Pemikiran Yahudi Kejadian 5:24: Akeidat Yitzchak, Kuzari & Yesod Mora VeSod HaTorah

Since man's greatest misfortune is the inescapable need to die, and since certain superior individuals such as the prophet Elijah or Enoch are reported to have ascended to Heaven without undergoing physical death first, it seems strange that Moses the most perfect human being, should have died and been buried just like any ordinary mortal. True, he was buried by the Lord Himself, nevertheless, why should he not at least have been the equal of Elijah? (see Kings II 2, or Gnenesis 5,25) Since the Torah exhorts us repeatedly to observe certain commandments so that we should not die, dying must be viewed as a negative experience, possibly the ultimate negative experience. Moses' superiority to angels, is described by Sifri in Parshat vayelech in the following story. G'd said to the angel of death, "go and bring Me the soul of Moses." The angel went, stood by the side of Moses and asked him for his soul. Moses replied: "in a place where I am permitted to remain seated, you are not even allowed to remain standing; how could you have the temerity to demand my soul?" The angel of death withdrew angrily and reported back to the Almighty. G'd simply repeated His instructions to the angel once more. The angel of death returned once more to the place he had found Moses the last time, only to find that Moses had moved on since then. Enquiries from the sea as to Moses' present whereabouts, elicited the reply that the sea had not seen him since he had split the sea of reeds at the time the Jewish people crossed it at the Exodus. When the mountains and valleys were asked if they had seen Moses, they replied that G'd must have hidden him in a place no one knew of, since it is written "He buried him in the valley etc. (Deut 34,6) At any rate, from the description in the Sifri it is evident that the thought that Moses was merely another mortal was difficult for anyone to accept. Nonetheless, the Midrash deserves further analysis.

The solution to our problem may be Kohelet 12,7, "dust must return to earth, to its original state, whereas the spirit will return to G'd who had supplied it." The ultimate destiny of man then lies in the complete separation of spirit an matter. Life in the olam haba, the world beyond death, therefore, does not include any part of the body. ( see chapter eighty on the waters of strife) When Solomon concludes the statement quoted above with the words "vanity of vanities says Kohelet, all is vanity,” he omits some of the "vanities" he had mentioned in the opening chapters.(see Kohelet 1, verse 2) The body's function during life on earth, is to assist the mind, the spirit. Since most people's minds are materialistically oriented, they experience a strong pull of their body on their spirits at the time of death. This results in part of their spirit, i.e. a residue of the soul being unable to realease itself from the body. This is why that part of the soul absorbs some of the impurity of the dead body. This is the meaning of the statement in Berachot 8, "the soul of the wicked is as difficult to extract as wool from amongst thorns." The reference is to the spirit of impurity mentioned in Zecharyah 13,2. Seeing that most of mankind belongs to the category mentioned, the Torah decrees tum-ah, a state of impurity for the dead body. This impurity does not originate in matter, but in the corruption wreaked on the body by the spirit. The body, instead of having become the vehicle to advance the spirituality of the soul, had reversed the process. These bodies did not fulfil Solomon's dictum of returning to the dust in their original state. The concept of a twelve month period during which the soul keeps up some sort of intermittent contact with the body, reflects this idea. In a very few cases, peoples' lives follow the opposite pattern, inasmuch as their bodies become subservient to their spirituality. At death, the body then finds it difficult to separate from the soul, and to be left behind. In such cases, traces of the body, so to speak, try to escape towards Heaven together with the soul. Elijah's clothing, including his body would be burned off in the fiery elements he had to traverse in his ascent towards Heaven. A still better way of separating the body from the soul, is the clean break between body and soul at the precise moment of death, something accomplished by the very, very few. In those cases no impurity adheres to the physical remains at all, i.e. the dust is not impure and cannot become impure in its original state. When the Talmud says about Rabbeynu ha-kadosh that on the day he died priesthood became annulled, this is what the author of that statement Rabbi Chiyah had in mind. A person of the calibre of Rabbeynu hakadosh, who could say of himself that he had never enjoyed a physical satisfaction from his body, would not be forbidden contact with a priest when he died. The priest would be allowed to remain under the same roof with such a person's remains, seeing no impurity had attached itself to them. Herein lies the key to understanding the Sifri concerning the mission of the angel of death, and Moses' reaction to it. G'd had said to the angel "bring Me the soul of Moses." When Moses heard the angel of death say "give me your soul," he thought that the angel of death was trying to demonstrate his power, i.e. the power of ra, evil, over Moses. This is why he sent him away angrily. The body is composed of a mixture of four basic materials, i.e. fire, water, earth (dust) and wind (air). When the body develops a weakness, it is a sign that the four raw materials no longer work in harmony. The cause is due to an imbalance of the spiritual and material pressures within man. Death, i.e. separation of body and soul, must be preceded by the dissolution of the fusion of the four basic ingredients of the body. Moses, who knew that such a process had not yet commenced within him, knew that death due to this imbalance of forces did not apply to him yet. The angel of death had misunderstood his mission, which was simply to bring about the dissolution of the bond that held these four basic material ingredients together. Once this had been done, a clean break of body and soul would occur. When the Midrash describes the angel as approaching gehinnom, the mountains and the hosts of angels, to find out Moses' whereabouts, this describes the angel's search to see if any of the four basic materials had shown signs of weakening in Moses, and could form the basis for his being able to perform his usual task. He found that this had not occurred, and came back to G'd, mission unaccomplished. When G'd sent him out a second time, without changing the instructions, this showed that it had been the angel who had misunderstood, not that the instructions had not been precise enough. The fact that G'd Himself buried Moses, emphasises the separation of body and soul had been complete, instantaneous, that there had been no tum-ah at all. How else could G'd have involved Himself in Moses' burial, since He would then come into contact with impurity? This was an act of unprecedented love shown for any human being. Our sages see in the fact that the site of Moses' burial has never ben revealed, a retribution for Moses not having displayed sufficient fervor in the matter of Zimri cohabiting with the Midianite woman Kosbi. This had resulted in the need for Pinchas to take the law into his own hands. The message of the Midrash then is, that those who looked for Moses' burial place on the mountain, had ascribed super human qualities to him. They had to be reminded by seeing him buried in the valley, that even a Moses had human failings. Those, on the other hand, who had searched for his grave in the valley, only to see it on the mountain, had to be reminded that Moses did in fact tower high above other human beings. The fact that the site of the grave remains undisclosed, teaches that a true assessment of the complex personality of Moses is even beyond our sages. The term lakach hashem, G'd took, an expression we find when the wife of the prophet Ezekiel died, as well as when Enoch and Elijah left this earth, denotes that the earthly lives of these people were utterly fulfilled. When our sages say that Elijah did not die, the meaning is that he completed the earthly part of his life only. There remained other parts of his life to be fulfilled in a domain that does not know death. (Moed Katan 26) Our sages have made a general rule that "the righteous are called alive when they have died." In the case of Elijah, this is carried a bit further. Elijah did not even appear to die, hence there was no need for us to be told that appearances notwithstanding, he was not dead. Elijah, having wished himself an experience similar to that of Moses, was commanded to ascend to Heaven in the vicinity of the site where Moses had been buried, (see chapter 35)

