Kommentar zu Dewarim 32:51

על אשר מעלתם בי BECAUSE YE TRESPASSED AGAINST ME — i.e., because you made the people to trespass against Me.

על אשר מעלתם בי, "because you trespassed against Me, etc." Please compare my comments on Numbers 20,12 where I have elaborated on all this.

על אשר מעלתם בי....על אשר לא קדשתם אותי, “because you have trespassed against Me....seeing that you did not sanctify Me.” Moses’ sin was that at the rock, concerning which the Torah (G’d) had already said in Numbers 20,24: “because you rebelled against My command.” In this instance, G’d speaks of Moses’ failure to sanctify Him. The word אותי here is derived from אות, “miracle.” This is the reason it has been spelled with the letter ו. [Otherwise, seeing it would be derived from את plus a pronoun-ending, the letter ו would not be justified. Ed.] I have already discussed the deeper meaning in Numbers 20,6.

You were the cause of unfaithfulness to Me. This is the correct text: Because you were unfaithful to Me, you were the cause of their unfaithfulness to Me, etc. This is how it appears in accurate texts. It means that you caused that the people would rebel against the word of Hashem, etc., and not that Moshe and Aharon [themselves] rebelled. Rather they caused Yisroel to rebel against Hashem.

V. 51. על אשר מעלתם בי וגו׳ על אשר לא קדשתם אותי וגו׳. Der Vorgang, auf welchen zurückgeblickt wird, wird in seinem doppelten Charakter gezeichnet, in seiner Pflichtwidrigkeit gegen Gott, und in der Vereitelung des mit dem Auftrage beabsichtigten Zweckes, und beides, בתוך בני ישראל, nicht im Privatleben, sondern in der öffentlichen Stellung eurer Wirksamkeit im Volke.

על אשר לא קדשתם אותי BECAUSE YE SANCTIFIED ME NOT — i.e. because you brought it about that I was not sanctified; I said to you, ‘Speak to the rock!” They, however, smote it and had therefore to smite it twice. Had they, however, spoken to it, and it had given forth its water without being smitten, the Name of the Heaven would have been sanctified; for the Israelites would have said, “How is it with the rock which is subject neither to reward nor to punishment, for when it acts meritoriously it receives no reward and when it sins it is not punished? It fulfils so obediently the command of its Creator! — how much the more should we do so!”

מעלתם בי, ihr habt bei diesem Vorgange das Vertrauen nicht gerechtfertigt, das ich in die Heiligkeit eures Charakters und Berufes zu setzen berechtigt war (siehe zu Wajikra 5, 15). מי מריבת קדש מדבר צין (siehe zu Bamidbar 27, 14).