Commentaire sur Les Nombres 30:1

ויאמר משה אל בני ישראל AND MOSES TOLD THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — This is stated to separate this subject (of sacrifies) from the following (vows). Such is the opinion of R. Ishmael. What it means is: since up to now we have the words of the Omnipresent to Moses (Numbers 28:1—2: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Command the children of Israel, etc.’ ”) and the chapter about vows that follows begins with an utterance of Moses (“And Moses spake”), it is necessary first to make a break by stating that Moses in turn told this section to Israel (“And Moses told etc.”), for if this were not done it would imply that he did not tell them this section about the sacrifices, but began his address with the chapter about vows (Sifrei Bamidbar 152).

AND MOSES TOLD THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL [ACCORDING TO ALL THAT THE ETERNAL COMMANDED MOSES]. “‘This is [stated] in order to separate the subject [of the offerings from that of the following chapter, dealing with vows and oaths].’ These are the words of Rabbi Yishmael. [The meaning thereof is as follows:] Since up till this point [we have] the words of G-d [to Moses],²¹⁹See above, 28:1: And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying … and the [following] section of vows begins with the statement of Moses,²²⁰Further, Verse 2: And Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes … it was necessary to separate the subject [of the offerings] by stating that Moses repeated it and told this section to Israel; for if this were not stated, one might have thought that he did not tell them this [section dealing with the offerings], but began his words with the section of vows.” These are the words of Rashi. But I do not understand them, for [we find] similarly that it says — at the end of the section [dealing with] blemishes [in priests], And Moses spoke unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel;²²¹Leviticus 21:24. and it says at the end of the section of the festivals, And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the Eternal²²²Ibid., 23:44. [and in both these cases the subsequent chapters also begin with G-d’s utterance to Moses; so why was it necessary, according to Rashi, to separate here the sections by saying that Moses declared those laws to the children of Israel]!
But according to its plain meaning, the verse here comes to say that although this section deals with the laws of the offerings, G-d did not single out Aaron and his sons in connection with it, as in the sections of [the book] “the Law of the Priests” [i.e. the Book of Leviticus]. Instead Moses said it to all the children of Israel together, according to all that the Eternal commanded Moses, including the laws of refraining from work on the festivals,²²³Above, 28:18, 26. etc. and [the laws of] the Daily Whole-offerings, the Additional Offerings, the vow-offerings and the freewill offerings, for thus it was told to Moses, Command the children of Israel.²²⁴Ibid., Verse 2. And the reason [for this] is because this commandment applies after they enter the Land, and it is a commandment to all Israel to observe [the laws of] the Daily Whole-offerings and the Additional Offerings [of the Sabbath and festivals] in their appointed times, and to bring their vow-offerings and freewill offerings. Furthermore, the main intention of the commandment [to offer up offerings] is that these days should be remembered and kept,²²⁵Esther 9:28. and to refrain on them from all servile work [and therefore it was told to all the children of Israel]. Now this section is like the section of the festivals in “the Law of the Priests” [i.e. the Book of Leviticus]. For it says there at the beginning, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,²²⁶Leviticus 23:2. and at the end it says, And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the Eternal,²²²Ibid., 23:44. and here likewise at the beginning [of the section it says], Command the children of Israel, and say unto them²²⁴Ibid., Verse 2. and at the end [in the verse before us] it says, And Moses told the children of Israel according to all that the Eternal commanded. It did not mention [here in this verse that Moses told] “the appointed seasons of the Eternal,” because in this section here other matters are mentioned [as well] which do not apply to “the appointed seasons of the Eternal,” such as the Daily Whole-offerings of weekdays, and the Additional Offerings of the Sabbath and the New Moons.
