Comentario sobre Deuteronómio 34:4

לאמר לזרעך אתננה הראיתיך TO SAY, TO THY SEED WILL I GIVE IT, I HAVE LET THEE SEE IT, i.e. in order that you may go and say to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob: The oath which the Holy One, blessed be He, swore to you — that oath He has fulfilled. This is the force of לאמר (Berakhot 18b), “to say it”, viz., that you may say it — for that reason have I let you see it. But it is a decree from Me that שמה לא תעבר THERE YOU SHALL NOT CROSS OVER; for were this not so, I would keep you alive even until you saw them planted and settled in it, and you would then go and tell them (the patriarchs).

הראיתיך בעיניך, in order for you to give it your blessing.

לאמור לזרעך אתננה, to say: "to your descendants I will give it." The reason the Torah had to write the word לאמור "to say" at this juncture, was that as of now G'd had not given this information to the patriarchs. [In connection with a statement that the dead communicate with one another, Ed.], our sages in Berachot 18 claim that G'd ordered Moses to tell the three patriarchs (after his death) that He had already discharged the oath He had sworn to them to give the land to their descendants. Perhaps the reason G'd wanted Moses to tell the patriarchs [instead of telling them Himself, Ed.] may have been so that Moses would make sure that the patriarchs would appreciate that G'd was able to keep His promise to them only after having overcome many difficulties and setbacks en route.

זאת הארץ אשר נשבעתי לאברהם ליצחק וליעקב לאמר: לזרעך אתננה, “this is the land concerning which I have sworn to Avraham, to Yitzchok, and to Yaakov, saying: “to your descendants I shall give it.” In this verse Moses hints that at an appropriate time the Shechinah will return to the land of Israel, the time in question being the one discussed at the end of the Book of Daniel. In Berachot 18 the sages focus on the word לאמור in the verse above; Rabbi Yonathan says there: “how do we know that the dead are in verbal communication with one another?” He answers that we derive this from the word לאמור in the above quoted verse. G’d is reported to have said to Moses: “tell Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov that the oath I swore to them I have fulfilled to their children.” The Talmud therefore concluded that the dead could communicate with one another, otherwise how could Moses tell all this to the patriarchs seeing that all of them were dead? The Talmud further concludes that the dead experience pain on their bodies, proving it from a verse in Job 14,22: “He feels only the pain of his flesh, and his spirit mourns in him.” The Talmud assumed first that the dead experiences only pain inflicted upon himself but not that inflicted upon others; later on, the Talmud concludes that the dead experience even pains inflicted upon others, and that they are not only aware of what goes on in their world but also of what goes on in our world. They deduce all this from our verse, seeing that if they did not know what was going on in our world what good would it do for G’d to tell Moses to tell them what He had done on earth? The Talmud retorts that this latter argument is faulty, for if the patriarchs had known what goes on in our world why did G’d have to instruct Moses to tell them something they knew already? The Talmud answers that G’d wanted that the patriarchs give credit to Moses for having told them, although he had not told them something they had not been aware of.

So that you may go forth and say to Avraham, etc. Rashi is answering the question: Why the verse says saying? It is so that you may go forth and say, etc. According to this, it seems to me that the phrases in the verse should be rearranged and the phrase I have shown it to you should appear earlier. It is as if Hashem said, “This is the land that I swore, etc., I have shown it to you with your eyes to say, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’

שמה לא תעבור, so that by your crossing the river your blessing would not invalidate the decree issued by Me, that if the sins of the Jewish people were to reach a certain measure that they would be expelled from the land. [According to what the author explained on Deut.1,35-39 it was the fact that Moses was forbidden to cross the Jordan although personally not guilty of accepting the assessment of the 10 spies who counseled against trying to conquer the land, that preserved their chance to participate in the resurrection of the dead when the time would come for this. Our sages subscribe to the concept that whatever Moses did had enduring, eternal validity, provided it had been based on a valid premise. A blessing after setting foot in the Holy Land would have been of more enduring value than one pronounced when not on holy soil. Denying Moses the chance to pronounce his blessing while on holy soil, indirectly benefited the whole generation of the people who were adults at the time of the Exodus. It preserved their chance to participate in the resurrection, as did the fact that Moses was buried outside the Holy Land, and his appearance at the resurrection without the people whom he had shepherded for 40 years would be embarrassing for him. Ed.]

However, it has been decreed before Me. Rashi is answering the question: If so, why did He not take him over so he would be able to see more and tell them? Therefore Rashi says However, etc.

ושמה לא תעבור, "but you yourself will not cross there." Perhaps the reason this is repeated at this point is that G'd wanted to tell Moses that he did not need to enter the gate to heaven by first having set foot in the land of Israel. The Zohar volume one page 81 says that all the souls ascend to heaven by way of ארץ ישראל. Seeing that Moses' soul was being gathered up by G'd personally, and that G'd immediately deposited it in the Celestial Regions, there was no need for his soul to travel via ארץ ישראל in order to achieve its objective. The words וימת שם משה mean that where Moses died his soul ascended to heaven immediately.

Were it not for this, I would have sustained you, etc. Meaning, were it not for the oath [that Moshe would not enter]. Even though it is written (above 31:2), I am 120 years old today, [and Rashi explains], Today my days and years are completed, so that even were it not for the oath he would die since his days were completed, nevertheless, I would have sustained you [even longer]. (In the name of the Maharitz). It seems to me that when Rashi explains, Today my days and years are completed, etc. he means, when saying his days were completed, that on this day I was born and on this day I will die. But regarding his years [i.e., age], because of his merit, if not for the sin he would have lived long [even more than 120 years] as his father lived long, and he would have merited to enter the land. But because of the sin he did not live [so] long and his years were completed now. You cannot say that this is [considered] shortened years [and cannot be called completed years], since the span of our years is [normally] seventy years, and when one lives longer, it is because of his merit. According to what I wrote in the name of Maharitz this question is also answered [since he explains that Moshe did reach his allotted time span].