Comentario sobre Números 27:16

יפקד ה׳ LET THE LORD … SET [A MAN OVER THE CONGREGATION] — When Moses heard that the Omnipresent said to him, “Give the inheritance of Zelophehad to his daughters”, he said to himself, “The time has come that I should ask something that I want — that my sons should inherit my high position”. God replied to him, “Not thus has entered My mind; Joshua deserves to receive the reward of his ministrations, because “he has never departed from out the tent” (Exodus XXXIII 11). — This is what Solomon said, (Proverbs 27:18) ‘‘Whoso keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof, [and he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured]” (Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 11).

יפקד ה׳ אלוקי הרוחות, "Let the Lord, the G'd of the spirits appoint, etc." 1) Why did Moses choose this most unusual way of describing G'd's virtues? 2) Why was Moses so long-winded in describing the functions of a leader of the people such as אשר..יצא…ואשר יבא? 3) Why did he add "let not the Lord's congregation be as a flock without shepherd?" Whatever possessed Moses to imagine that but for him the Jewish people would remain leaderless and that G'd would abandon them?

יפקוד ה' אלו-הי הרוחות לכל בשר, “May Hashem, G’d of the spirits of all flesh, appoint, etc.” “You Who know the spirit of each individual are surely aware of who is appropriate to be appointed as leader for them.”

He said, “The time has come for me to ask.” It appears that Rashi is answering the question: According to the Rabbis who explain “saying” as meaning Moshe said to Him, “Answer me…” would the generation be without a leader? Rather, his question was whether it was necessary to appoint a leader, or whether his children would inherit his position of leadership, as it says, “Give Tzelofchad’s inheritance to his daughters.” This was why the Rabbis expound so, and therefore Rashi also followed the words of the Rabbis. (Nachalas Yaakov) It appears that this contradicts Rashi’s comment above that they [i.e., the leaders] ignore their own needs and concern themselves with the needs of the community, yet here he says that the time had come to ask for his personal needs! However in truth there is no difficulty, because by way of concerning himself with the needs of the community, to appoint a leader for them, he also concerned himself with the needs of his sons. [He asked] that they would be the leaders. Hashem answered him, “He who keeps watch over the fig tree…”

V. 16. :אלקי הרוחות לכל בשר מגיד הכתוב שכל הרוחות אין יוצאות אלא מלפניו ר׳ אליעזר בנו של ר׳ יוסי הגלילי אומר סימן זה יהיה בידך שכל זמן שאדם נתון בחיים נפשו פקודה ביד קונו שנא אשר בידו נפש כל חי מת נתונה באוצר שנא והיתה נפש אדני צרורה בצרור החיים (ספרי z. St.). Es heißt nicht: אלקי רוחות כל בשר, sondern: א׳ הרוחות לכל בשר Gott ists, von dem aus jeder Geist in die ihm entsprechende irdische Hülle eingeht, es ist Gott, der die רוחות jedem בשר fügt. "Denn von mir aus", heißt es ja auch Jes. 57, 16, "geht der Geist in seine Hülle ein, und die Seelen habe ich gebildet" כי רוח מלפני יעטוף ונשמות אני עשיתי, R. Elieser fügt aber hinzu: daran halte fest, so lange der Mensch dem Leben gegeben ist, so lange ist seine Seele in der Hand seines Schöpfers und Eigners gewahrt, denn es heißt: in dessen Hand die Seele jedes Lebendigen. Ist er gestorben, wird sie im Gottesschatze aufgehoben, denn es heißt: deine Seele wird aufgehoben in dem Schatze des Lebens. In zweifacher Beziehung ist danach Gott אלקי הרוחות לכל בשר: Er ists, durch den der Geist jedem Fleische wird, und Er ist es, durch den der Geist jedem Fleische bleibt. Er sendet den Geist in den irdischen Leib, und so lange der Geist in dieser irdischen Verbindung bleiben soll, erhält Er ihn in dieser Verbindung, und schützt ihn und stärkt ihn und nährt ihn mit Begabung und Fortschritt, und ist somit jedem Geiste im irdischen Leben für dies irdische Leben in einem noch viel höheren Grade persönlich nahe, als wenn nach seiner irdischen Wallfahrt dereinst die Seele im "Bunde des Lebens" mit allen übrigen eingesammelten Seelen für eine neue Zukunft bewahrt bleibt. Eine Wahrheit, die R. Elieser für unser hieniediges Bewusstsein so bedeutungsvoll und folgereich erschien, dass er uns mahnt, sie für unsere Wanderung durchs Leben stets als Wahrzeichen in Händen zu haben: סימן זה יהיה בידך! Also Gott, der, als אלקי הרוחות לכל בשר alle in irdische Leiber von ihm gesandten Geister kennt und überwacht, Er weiß den rechten Mann zum Nachfolger Mosche zu finden, Er möge ihn bestellen. Denn wenn es auch keines Mosche und Aharons weiter bedarf (siehe zu V. 14), so bedarfs doch auch zur Erfüllung der nun zur Verwirklichung kommenden göttlichen Aufgabe eines Mannes,

ה' אלוקי הרוחות לכל בשר, “Lord, G-d of the spirits of all flesh;” compare Ezekiel 1,12 for a better understanding of this expression; Moses describes G-d as inspiring the spirit in man proceeds with any worthwhile undertaking and his perseverance in pursuing it undaunted.