The interpretation given by Rabbi Yishmael [quoted above by Rashi] is because Scripture never has to say of Moses that he told the children of Israel all that G-d commanded him, [because it is self-understood that he always did so], and it is not usual for the Torah to say so at each and every section. Therefore the Rabbis [similarly] explained²²⁷Torath Kohanim, Emor 3:12. the verse, “And Moses spoke unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel²²¹Leviticus 21:24. — [as implying that] he warned Aaron about his sons [i.e., that Aaron as High Priest should preserve the sanctity of the Sanctuary, and prevent priests with a bodily blemish from performing the Divine Service], and [he warned] the sons concerning the Israelites [that they should prevent the Israelites from entering those parts of the Sanctuary which are forbidden to them], and [he warned] the Israelites about each other” [that they should each prevent the other from violating the sanctity of the Sanctuary]. And in the section of the festivals they explained [the verse, And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the Eternal]²²²Ibid., 23:44. in many ways. [Thus they said]:²²⁸Ibid., 17:12-13. “This teaches us that Moses used to tell Israel the laws of the Passover on Passover, the laws of Shavuoth [the Festival of Weeks] on Shavuoth, and the laws of Tabernacles on Tabernacles. [It further teaches us that] in the very language that he heard it [from G-d], he told it to Israel. And all the sections [mentioned here] are subject to the same law.²²⁹This means, as explained further, that just as fixing the days of the festivals [through the sanctification of the New Moon] can only be performed by a qualified court (see Vol. II, p. 116) so the adjudication of vows [mentioned in the following section] requires a court of qualified experts. Hence the statement: “All sections [mentioned here — namely the preceding one dealing with the festivals, and the following one treating of vows], are subject to the same law.” Rabbi Yosei the Galilean says: It states [and Moses declared unto the children of Israel] the appointed seasons of the Eternal,²²²Ibid., 23:44. but the Sabbath of Creation [i.e., the weekly Sabbath] was not said together with them.’²³⁰This means that the Sabbath, unlike the festivals, does not require “sanctification” by the court, since its sanctity is permanent and endures forever, being based on its original sanctification by G-d at the creation of the world (Genesis 2:3). Ben Azai says: It is said, [And Moses declared unto the children of Israel] the appointed seasons of the Eternal,²²²Ibid., 23:44. but the section of vows was not said together with them [as will be explained further on]. Rabbi²³¹This is Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi, the redactor of the Mishnah. Because of his great status, he is known simply as “Rabbi.” See also Vol. II, p. 349, Note 64. says: What does this verse — And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the Eternal²²²Ibid., 23:44. — come to tell us? Since [hitherto] we have only learnt that the Paschal-lamb and the Daily Whole-offering override the Sabbath [i.e., are brought on the Sabbath although they entail doing work which is normally forbidden], because it says about them in its appointed season²³²Above, 9:2 (Paschal-lamb). Ibid., 28:2 (Daily Whole-offering). [which includes even the Sabbath]; but we have not [yet] been taught that [the same applies to] the other public offerings. Therefore Scripture says: These ye shall offer unto the Eternal ‘in your appointed seasons’²³³Above, 29:39. thus indicating that all public offerings mentioned in this section of the Additional Offerings of the festivals, override the Sabbath. [But we still do not know that the sheaf [of new barley brought on the second day of Passover], and the offerings brought with it,²³⁴Leviticus 23:12-13. and the two loaves [brought on the Festival of Shavuoth] and the offerings that come with them²³⁵Ibid., Verses 17-18. [override the Sabbath, since they are not mentioned in this section of the offerings, and hence are not included in the phrase in your appointed seasons.²³³Above, 29:39. But when Scripture says [there], And Moses declared unto the children of Israel ‘the appointed seasons of the Eternal,’²²²Ibid., 23:44. it established ‘an appointed season’ for all [public offerings, so that they all override the Sabbath].” Thus far is the text of the Torath Kohanim.²²⁸Ibid., 17:12-13.
Now it is possible to say that the interpretation of Rabbi Yishmael who said that [the verse before us: And Moses told the children of Israel … is said] in order to separate the subject [of the offerings from that of the vows, as Rashi mentioned], is identical with that of Ben Azai, who said: “It says the appointed seasons of the Eternal,²²²Ibid., 23:44. but the section of vows was not said together with them,” meaning that the law of the festivals is not like the law of the section of vows, which was told to the heads of the tribes²³⁶Further, 30:2. in order to say that a single person who is expert [in the laws] can release a vow, and so can three ordinary people, for the festivals require the sanctification [of the New Moon] by a court of [at least] three experts, as is explained in [Tractate] Baba Bathra.²³⁷Baba Bathra 121a. Ben Azai thus derived this distinction between them [the festivals and vows] from the limiting phrase: [And Moses declared] the appointed seasons of the Eternal, and Rabbi Yishmael derived this [same] principle from the [apparent] redundancy of this verse [before us], and [hence he explained] that it only comes to separate the subject of the festivals from that of the vows. Thus both of them [Ben Azai and Rabbi Yishmael] are saying the same thing, differing only as to the text from which this law is derived.
