Musar על שמואל ב 12:13

The Zohar, quoting Rabbi Chiyah on 9,27: "do not pay heed to the obstinacy of this people," asks how could Moses ask the King of Kings not to look in a certain direction when G–d looks into our hearts without even having the need to turn in any direction? G–d says of Himself (Jeremiah 23,24) that no matter how much a person tries to hide from Him he will not succeed because He has His eye trained on everything! However, the answer is as follows: Every good deed performed by a person appears before the Lord claiming it has been performed by its patron. G–d places it in a position where He constantly reminds Himself of the person who produced this positive force. The same is equally true of the transgressions performed by man. Each one assumes a posture before G–d accusing its patron of wrong-doing. This is the meaning of Deut. 32,19: וירא ה' וינאץ מכעס בניו ובנותיו "G–d saw and was vexed, and spurned His sons and daughters." What is the meaning of "He saw?" He saw what was standing before Him. As regards a penitent, on the other hand, we read in Samuel II 12,13: גם ה' העביר חטאתך לא תמות, "The Lord has remitted your sin; you shall not die." The expression העביר does not mean that the sin has been wiped out, but that G–d no longer focuses His attention on it so as to be able to treat the respective person well. When Moses asked G–d not to turn His attention to the obstinacy of the Jewish people this is what he had in mind.

In the preceding chapters we spoke about the individual. How much more so must one take great heed not to impute liability to Israel in general, for this sin is very severe. As we find in Pesachim 87b on Proverbs 30:10 "'Speak not ill of a servant to his master… a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.' …Even a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother — do not speak ill of it to its Master — the Holy One Blessed be He." And see now [the instance of] Isaiah the prophet. When he saw the glory of the L-rd and said (Isaiah 6:5): "Woe unto me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips; and in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell, etc." — because he said "and in the midst of a people of unclean lips," even though his intent in this was not to shame Israel, (for he said this also of himself) but only to say that he was not worthy of seeing the Shechinah, neither in point of his deeds nor of those of the people in whose midst he dwelt — in spite of this, see what follows (Ibid. 6): "Then one of the seraphs flew unto me [Isaiah] and in his hand was a live coal [ritzpah]," concerning which Chazal say that "ritzpah" is acronymic of "retzoth peh" ["crush the mouth"] that slanders My children." And he died as a result of this, as they say in Yevamoth 49b: "[He (Isaiah) uttered the Name and was 'swallowed up' in a cedar.] the cedar was brought and sawed. When it [the saw] came to his mouth, he died, [this, for having said 'And in the midst of a people of unclean lips do I dwell.']"

ויחר אף ה' בם, וילך . It is difficult to understand why G–d's anger is mentioned only here, after He had already dressed down Miriam and Aaron (12,4). The reason is that as soon as Miriam and Aaron had heard from G–d Himself that they had sinned, they should have confessed their sin, as David had done when the prophet Nathan told him he had committed a wrong with Bat Sheva (Samuel II 12,13).