출애굽기 28:30의 유대 사상

The answer: Our sages of blessed memory have already apprised us that all of the judgments of the Holy One Blessed be He are measure for measure. This holds for reward as well as for punishment. The Blessed One desired that it be so in order that the idea of Divine Providence be implanted in the hearts of men. For if the goodly reward were not of the same character as the good deed, people might attribute it to chance and nature. But when the reward is of the same character as the good deed, it is then acknowledged as stemming from Him and as intended by Him to reward the good with good. It is for this reason that our sages regarded this as Aaron's reward for this act rather than as one of the many eminences he possessed by virtue of the high-priesthood, in that it is clearly seen as a particular eminence resulting from a particular act. For it is well known that the breast-plate afforded knowledge of the future; and this was not properly the province of Aaron, such knowledge being in the domain of the prophet and not in that of the priest. For just as the province of the prophet is the foretelling of the future and not that of sacrifices at all, so the province of the priest is that of sacrifices and not the foretelling of the future. And if you would contend that since the Blessed One desired that the high-priest officiate in eight vestments, of which the breast-plate is one, that it was by virtue of his high-priesthood that Aaron attained this eminence, this is not so. For the breast-plate did not foretell the future by virtue of its being a breast-plate alone, but by virtue of the urim vetumim which were between its folds and which were not in the category of the high-priest's vestments. For in the second Temple there were no urim vetumim, in spite of which the high-priest officiated in eight vestments, the urim vetumim not being counted among them. A further proof is that the urim vetumim are not mentioned at all among the high-priestly garments in the section dealing with the fashioning of those garments, as noted by the Ramban, it being stated (Exodus 39:8): "And he made the breast-plate" and not "And he made the urim vetumim." For this was not among the work of the artisans at all, but Moses himself was commanded in respect to it, as it is written (Ibid 28:30): "And you shall place upon the breast-place of judgment the urim and the tumim." And he did, accordingly, as written (Leviticus 8:8): "And he placed upon the breast-plate the urim and the tumim." All of this indicates that the urim vetumim are not counted among the high-priestly vestments. If so, why should Aaron have merited them? And our sages answer that he merited them as the goodly reward for an act relating to their very character in which he demonstrated the goodness of his heart. To wit, though he preceded Moses in prophecy, he did not envy him when he was selected as the prophet. For this reason the Blessed One accorded him the most exalted eminence in the foretelling of the future though that eminence does not properly relate to the domain of the priesthood. Because he did not envy the prophecy of Moses, he merited a degree of foretelling the future equivalent to or even greater than that of prophecy itself. For our sages have already apprised us (Yoma 73b) that the revelations of the future provided by the urim vetumim are more binding than those provided by prophecy, viz.: "Although the decree of the prophet can be annulled, the decree of the urim vetumim is not annulled, as it is written (Numbers 27:21): "And he shall inquire for him of the judgment of the urim before the L rd' — just as a judgment is not annulled, the decree of the urim vetumim is not annulled." We see, then, that Aaron attained a degree of greatness close to that of prophecy, and, what is more, that he merited it for himself and for his children after him. And all of this because he assisted Moses in the exodus and was not envious of him.