The correct interpretation [of the words of Rabbi Yishmael who said that our verse comes only to separate the subjects] appears to me to be that he only intended to say [as follows]: Had He finished the section [here] of the festivals with [the verse]: These ye shall offer unto the Eternal in your appointed seasons,²³³Above, 29:39. and begun [immediately with the verse] And Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the thing which the Eternal hath commanded,²³⁶Further, 30:2. it would have been possible [to explain] that the verse refers to the previous [subject], meaning that Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes: “This is the thing which G-d commanded concerning the Daily Whole-offerings and the Additional Offerings” mentioned [previously], and the phrase unto the heads of the tribes would not be interpreted as referring to the following section of the vows. Therefore He divided [the subjects] and finished the section of the festivals [with the verse before us], And Moses told the children of Israel according to all that the Eternal commanded Moses, and then began the section of vows [with the statement] that Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes, This is the thing that the Eternal hath commanded.²³⁶Further, 30:2. This is the truth, for such is the explanation of [the expression] “to separate the subject” in many places in the Sifra and Sifre. And Rashi himself has already mentioned²³⁸Further, 31:17. what the Rabbis have said in the Sifre:²³⁹Sifre, Matoth 157. “[Now therefore kill every male among the little ones,] ‘and kill’ [every woman that hath known man by lying with him].²³⁸Further, 31:17. Why is [the expression]and kill used [since it has already been said once at the beginning of the verse]? It is to separate the subject. These are the words of Rabbi Yishmael. For if I were to read [the verse without the repetition of the expression ‘and kill,’ namely]: ‘Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and every woman that hath known man by lying with him. And all the women-children … [keep alive], I would not know what the verse is saying [about the women who have known man by lying with him — whether they are to be killed together with every male mentioned in the beginning of the verse, or to be kept alive together with all the women-children mentioned in the following verse]. Therefore it says [again], and kill, in order to separate the subject [from the following verse].’ These are the words of Rabbi Yishmael.” Similarly we find [such a usage of the expression “to separate the subject”] in other places in the Torath Kohanim [i.e., the Sifra].
Matoth

ככל אשר צוה ה׳ את משה in accordance with all that G'd commanded Moses. The Torah did not content itself with writing אותו, "him," but wrote instead את משה, although the word "him" would have been quite unmistakable. The reason is that we deal with an independent statement by the Torah, i.e. a testimony by the Torah that what Moses conveyed to the people was exactly what G'd had commanded him to convey. It was not merely what Moses thought that G'd had commanded him to convey.

ויאמר משה אל בני ישראל, “Moses said to the Children of Israel, etc.” Rashi, basing himself on Rabbi Yishmael in the Sifri, justifies this verse by stating that whereas up until now the Torah had reported the words of G’d to Israel, the legislation introduced about vows could prove confusing as the pronoun endings in the words לבד מנדריכם, “except for your vows, etc.” in verse 29,39 could have been misunderstood in that Moses did not teach the legislation about the offerings on the festivals until each festival was about to occur. By making an interval before the legislation about vows in chapter thirty, it becomes clear that what was written before had already been revealed to the people by Moses. Nachmanides comments that he does not understand what Rashi had in mind. He quotes Leviticus 21,24 where at the conclusion of the chapter dealing with physical blemishes which disqualify a priest from offering sacrifices in the Temple, there is a similar verse to that we find here although one could not possibly justify that verse by the type of the reader’s confusion cited by Rabbi Yishmael in the Sifri, the subject at the beginning of chapter 22 being one that is totally different from that just concluded. Moreover, at the end of Leviticus, when Moses had concluded the legislation about the festivals, [excluding the sacrificial service on those days, Ed.] the Torah also inserts a verse signaling this conclusion when writing וידבר משה את מועדי ה' אל בני ישראל, “Moses informed the Children of Israel of the festivals of Hashem” (Leviticus 23,44). The subject matter commencing with chapter 24 there also does not allow for any confusion with what preceded it, and yet the Torah saw fit to insert an apparently superfluous verse. According to the plain meaning of the text, we have to understand that although in the most recently concluded chapter the role of Aaron and his sons, [the role of the priests, generally, Ed,] had not been spelled out, as opposed to the legislation about the festivals in the requisite chapters in Leviticus, and the words of Moses are reported as addressed “only” to “the Children of Israel,” this must not be misunderstood. Once the Children of Israel would take up residence in the Holy Land, some of them hundreds of kilometers from Jerusalem, they might think that the whole subject of sacrificial service on the festivals is one reserved for the priests. By stressing that Moses addressed the Children of Israel, ignoring the priests as people who are different, the Torah reminded the people at large that all of them had a vital role to play in making these festivals meaningful, the duty for the males to make a pilgrimage being only one part of this. Not only this, Moses did not even repeat the term מועדי ה'', “Hashem’s festivals,” which had been used so prominently in the relevant chapters in Leviticus. All of this was designed to impress the people that the legislation was relevant in the highest degree to the entire nation, to all its members. As to the Sifri, i.e. the Midrash of Rabbi Yishmael quoted by Rashi, the meaning of the word להפסיק, to establish a break in continuity, is that contrary to the principle of establishing conceptual linkages, based on two subjects in the Torah being written one adjoining the other, here we are not to apply the principle of דורשים סמוכים, of trying to make halachic parallels between such subjects. Personally, (Nachmanides speaking) what Rabbi Yishmael had in mind was that if the Torah had concluded the previous section with the line אלה תעשו לה' במועדיכם, (29,39) and had immediately commenced with וידבר משה אל ראשי המטות זה הדבר וגו', “Moses spoke to the heads of the various tribes: this is the thing that Hashem has commanded, etc.,” we would have construed the next chapter as being a continuation of the previous chapter, and would have assumed that the entire legislation about the public offerings to be presented in the Temple on the various festivals had been relayed by Moses to the heads of the tribes, for them in turn to relay it to the individual members of each tribe, instead of our knowing that the entire legislation had been communicated by Moses directly to the whole people.

