Commento su Deuteronomio 34:6

ויקבר אותו AND HE BURIED HIM — i.e. The Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory, buried him (Sotah 14a). R. Ishmael, however, said, It means: “He buried himself”. This (the word אותו) is one of the three cases of את with a pronominal suffix which R. Ishmael explained thus (as being reflexive and not accusative pronouns). Similar to it is: (Numbers 6:13; see Rashi thereon) “On the day when his naziritehood is fulfilled, he shall bring אותו”, i.e. he shall bring (present) himself. Similar to it is, (Leviticus 22:16) “And they will burden אותם with iniquity of trespass”. But did others burden them (the priests) with that iniquity? But the meaning is that they burdened themselves (Sifrei Bamidbar 32).

ויקבור אותו, if Moses buried himself, as is the opinion of some of our commentators, (compare Rashi) it would have been his disembodied soul that accomplished this, for it is stated clearly that his body died on the summit of the mountain from which he viewed the Holy Land, as the Torah wrote in verse 5: “Moses died there.” On the other hand, the burial is described in our verse as having taken place in the valley.

עד היום הזה, until this day. These are G'd's words recorded by Moses. The same applies to the previous statement: "Moses died there."

The Holy One, Blessed is He, in His glory. They expound this since the two are juxtaposed to each other. By the mouth of Hashem [followed by] He buried him.

V. 6. ויקבר אתו בגי. Nach Sota 9 b ist das Subjekt von ויקבר der vorhergehende ׳על פי ד׳ ,ד, und wird daselbst 14 a darauf hingewiesen, wie Anfang und Ende der תורה Gott selbst in vom Menschen nachzuahmender Übung der גמילות חסדים an Lebenden und Toten zeigt, Bereschit 3, 21 gibt Gottes Beispiel als מלביש ערומים, unsere Stelle alle דרש רבי שמלאי תורה תחלתה גמילות חסדים וסופה .קובר מתים גמילות חסדים תחלתה גמילות חסדים דכתיב ויעש ד׳ אלקים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות עור וילבישם וסופה גמילות חסדים דכתיב ויקבר אותו בגי. Nach ר׳ ישמעאל (Sifri zu Bamidbar 6, 13) wäre aber אתו reflexiv, er begrub sich, er legte sich selbst ins Grab, um dort zu sterben, ähnlich wie אתו אל פתח אהל מוער (Dewarim 6, 13) und והשיאו אותם עון אשמה (Wajikra 22, 16); siehe daselbst. — קבורה ,ולא ידע איש את קברתו: Grab, wie מצה אל קבורתה (Bereschit 35, 20), וקברתני בקבורתם (daselbst 47, 30). Wenn man erwägt, welchen oft an Abgötterei streifenden Kultus die Grabstätten großer, um die Menschheit verdienter Männer gefunden haben, so begreift man die Größe dieses letzten Zuges im Lebensbild unseres Mosche.

ויקבר אותו בגיא, “He was buried in the valley;” we have been given three points as to where Moses grave was situated. A) in the valley; B) in which valley? “in the land of Moav;” C) at what location? opposite Beyt Peor. Even after having been given these three details still no one ever located the precise point where Moses is buried. (Talmud tractate Sotah folio 13) This proves that he was not buried by a human being.

מול בית פעור OPPOSITE BETH PEOR — His grave was prepared there ever since the six days of Creation, to atone for the incident regarding Peor (see Numbers 25) (Sotah 14a). This (Moses' grave) was one of the things that were created “between the twilights” on the eve of the Sabbath [in the week of the Creation] (Pirkei Avot 5:6; Pesachim 54a).

I have seen a comment by Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra according to which these lines were written by Joshua. It is not proper to write such things and present them as the plain meaning of the verses; this would give rise to the impression that Moses had not completed the written Torah himself when he handed it over to the Levites. I have heard a number of our people who are very confused about this section and who as a result may commit heresy in their attitude to the written Torah. Comments such as the one I have quoted in the name of Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra are typical of the Gentiles who claim that Israelites have tampered with the text of the holy Torah so that it contains things which were not there originally while it omits things which had been included originally. We must accept the statement in Baba Batra 15 that Moses wrote the entire Torah whereas he completed the writing of these last eight verses by using tears instead of ink [or by weeping while writing it. Ed.]. [This criticism of Ibn Ezra seems hard to accept as there is an opinion in the Talmud (Rabbi Yehudah) on the folio we have quoted that Joshua wrote these last eight verses. Surely our author does not include the Talmud in his accusation! Perhaps the author had a version of the Ibn Ezra in which the last eight verses are described as having been written by Joshua at a later stage of his life. Ed.]

עד היום הזה siehe zu Bereschit 32, 33.

עד היום הזה, “until this day.” The principal reason for this is to make it impossible for anyone to be buried next to him. This was in order to prevent necromancers from using this site for their purposes.

מול בית פעור, “opposite Bet-Peor.” According to our sages Tanchuma Ki Tissa 20, Moses had been afraid of certain negative phenomena in the form of מלאכי חבלה, destructive angels, already at the time of the golden calf when he was on Mount Sinai. Banishing these forces could never be more than temporary, and the events at Bal Pe-or, (probably identical with Bet-Pe-or) reflected a failure on his part to counter these forces a second time. Compare what the author wrote on Numbers 17,11 יצא הקצף. Moses, who had not banished the fifth of these negative forces described as חמה, permanently, was buried facing the earthly residence of this force so as to oppose it even in death and thereby to protect his people against this force opening its mouth and accusing Israel of idolatrous conduct. We find that the Men of the Great Assembly are reported to have done something similar when they tried to banish the evil urge, throwing it into a pot of scalding water (euphemisms, of course, compare Talmud Yuma 69). At any rate, according to this Midrashic interpretation, the fact that Moses’ grave was near such an abomination is not to be construed negatively but positively, reflecting Moses’ ongoing concern to protect his people even in death.

ולא ידע איש את קבורתו, “and no man knew (the exact site of) his grave.” The word מקום which should have preceded the word “his grave,” has been deliberately omitted to indicate that it remains unknown.