הסתר אסתיר is 1336. This appears to correspond to a vision in Daniel 12,12 according to which the redemption would come after 1335 years. [According to this, an opportune time for the final redemption was the year 1405 or 1406, which could have happened during the period the author wrote this, but we ultimately did not merit it then. Ed.]

AND I WILL SURELY HIDE MY FACE IN THAT DAY. The meaning thereof is that [He will hide His face] on a different occasion [for it was already stated in Verse 17, and I will hide My face from them]. Since the Israelites already reflected in their hearts that they sinned against G-d, and that these evils came upon them because their G-d was not among them, it would have been fitting — according to the exceeding mercies of G-d — that He help them and rescue them because they had already denied the idols. This is similar to what is stated, Behold, I will enter into judgment with thee, because thou sayest: ‘I have not sinned,’³²Jeremiah 2:35. [indicating that the very denial of wrongdoing is a grievous sin, but here the admission of sin should have caused G-d to help them]. Therefore he [Moses] states that, because of the great evil that they did in trusting idols, He will again hide His face from them — not like the first hiding of His face when He hid the face of His mercies and many evils and troubles came upon them³³Verse 17. — but that only the face of redemption will be hidden and they will abide by the promise of the face of His mercies. [This is the promise of] And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them etc.³⁴Leviticus 26:44. [They will not be shown the face of redemption] until they add to the aforementioned regret real confession and perfect repentance, as is stated above, and thou shalt return unto the Eternal thy G-d etc.³⁵Above, 30:2.

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר, “and I will hide Myself even further;” our sages derive from this line that the Purim story i.e. the scroll of Esther and Mordechai are of Biblical authority [Esther’s real name having been Hadass, Ed.] i.e. that even during periods of exile when we do not feel the presence of G–d around us, He nonetheless watches over us and intervenes in our fates decisively when we are under attack. [Although His name does not even appear in that scroll, Haman did not succeed in killing a single Jew. Ed.]

על כל הרעה אשר עשה, Israel had done harm to itself, not G’d.

על כל הרעה אשר עשה, ”on account of all the evil this people have committed.” By having put their faith in idols, G’d had withdrawn His face from them in the first place, as a result of which many misfortunes had befallen them. Now, He must still withdraw His face from them, but not as absolutely as He had done the first, time; this time the withdrawal is only to the extent that the redeemer does not yet come and they will return to their homeland. However, in the meantime, until they confess their guilt completely and show remorse, they will still continue their existence in the Diaspora, without, however, being hounded from one place to another and being exposed to all manner of demeaning insults and degradations. The redemption will not come until the repentance described in 30,2 has become reality.

The fact is that our verse does want to provide a reason for G'd's turning away His face. Someone might say that G'd had not judged the Israelites fairly, G'd forbid, for the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 27,8: "assailing them with unchained fury." Sanhedrin 100 states that "man will be measured by the yardstick he himself applied in measuring others."

כי פנה אל אלוהים אחרים, while being beset by all of their problems, instead of turning to Me in prayer, supplication and remorse, they chose to pray to idols instead.

G'd will certainly apply fair yardsticks when judging the Israelites. At first glance it might appear as if turning His face away from the Israelites results in their being punished over and above what they deserve, as the Judge deliberately ignores what happens to them. Perhaps this is what our verse means when writing "is it not (only) because my G'd is not in my midst that all these troubles have found me?"

To ward off such an interpretation of the previous verse, the Torah writes: ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פנים, "and I am surely going to turn away My face;" I am legally entitled to turn away My face from them. This is why G'd had to repeat the word. ביום ההוא, "on that day." On the day they stray after alien gods. The reason the Torah wrote על כל הרעה אשר עשה, is "on account of all the evil it (Israel) has done." This is best understood in light of Chulin 5 that "anyone who admits that idols are independent powers has in fact denied the entire Torah." G'd explains that as soon as the people turned to idols they had in effect turned away from the whole of the Torah, i.e. from G'd. As a result, even if as a result of G'd's turning His face away from them the Israelites would be afflicted with all the curses of the world this would be no different than measuring them with the yardstick by which they themselves had measured others..

Remember that just as the blessings and rewards G'd has promised are meant for the performance of a string of commandments, etc., so curses and punishments are administered in respect of a string of violations of G'd's commandments. As a result, if someone either transgressed all the commandments bar idolatry, or only committed idolatry, he is deserving of all the punishments as commission of idolatry is considered as equal to committing all other violations. No wonder then that G'd hid His face from His people.