Because up until this point we have the words of the Omnipresent. Rashi is answering the question: It is obvious that he said [over] all that Hashem had commanded him! Furthermore, in the entire Torah it mentions the command alone, so why here does it mention the command and also Moshe’s words to Yisroel? He answers that “because…”

Kap. 30. V. 1. ויאמר משה. Die Anordnung der Festopfer ist das letzte Kapitel des eigentlichen Gesetzes. Ihm folgt nur noch פרשת נדרים, das Kapitel über Gelübde, dessen Inhalt ja die freiwillige Gesetzgebung, d. i. die Sanktion und die Begrenzung solcher unsere Willenstätigkeit normierenden Bestimmungen bildet, die nicht Gott, sondern die wir uns selbst festgestellt, ein Kapitel, dessen Prinzipien ja die Basis auch jener statutarischen Bestimmungen und Gewohnheitsrechte, תקנות und מנהגים bilden, die, aus den Vereinbarungen und dem praktischen Gesamtleben der Gemeinde hervorgegangen, die Verwirklichung der göttlichen Gesetze nach Eigentümlichkeit lokaler Verhältnisse regeln und sicher stellen. Wir glauben daher, in dem ויאמר משה אל בני ישראל ככל אשר צוה ד׳ את משה einen auf die ganze Gesetzgebung zurückblickenden Schlusssatz zu erkennen. Es kommt, wenn wir nicht irren, ein Bericht darüber, dass Mosche ein gewordenes spezielles Gesetz dem Volke mitgeteilt, in dieser Fassung: ויאמר וגו׳ ככל וגו׳ nicht weiter vor. Charakteristisch ist ויאמר, das ja in der Regel Erläuterung eines bereits Bekannten bezeichnet, namentlich aber der Ausdruck: ככל, wodurch die Mitteilung über den bloßen Gesetzesausspruch hinausgeht und auch das "Wie", die Modalitäten umfasst, wie der Ausspruch verstanden und aufgefasst werden will. Ein Ausdruck, der daher sonst nur in dem Bericht über die Ausführung eines Gesetzes vorkommt, ויעשו בני ישראל ככל אשר צוה ד׳ את משה כן עשו (Kap. 1, 54 und sonst häufig), wo es eben sagen will, dass sie nicht nur das Gebotene im allgemeinen, sondern auch so, in allen Einzelheiten zur Erfüllung gebracht, wie es erfüllt sein wollte. Wörtlich heißt daher der Satz: Mosche erläuterte Israels Söhnen das "Wie" alles dessen, welches Gott Mosche geboten hatte. Es sagt dies zum Schlusse der ganzen bisherigen Gesetzgebung, dass dem Volke nicht nur die kurzgefassten Sätze mitgeteilt worden, in welchen das Gesetz hier schriftlich vorliegt, sondern, dass ihnen Mosche jedes Gesetz erläutert in der ganzen Modalität seines Inhalts zum Bewusstsein brachte. Nur noch einmal, soweit wir glauben, kommt dieser Ausdruck: בכל bei Mitteilung des Gesetzes vor (Dewarim 1, 4): ויהי וגו׳ דבר משה אל בני ישראל ככל אשר צוה ד׳ אתו אליהם und auch dort bezieht er sich offenbar auf die ganze Gesetzgebung, die Mosche vor seinem Tode nicht nur in kurzen Sätzen, sondern mit dem ganzen "Wie" des Inhalts nochmals (דבר) zum Ausspruch brachte. Es war bereits בדבור und באמירה, kurzgefasst und ausführlich erläutert, dem Volke tradiert. Beides wurde jetzt "repetiert".