Hebrew Bible Study
Hebrew Bible Study

Chasidut for Numbers 15:28

וְכִפֶּ֣ר הַכֹּהֵ֗ן עַל־הַנֶּ֧פֶשׁ הַשֹּׁגֶ֛גֶת בְּחֶטְאָ֥ה בִשְׁגָגָ֖ה לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה לְכַפֵּ֥ר עָלָ֖יו וְנִסְלַ֥ח לֽוֹ׃

And the priest shall make atonement for the soul that erreth, when he sinneth through error, before the LORD, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven,

Kedushat Levi

Numbers 16,28. “none of it was of my own ‎devising.” These words of Moses help us understand 17,8 ‎where the survivors accuse Moses and Aaron as having ‎engineered the death of “G’d’s people.” We have a rule that the ‎‎tzaddik, by means of his prayers, can bring about events ‎that had not previously been decreed by G’d to happen. On the ‎other hand, perhaps more frequently, the tzaddik’s prayer ‎is the catalyst that sets in motion the execution of a Divine ‎decree whose time had not previously been ripe for execution. In ‎this instance, the Israelites who had watched Korach and the ‎other rebels descend to their death, suspected Moses of having ‎been the instigators of the death of these people through their ‎prayers. In our verse, Moses wants to make clear that what is ‎going to happen is not something that he had either instigated or ‎hoped for. G’d Himself, without any contribution by himself or ‎Aaron, had both decreed and executed it.‎
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