Comentario sobre Exodo 33:11

ודבר ה׳ אל משה פנים אל פנים AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES FACE TO FACE — Here too (as in v. 9) in spite of the fact that the text states “face to face” the Targum is: ומתמלל עם משה‎.

AND HIS MINISTER JOSHUA, ‘BIN’ (THE SON OF) NUN, ‘NA’AR’ (A LAD). Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote: “Joshua lived a hundred and ten years,⁴⁵⁵Joshua 24:29. and the Sages say⁴⁵⁶Arakhin 13a. that it took him seven years to conquer the Land [of Israel] and seven years to apportion it amongst the tribes. If so, he was now fifty-six years old,⁴⁵⁷The forty years of the wilderness plus the fourteen years in the Land of Israel, make a total of fifty-four years. Subtract these from a hundred and ten, and you are left with fifty-six. Yet Scripture calls him na’ar (lad)! and how does Scripture call him na’ar (lad)? We must therefore say that this is the meaning thereof: and his minister Joshua the son of Nun rendered him such service as can be given only by a youthful attendant.”
In my opinion it is the way of the Sacred Language to call any attendant [regardless of age] na’ar, for the person of high office is called ish (man),⁴⁵⁸See Ramban Genesis 9:20, Vol. I, p. 141. and [with respect to him] his attendant is called na’ar. Thus: Gehazi ‘na’aro’ (his attendant);⁴⁵⁹II Kings 4:12. Let ‘ha’ne’arim’ (the attendants), I pray thee, arise and play before us.⁴⁶⁰II Samuel 2:14. Similarly, and ten ‘ne’arim’ (attendants) that bore Joab’s armor,⁴⁶¹Ibid., 18:15. and Joab [David’s commander-in-chief] would surely only turn over his armor to valiant men who stood near him! And it is also written, And Joshua said unto the two ‘men’ that had spied out the land,⁴⁶²Joshua 6:22. and yet it is written there, and ‘ha’ne’arim’ the spies went in etc!⁴⁶³Ibid., Verse 23. [Thus we must say that the] term [ha’ne’arim] is used because they were servants of the congregation, acting for them as spies. There are many similar instances. So also, the ‘na’arei’ of the king that ministered unto him,⁴⁶⁴Esther 2:2. [the second half of the phrase being in apposition,] explaining that they were the servants who attended the king personally, and not the attendants of the court. And if so, our verse is stating: and his minister Joshua the son of Nun was always in attendance, and never departed out of the tent.

פנים אל פנים, as opposed to נופל וגלוי עינים, (Numbers 24,4) as Bileam described his visions which came to him only when he had lost control over his own senses.

ודבר ה׳ אל משה פנים אל פנים, "and G'd spoke with Moses face to face." The message of this verse is that the intimacy between Moses and G'd was in direct proportion to the preparation Moses made to welcome G'd's presence. This teaches each of us that the attainment of sanctity is in direct proportion to the efforts we make to attain it.

ויהושוע בן נון נער, “Joshua son of Nun, a lad,” Ibn Ezra writes that seeing that we know that Joshua lived to the age of one hundred and ten, and we have a tradition that he spent seven years conquering the land of Canaan, and seven more years settling the people on their respective portions of that land, he was 96 years of age at the time the Israelites crossed the Jordan. This means that at this time he was already 56 years of age. We must therefore wonder at why the Torah describes him as נער, “a (mere) lad.” He therefore understands the verse to mean that Joshua, who was the personal valet of Moses, was charged with the kind of errands one charges a lad to do for one. Nachmanides writes that there is no need to resort to this explanation of the word נער in our verse, as there are many instances when a person who performs valet service for others is referred to as נער, and this in no way poses a problem. The person for whom the service is performed is known as איש, which automatically makes the one performing the service a junior to the איש, i.e. a נער. As to the unusual vowel chirik instead of the usual segol under the letter ב in the word בן נון, Nachmanides explains this as a mark of distinction for the bearer, meaning that there was no one who could match Joshua in wisdom and understanding. [an allusion to בינה understanding. Insight. Ed.] An alternative explanation is that the subject here is that בינה מוליד נון reminiscent of Psalms In that verse ינון is a reference to the Messiah, and future Jews are credited to the Messiah as if they were his biological offspring (including the people being resurrected in due course) all on account of the meritorious deeds performed by the Messiah (Alshich)

After conversing with him. . . [Rashi knows that it was in order to teach what he had learned] because otherwise, why would Moshe return to the camp after God spoke to him face to face? The place where God spoke to him was where he dwelt, as it is written: “When Moshe had gone into the tent. . .”

