Musar su Numeri 11:12

To be like a father: And Wisdom is also a Father to all that exist, as it is written (Psalms 104:24), "How many are Your creations, Lord; You made all of them with wisdom" - and they are living and survive from There. So [too,] must he be a father to all of the creations of the Holy One, blessed be He, and to Israel, the essence - as they are the holy souls emanated from There. And he [should] always seek mercy and blessing for the world - in the way that the Highest Father is a Merciful One upon His creatures - and always pray about the distress of those in distress, as if they were his actual children and as if he created them. As this is the will of the Holy One, blessed be He - in the way that the faithful shepherd stated (Numbers 11:12), "Did I conceive all this people, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom.'" And in this [way], he [should] carry all of the people of God 'as a nurse carries an infant' - 'with his forearm he gathers the lambs, with his bosom carries, leads the nurse-mothers.' He [should] remember the hidden, seek the young, heal the broken, sustain the needy and return the lost. And he [should] have mercy on Israel and carry their load with a pleasant countenance - like the Highest Merciful One, who tolerates everything and does not wither nor ignore nor get sick [of them], but [rather] leads each one according to his need.

ומשה היה רועה את הצאן. The shepherd displays kindness towards his flock in ensuring they do not eat what is not their master's, by enforcing his will with the staff. Similarly, G–d tends Israel and by the legislation in the Torah He sees to it that we stay on the right path.

Whenever we find Israel quarreling with Moses, such a quarrel can be viewed from two aspects, – negatively, that Israel was either ungrateful or too demanding, – or positively, that the very fact of Israel's constant demands represents a great compliment to Moses, for it showed that they looked upon him as a child does on his father, expecting the father to be able to fulfill every one of the child's wishes. As long as Israel did not refuse to go into battle after they had heard that doing so would hasten Moses' death, there was room to interpret their conduct in either direction. Now that they had refused to undertake a mission that would shorten Moses' life, it became clear that any negative character attributed to them was based only on their excessive expectations of Moses, whom they looked up to as a child would to his father.

Another allusion to this triple concept of G–d-Torah-Israel is found at the very beginning of Bereshit Rabbah, where Rabbi Aushiyah deals with Proverbs 8,30: ואהיה אצלו אמון, ואהיה שעשועים, יום משחקת לפני בכל עת, "Then I was with Him as an artisan; I was His delight daily, always rejoicing before Him." Rabbi Oshiyah says that the word אמון in that verse means both פדגוג, "a male nurse or tutor," a term used by Moses when he complained to G–d how he was expected to play nursemaid to the Jewish people (Numbers 11,12). He also understands the same word to mean something מוצנע, hidden, based on Esther 2,7 describing Mordechai as "hiding" Esther so that she would not have to participate in the Royal beauty contest. Rabbi Aushiyah adds that some understand the word אמון to mean "big." This is based on Nachum 3,8: התיטבי מנא אמון, "Were you any better than No Amon?" which the Targum renders as: הא את מבא מאלכסנדריא רבתא דיתבא בין נהרותא "are you better than the important city Alexandria which is situated between two rivers?"

Nonetheless it is difficult to see how the terms אמון, and פדגוג can be equated. The word that should have been used by the Midrash is אומן, the same word used by the Torah in Numbers 11,12. Posssibly the word אמון means tutor in the sense that the tutor is faithfully carrying out the master's instructions, much as Esther is described as maintaining her loyalty to Mordechai's instructions even when she was in the king's palace by the words כאשר באמנה אתו, "just as when she had still been in the house of Mordechai" (Esther 2,20). We would have to regard the letter ב in the word באמנה as something that could have been dispensed with just as it has been dispensed with in Psalms 45,8 משחך אלוקים שמן ששון, "the Lord anointed you with oil of gladness" (the letter ב in front of the word שמן being conspicuously absent, though implied). Alternatively, we can accept the view of Ibn Ezra that the word is a noun. Ibn Ezra explains that G–d had been Esther's tutor, that the word אתו refers to Him, that Esther's loyalty was to G–d. According to this view we deal with an allusion to the tremendous power of Torah and its exalted position in G–d's scheme of things. [I believe this is a printer's error as I have not found such an Ibn Ezra, and it is not his style at all. Perhaps the author means the קו ונקי, whose text I have not seen. Ed.]

And when the time comes to deliver the child to the charge of the school so that he may study with his teacher, the father should rise early and awaken the child and then take him personally to the teacher’s house. Even if the father is elderly or a man of stature or a communal leader or rabbi, let him not be ashamed to bring his son to the teacher’s house for the first time. And let him give praise and thanksgiving to the Holy One Blessed is He for granting him the merit of bringing his son under the wings of the Shechinah. Along the way either the father or the mother should cover the child with his garment so that he will not gaze upon any impure creature. Then after the child has been brought to the teacher’s house he should be delivered into the teacher’s lap, in keeping with the verse, “As a pedagogue bears a suckling child” (Bamidbar 11:12), and the verse, “And I have accustomed Efraim to take them upon his arms” (Hoshea 11:3).