THE RABBI: According to our view a servant of God is not one who detaches himself from the world, lest he be a burden to it, and it to him; or hates life, which is one of God's bounties granted to him, as it is written: 'The number of thy days I will fulfill'; 'Thou shalt live long' (Exodus 23:26). On the contrary, he loves the world and a long life, because it affords him opportunities of deserving the world to come. The more good he does the greater is his claim to the next world. He even reaches the degree of Enoch, concerning whom it is said: 'And Enoch walked with God' (Genesis 5:24); or the degree of Elijah, freed from worldly matters, and to be admitted to the realm of angels. In this case he feels no loneliness in solitude and seclusion, since they form his associates. He is rather ill at ease in a crowd, because he misses the divine presence which enables him to dispense with eating and drinking. Such persons might perhaps be happier in complete solitude; they might even welcome death, because it leads to the step beyond which there is none higher. Philosophers and scholars also love solitude to refine their thoughts, and to reap the fruits of truth from their researches, in order that all remaining doubts be dispelled by truth. They only desire the society of disciples who stimulate their research and retentiveness, just as he who is bent upon making money would only surround himself with persons with whom he could do lucrative business. Such a degree is that of Socrates and those who are like him. There is no one nowadays who feels tempted to strive for such a degree, but when the Divine Presence was still in the Holy Land among the people capable of prophecy, some few persons lived an ascetic life in deserts and associated with people of the same frame of mind. They did not seclude themselves completely, but they endeavoured to find support in the knowledge of the Law and in holy and pure actions which brought them near to that high rank. These were the disciples of prophets. He, however, who in our time, place, and people, 'whilst no open vision exists' (I Samuel 3:1), the desire for study being small, and persons with a natural talent for it absent, would like to retire into ascetic solitude, only courts distress and sickness for soul and body. The misery of sickness is visibly upon him, but one might regard it as the consequence of humility and contrition. He considers himself in prison as it were, and despairs of life from disgust of his prison and pain, but not because he enjoys his seclusion. How could it be otherwise? He has no intercourse with the divine light, and cannot associate himself with it as the prophets. He lacks the necessary learning to be absorbed in it and to enjoy it, as the philosophers did, all the rest of his life. Suppose he is God-fearing, righteous, desires to meet his God in solitude, standing, humbly and contritely, reciting as many prayers and supplications as he possibly can remember, all this affords him satisfaction for a few days as long as it is new. Words frequently repeated by the tongue lose their influence on the soul, and he cannot give to the latter humbleness or submission. Thus he remains night and day, whilst his soul urges him to employ its innate powers in seeing, hearing, speaking, occupation, eating, cohabitation, gain, managing his house, helping the poor, upholding the law with money in case of need. Must he not regret those things to which he has tied his soul, a regret which tends to remove him from the Divine Influence, which he desired to approach?