פנים אל פנים, “literally: “face to face,” an obviously incorrect translation, seeing that G-d does not possess physical attributes; Our author takes it for granted that the reader is aware of this, and does not spell it out. He does, however, indulge in presenting the reader with another insoluble problem, that of that either G-d or Moses must have changed position in order to speak to one another as if on the same level. He therefore tells us, his readers, that he does not know if the expression means that G-d had raised Moses closer to His level, or vice versa, i.e. that G-d had descended to Moses’ level. He had done so in Exodus 34,5, after the third forty days after the revelation at the Mountain had expired, i.e. on the Day of Atonement.

ושב אל המחנה .( AND HE RETURNED INTO THE CAMP — After God had conversed with him, Moses used to return to the camp and teach the elders what he had learned. This Moses practised from the day of Atonement until the Tabernacle was set up, but no longer. For on the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken, on the eighteenth he burnt the calf and punished the of fenders, on the nineteenth he ascended the mountain, as it is said (Exodus 32:30) “And it came to pass on the morrow (the day after he had punished the wrongdoers; cf. vv. 26—29), that Moses said unto the people”, [Ye have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord]”. There he spent forty days and sought mercy for the people, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 9:18) “And I threw myself down before the Lord [as at the first, forty days and forty nights]”. These terminated on the last day of Ab (there were 11 days from the 19th to the 29th of Tammuz therefore 29 days in Ab complete the forty) and he then returned to the people. On the first day of the New Moon of Ellul it was said to him, (Exodus 34:2) “And be ready in the morning] and go up in the morning unto mount Sinai” — to receive the second tablets. He again spent there the forty days of which it is stated, (Deuteronomy 10:10) “[And I stayed in the mountain, according to the first, days, [forty days and forty nights]”. The words כימים הראשונים, “like the first days”, cannot refer to the number of days for this is stated immediately afterwards; they are to be joined with עמדתי — I stayed in the same state as on the first days: How were the first forty days passed? In God’s good-will (because the Israelites had not yet sinned)! So, too, the last forty days were passed in God’s good-will — from which you must admit that the intervening forty days were passed in God’s anger. On the tenth of Tishri God became reconciled with Israel in joy and perfect affection and said to Moses: “I have forgiven!” and handed him over the second tablets, whereupon Moses went down and began to command them concerning the work of the Tabernacle (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 31; Seder Olam 6; Rashi on Exodus 18:13, Deuteronomy 9:18 and also Taanit 36b). They were occupied in its construction until the first of Nisan and from the time when it was set up God did not converse with him any more except from the tent of meeting.

The reason for the form ‘bin’ Nun [instead of ‘ben’ Nun] is that the vowel chirik comes sometimes in place of the segal [which would have made it “ben Nun”]. Similar cases are: The words of Agur ‘bin’ (the son of) Jakeh;⁴⁶⁵Proverbs 30:1. Normally it should have been ben. ‘she’bin lailah hayah’ (which came up in a night) ‘u’bin lailah avad’ (and perished in a night);⁴⁶⁶Jonah 4:10. Here too the words should have been: she’ben, u’ben. ‘im bin hakoth harasha’ (if the wicked man deserve to be beaten).⁴⁶⁷Deuteronomy 25:2. Here likewise the sense of the verse is: “ben hakoth — a person deserving to be beaten, because he hit his friend.” So clearly explained in Ibn Ezra ibid.
Yet despite all this I wonder! Why [of all the times that Joshua the son of Nun is cited in the Scriptures] is the name of this righteous man not once mentioned properly [i.e., ‘ben’ Nun]? Therefore I think that they used to call him in this way as a mark of honor, since he was the greatest of the disciples of Moses our teacher, and so they called him binun, meaning “the understanding one,” since there was none so discreet and wise as he.⁴⁶⁸Genesis 41:39. Or it may be that the meaning of it is: “Joshua, whom understanding begot;” they thus used the term nun as in the expression, may his name ‘yinon’ (be continued) as long as the sun.⁴⁶⁹Psalms 72:17.

כאשר ידבר איש אל רעהו, as opposed to soliloquizing, [as in praying but not receiving an answer.]

Until the mishkon was erected but not longer. . . Beforehand he did not act in this way because there was no time to learn or to teach, due to the troubles with the Calf, his praying for the people, and his receiving the second set of Tablets.