...And I have not known what forced the Sages, may their memory be blessed, that they should say that this section is connected with the distant section of inheritances (27:7); and not to "Go up to the mountain..." (27:12-15), which is adjacent to it - meaning to say that once Moses heard that the decree upon him was in force, and he gave up asking for himself, he requested to appoint someone else in his place?...

אלהי הרוחת GOD OF THE SPIRITS [OF ALL FLESH] — Why is this expression used? (i.e., why does it not state simply אלהי כל בשר?) He said to Him: “Lord of the Universe! the personality of each person is revealed to you, and no two are alike. Appoint over them a leader who will tolerate each person according to his individual character (Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 10; cf. Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 776).

אשר יצא לפניהם, “who is to go out ahead of them.” It means: who is to lead them in war.
ואשר יבא לפניהם ואשר יוציאם, “and who shall come in before them and who shall take them out.” The emphasis here is on the fact that the leader personally and not some deputy should always be in front. Whereas among the Gentile nations the king or top general generally remains behind the danger zone in the rear, Moses requests that the kind of leader that would be appointed should emulate him when he had faced Sichon and Og in battle at the head of the army. We know hat Moses had been in the front, why else would G’d have reassured him when He said to him not to be afraid of Og (21,34)? We know that Joshua was at the front of the army, as when the angel with his drawn sword in his hand confronted him he asked: “do you belong to us or to our enemies?” (Joshua 5,13) We also find that David was at the head of his army as reported in Samuel I 18,16: “for he would go out and come in at their head.”

As he never moved. Meaning that he sat in his tent and studied Torah.

We have to explain the whole matter in the following vein. [I have to paraphrase the author's words here. Ed.] The fact that G'd has equipped all of us with both a free will and unequal levels of intelligence makes it an almost foregone conclusion that each one of us reacts, -i.e. uses this freedom of will- differently when confronted with identical data. In other words, it is in the nature of things that no two people react identically to what happens around them. In discussing the effect on the victim when one visits the sick, the Talmud Nedarim 39 claims that each visit by a friend removes 1/60th of the sick person's sickness, provided the person who visits him is of (similar) or identical age. This latter statement suggests that unless two people share the same mazzal, horoscopic influences, they cannot really expect to have a definitive impact on one another. Unless two people are on the "same wavelength," the empathy which one shows to the other does not really leave sufficient encouragement to be a healing influence. In view of what we have just said it is clear that the 600,000 people Moses was in charge of comprised 600,000 different personalities. How could they be expected to be fused into a uniform, like-minded congregation? The reason that Moses was able to find a common denominator with each one of them, i.e. "to tune in to the wavelength of each Israelite," was the fact that his soul was the root of all their souls (compare Tikkuney Hazohar chapter 69). This is the mystical dimension of Isaiah 63,11: "G'd remembered the days of old, Moses His people." Compare what we have written on Numbers 11,12 in connection with the words: "Have I conceived them?" This was the reason that Moses was so concerned that no one but he would be able to truly understand these people and lead them.

Why was this said. Rather than saying “God of the heavens” or “God of the earth.”

This is also the reason why G'd commanded that the judges to be appointed for the people should be of their respective tribes. A judge who grew up amongst the tribe of, say Issachar, would be more likely to understand what motivations governed the actions of another member of his tribe than a judge who was a Levite, for instance. For considerations such as these, Moses reacted to the news that he was about to die by asking G'd יפקד ה׳ אלוקי הרוחות, that G'd in His capacity of understanding the immense variety of spirits, i.e. personalities of the people, should appoint someone who could "tune in" to all these various spirits. When Moses said that such a leader "should go out ahead of them and ….lead them," he referred to the ability of the people to agree with the initiative of their leader. At the same time, Moses said: "and who will come home with them," i.e. that the leader should also be able to align his thinking to their thinking. He must be capable of accepting suggestions by the people. The reason Moses phrased all this in what sounds like an autocratic manner, i.e. harping on what the leader would do all the time, was that he himself had occupied the position of king amongst the Israelites. Moses added that if the Israelites would not have such a leader, they would be no better off than a flock without a shepherd. Moses' words to G'd could be summarised as follows: "I am prepared to do what You have told me; however, I cannot die with my mind at ease (as You promise me) unless I know that You have appointed a new leader who possesses the qualities I have mentioned. If not, the people will, for all practical purposes, be like a flock without a shepherd." Reading between the lines of what Moses said we may conclude that subject to his request being fulfilled he was just as willing to die as was his brother Aaron seven months earlier.