Musar su Numeri 7:89

Once Jacob died, Moses became the second "husband" of the relevant שכינה [presumably the "upper" one, בינה, seeing that Moses had attained 49 of the 50 levels of בינה Ed.]. However, this union could last only while Moses lived on this earth, since upon the death of a wife's second husband she "returns" to her former husband, having only been on "loan" during the interval. Since Jacob was by then in the Holy Land, Moses, automatically had to remain outside the Holy Land. The reason that Jacob was buried body and bones in ארץ ישראל is that he represented the גוף, body, of the ארץ של ישראל סבא, as we have mentioned before. Joseph, being the extension of his father, was the extension of the גוף, limbs or bones. These "bones" symbolize the spiritual forces or permutations of G–d's Ineffable Name that radiate in all directions from the emanation בינה, enabling a physical universe to take shape. A צדיק, as such is also called צבאות, part of G–d's armies or executive arm. It was therefore appropriate that Joseph's bones rather than his entire body were interred in ארץ ישראל. None of this reflects negatively on Moses. On the contrary, whereas Moses was able to establish a union with the "upper" level of the שכינה during his life on earth, Jacob established his union with that level of the שכינה only after he had departed. We find an allusion to Moses' intimacy with that part of the שכינה in Numbers 7,89, where the way the Torah describes Moses' being at home in the אהל מועד, the visible manifestation of the בינה on earth, is most striking. Moses did not need to be invited in; he acted as if he were the owner of that domain. The author finds in the number of the 600,000 Jews that left Egypt allusions to the radiations of the various combinations of G–d's Name in all the six directions of the compass, proof that Moses led the people by means of the power inherent in the emanation בינה. If Moses was already on such a level while his soul was still enshrined in his body, it is clear that once Moses died, his soul would ascend to an even higher region than the level represented by בינה. That level, which we have described elsewhere as יובל, is beyond any level associated with any of the three levels to which the term ארץ can be applied. Moses' being "buried" in what we commonly call חוץ לארץ is a compliment to him thus rather than a reminder of some inadequacy on his part. In fact, once Moses' life on earth had come to an end, he joined the souls of "his" 600,000 people who also had not been buried in the Holy Land. If we find that Moses separated from his terrestrial wife Tzipporah –something used by his sister Miriam as an accusation against him in Numbers 12,1 – the reason was simply that Moses had already "used" [in the sense that one has relations with one's wife. Ed.] the spiritual light from extra-terrestrial regions as we know from Exodus 34,29 where Moses is described as emitting supernatural light from his face. Having a "wife" in those regions, it is easy to understand that Moses could no longer share life with a wife on earth. Jacob, on the other hand, had married four wives and had shared a fully terrestrial life with them, one of the reasons that his bed, מטה, was called שלימה, "complete" by our sages. This means that only upon his death did his רוח ונשמה, soul and spirit, merit entry to the seventh level i.e. בינה.

When we keep this in mind we can understand the Midrash Rabbah 3,1 on Song of Songs 3,9 אפריון עשה לו המלך שלמה, that "King Solomon made for himself a canopy," as referring to the construction of the Tabernacle. Rabbi Yehudah bar Ulla explains this by means of the following parable: A king had a young daughter. As long as she did not reach the age of puberty, he would meet her in public and speak with her both in public and private. Once she reached the age of puberty the king said to himself that it was no longer seemly that he should converse with his daughter in public. He therefore constructed a pavilion for her so that whenever he felt the need to converse with his daughter he could do so within this pavilion. We find an allusion to this in Hoseah 11,1: "For when Israel was still a child I fell in love with Israel." As long as the people of Israel were in their national infancy in Egypt, they saw manifestations of G–d all around them such as when G–d smote the Egyptians both in Egypt and later on when He drowned them in the sea. This was a public manifestation as testified to in Exodus 14,31: "Israel saw the great hand of the Lord and what He did to Egypt". Even infants would point with their fingers declaring "This is my G–d I shall glorify Him" (Exodus 15,2). At Sinai they beheld G–d "face to face," as we know from Deuteronomy 33,2: "He (Moses) said The Lord came from Sinai, He shone upon them from Se-ir; He appeared from Mount Paran." At that point Israel received the Torah and declared כל אשר דבר ה' נעשה ונשמע, "All that the Lord has said, we shall do and hear." As a consequence Israel became G–d's nation in the fullest meaning of the word. G–d next said Himself that it was no longer seemly that He should speak to them in public, without the benefit of privacy, so He instructed them to build a Tabernacle so that whenever He wished to speak to them, He would do so from the interior of the Tabernacle. This is the meaning of Numbers 7,89: "Whenever Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he would hear the voice of G–d addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Covenant between the two cherubim; thus He spoke to him." Thus far the statement of Rabbi Yehudah bar Ulla.