כאשר ידבר איש אל רעהו, "as a man speaks to his friend." We understand this simile as emphasising the word רעהו, "his friend." We find a similar thought in Proverbs 27,19: "as face to face [is reflected] in water, so man's heart [will be reflected by his counterpart]." Solomon speaks of a mental telepathy between the hearts of people who do not even see each other but perceive whether their counterpart loves them or hates them. The relationship between man and invisible G'd is based on something deeper than the exterior sense of sight. The heart senses the attitude of its opposite number. If someone prepares to love his fellow man the heart of his fellow man responds to such invisible feelings. Alternatively, the meaning is that just as his "friend" will not love him unless he has reciprocated the feeling of love, so is G'd's attitude to us. If one wishes to gauge one's standing in the eyes of G'd one needs only to examine one's own attitude towards G'd and His service. If one feels the urge to serve the Lord and delights in doing so, this is proof that G'd relates to such a person with love.

ושב אל המחנה, “and he would return to the camp.” In Exodus 18,13, on the words: ויהי ממחרת, Rashi comments that the first set of Tablets were smashed on the 17th of Tammuz, that on the 18th i.e. the day following he burned the calf and punished those who had worshipped it, and that on the 19th he ascended the Mountain again. The problem is that both in Deut. 9,18 and in Exodus 18,13 he says that Moses ascended again on the eighteenth. Different super commentaries on Rashi attempt, each one in his own way, to resolve this apparent contradiction.

ושב אל המחנה AND HE RETURNED TO THE CAMP — The translation in the Targum is: וְתָיִב למשריתא (a participle) “and he used to return to the camp”, because (as explained above) it denotes continuous action. Similarly, he translates all the verbs occuring in this section by participles: וראה כל העם he renders by ונצבו ;וחזן by והביטו ;וקימין by והשתחוו ;ומסתכלין by וסגדין. The Midrash explains ודבר ה' אל משה thus: And the Lord spake to Moses that he should return to the camp. He said to him: I am angry and you are angry; if this is to remain so, who will attract them to Me again? (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 27 and Berakhot 63b).

לא ימיש מתוך האוהל, in order to ensure that none of the Israelites would enter this tent, seeing all of them were in a state of disgrace. This tent was reserved for the presence of the Shechinah out of bounds, as in Exodus 3,5 where Moses was warned not to come close while wearing footwear. The reason that at that time even Moses was not admitted as he was, shows that he was not yet spiritually equipped for that degree of communication from G’d.

And on the nineteenth he went up, as it says. . . You might ask: In v. 18:13, Rashi wrote: “On the seventeenth of Tammuz he descended and broke the Tablets, and early the next day — which is the eighteenth of Tammuz he ascended.” [Why does Rashi say here that it was the nineteenth?] The answer is: In Taanis 29a, Abaye resolves a difficulty by saying that Tammuz in that year had thirty days [instead of its usual twenty-nine]. Rashi [in 18:13] calculates Moshe’s forty days and nights according to the [usual] pattern of a twentynine-day month being followed by a thirty-day month — based on Tammuz being always twenty-nine days — therefore Rashi says that Moshe ascended on the eighteenth of Tammuz. But when he calculates it according to Abaye’s statement that Tammuz in that year was thirty days [which adds a day,] he says that Moshe ascended on the nineteenth. (Re”m) Nachalas Yaakov writes: It seems to me that Re”m confused one Tammuz with another. Abaye spoke about the Tammuz when the Spies were sent, which was in the second year [after leaving Egypt]. Whereas the Tammuz of the Calf was in the first year. See there. An alternative answer: Moshe ascended on the [morning of the] eighteenth, but the calculation of forty days started only on the nineteenth. This is because the eighteenth was without the nighttime [i.e., it was not complete so it was not counted].

ומשרתו יהושע בן נון נער, “and his personal disciple, Yehoshua son of Nun, a lad, etc.“ Joshua lived a total of 110 years (Joshua 24,29). If you deduct the 40 years the Israelites marched through the desert and the 14 years which Joshua spent in the land of Israel prior to his death (seven years of war and seven years of distributing the country and allocating it to the various tribes) you will note that at this time Joshua was 56 years old. How is it then that the Torah refers to him as a נער, “a lad?” The answer is that the word נער means “personal valet.” The master is known as איש, whereas the valet is known as נער by comparison. This is spelled out in greater detail in Esther 2,2 where the text speaks of נערי המלך משרתיו, “the lads of the king, i.e. his personal valets.” The word משרתיו in that verse is used to define who were the people called נערי המלך.