Musar su II Samuele 12:38

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).

It is written, “Do not turn towards the obstinacy of this people and its wickedness and its sinfulness” (Devarim 9:27). This is explained in the Zohar in Parashas Kedoshim (83b): Come and see. When a man performs a mitzvah it ascends and stands before the Holy One Blessed is He and proclaims, “So-and-so made me.” And the Holy One Blessed is He appoints it to remain before Him so that He will lay His eyes upon it the entire day and bestow goodness upon that person on account of it. And if a person transgresses the Torah that transgression ascends before the Holy One Blessed is He and says, “So-and-so made me.” And the Holy One Blessed is He appoints it to remain before Him so that He will lay His eyes upon it and remove the person from the world. This is the meaning of the verse, “And Hashem saw and reviled” (Devarim 32:19). “And He saw” — the transgression standing before Him. If the person repented it is written concerning him, “Hashem has also removed your sin; you will not die” (II Shmuel:12:13). That is, He removes the transgression from before Him so that He will no longer look upon it. This is the meaning of the verse, “Do not turn towards the obstinacy of this people and its wickedness and its sinfulness.”

Rabbi Yochanan looks at the chain reaction which follows performance of the first מצוה and deems it as sufficient to attract blessings from G–d. He presumably took his cue from Job 33,23: אם יש עליו מלאך מליץ אחד מני אלף להגיד לאקדם ישרו, "If he has a representative (angel), one advocate against a thousand, to declare the man's uprightness." In line with the tradition that every מצוה performed results in the creation of a "good" angel, Rabbi Yochanan feels that such an advocate is already something substantive. When the Torah speaks about the curse in 11,28, it makes certain that the words לא תשמעון are followed immediately by the words וסרתם מן הדרך, "you depart from the path," a reference to action. While G–d grants blessing for a good intention even when it could not be translated into action, He does not curse for the mere failure to listen to the commandments, to Torah lectures. Only once such non-study and non-preparedness to listen results in violation of the commandments will the punishment take into account the attitude displayed which led to the violation. Midrash Shmuel on Avot 3,1 "then you will not commit a sin," points out that Akavyah does not speak about the sin coming to you but about you coming to the sin. With the right attitude you can stop yourself even when the sin has come quite close to you. The Torah uses the word ראה in the singular, instead of ראו, plural which would have matched the rest of the verse, in order to underline the importance of the performance of even a single commandment.