Deuteronómio 34:5 Comentario: Rashi, Da'at Zekenim, Ibn Ezra & Or HaChaim

וימת שם משה AND MOSES DIED THERE — Is it possible that Moses, died, and then wrote: “And Moses died there”? But, thus far did Moses write, from here and onward Joshua wrote. Rabbi Meir said: But is it possible that the Book of the Torah would be lacking anything at all, and yet it would state before the account of Moses' death was written in it, (Deuteronomy 31:26) “Take this book of the Torah” -? Rather the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated this, and Moses wrote it in tears (Sifrei Devarim 357:28; Bava Batra 15a, Menachot 30a).

וימת שם משה, “Moses died there.” According to Psalms 118,17, Moses said to G–d at the time of his death: “I do not wish to die but to live and to proclaim the works of the Lord.” G–d replied that it was impossible to fulfill his wish, as it has been decreed that every human being must die. Thereupon Moses said to G–d: “I have one request to make from You so that they can all see that there is absolutely no one like You;” before he could articulate his request all the gates of the earth and the great deep opened up, and this is what Moses meant when he had said to the people in Deuteronomy 4,39: וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך כי ה' הוא האלוקים “you will know this day and it will register in your hearts, that the Lord is the G–d;” as soon as he had gotten to this word, Moses added: אין עוד, “no one else.” As soon as G–d had heard Moses saying these words, He said to him: “since you have said the words: אין עוד,“I will testify with the same words that there never has been nor ever will be again a prophet comparable to your stature.” (verse 10 in our chapter). Immediately following this conversation, G–d, personally, accompanied by the three angels Michael, Gavriel and Zagzagel (the angel who teaches fetuses in their mother’s wombs the Torah) descended to earth, Gavriel prepared the bier on which Moses was to die, Michael spread a red woolen sheet over it, whereas Zagzagel arranged his headrest on the bier. G–d instructed Moses how to arrange the various parts of his body when he laid down on the bier, and as soon as he had done so, He spoke to the soul of Moses, reminding it that it had been granted the privilege of being a guest in Moses’ body for one hundred and twenty years, but saying that the time had now come for it to return to its place in the celestial regions. The soul replied in a very respectful manner to G–d that although it was aware that G–d had created it in order to reside within Moses’ body, the fact that during all these one hundred and twenty years she had enjoyed being hosted by the purest body a body that had never been host to any worm or otherwise destructive creature. Even flies had never settled on Moses’ skin. The body she inhabited had never been jealous or envious of a fellow human being. Seeing that she had been privileged to inhabit such a body, the soul said, she was very reluctant to leave such a body. After having listened to the soul, G–d again asked her not to delay His timetable. He promised that soul to promote it to the loftiest rank of all the creatures in the celestial spheres. Its permanent seat would be immediately below His throne, next to the highest ranking groups of angels. Still, the soul responded that it would prefer to remain in Moses’ body to sharing such honours with the highest ranking angels. It pointed out that from those groups of angels several when becoming residents on earth, i.e. Uzza and Azael, had become more corrupt and had lusted after human females until G–d had been forced to put an end to them. Moses, on the other hand, when G–d had appeared to him at the burning bush, never once continued to have sexual relations with his wife. As a result, she, this soul, begged to remain part of Moses. In view of all this, G–d decided to remove Moses’ soul from his body by kissing it. This is the meaning of the word: על פי ה', “by the mouth of the Lord”, at the end of our verse. At that hour, G–d Himself broke out weeping, seeing that He had been forced to remove Moses from earth through a decree issued by oath a long time ago; this is alluded to in Psalms 94,16: מי יקום לי עם-מרעים מי יתיצב לי עם פועלי און, G–d mourned the fact that from now on “who will take My part against evil men, who will stand up for Me against wrongdoers?” The angels in heaven were also weeping and saying: והחכמה מאין תמצא ונעלמה מעיני כל חי, “but where can wisdom now be found, and where is now the source of understanding?” The heavens were weeping and saying: אבד חסיד מן הארץ, “the pious have vanished from earth.” (Michah 7,2). The author continues in this vein, quoting all parts of creation bemoaning the death of Moses as an irreplaceable loss for mankind. (The sources of the above statements are found in Devarim Rabbah at the end, and in Yalkut Shimoni on the portion of Vayelech) Concerning the last eight verses in the Torah, their author, and how to relate to this as it is difficult to attribute them as having been written by Moses either posthumously or before his death, the Talmud tractate Baba batra folio 15, suggests as a possible way to deal with this problem, that they be read by individuals but not as part of the public Torah reading. This line in the Talmud is interpreted differently by a number of commentators. Seeing that we read these lines in the normal fashion, there is no point in challenging what has been accepted for many hundreds of years by all sections of orthodox Judaism.

There died Moshe, the servant of God Even in his death, he acted as a servant, performing that which he was commanded.

על פי ה׳ BY THE COMMAND (lit., MOUTH) OF THE LORD — by the Divine kiss (Moed Katan 28a; cf. Rashi on Numbers 20:1).