Komentarz do Wyjścia 32:10

הניחה לי LET ME ALONE — So far we have not heard that Moses had prayed on their behalf and yet He says “let Me alone!” which implies a refusal to his entreaty! But by saying this He opened the door to him (offered him a suggestion) intimating to him that if he prayed for them He would not destroy them (Shemot Rabbah 42:9; cf. also Berakhot 32a).

NOW THEREFORE LET ME ALONE, THAT MY WRATH MAY WAX HOT AGAINST THEM. The meaning of this cannot be “let Me alone and I will become angry,” for if His anger had not been aroused yet, why should it wax hot as soon as Moses leaves Him alone? But in line with the plain meaning of Scripture the meaning thereof is: “leave Me, and I will consume them in My burning anger,” similar in thought to the expression, let Me alone, and I will destroy them.³¹⁸Ibid., Verse 14.
By way of the Truth, [the mystic lore of the Cabala], the verse means: “My mercy will subside, and My attribute of justice will wax hot against them and I will consume them with it, for with Me [i.e. when the attribute of mercy is before Me], it³¹⁹I.e., the attribute of justice has then no power. — So it is clearly explained in Abusaula’s commentary on the mystic passages in Ramban. See Vol. I, Preface, xii, Note 21. has no power over them.” This is the meaning of the expression, And Moses besought the face of the Eternal his G-d,³²⁰Verse 11. The word pnei (“face of”) alludes to the attribute of justice (Bachya). being similar in usage to the expression, the face of the Lord Eternal G-d, the G-d of Israel.³²¹Further, 34:23. And so Moses mentioned [in his prayer] in the Book of Deuteronomy, O G-d Eternal³²²Deuteronomy 9:26. — first the name of G-d with Aleph Dalet,³²³Ado-noy which alludes to the attribute of justice. followed by the name of Yod Hei.³²⁴The Tetragrammaton which alludes to the attribute of mercy. It is possible that the word vay’chal (and he besought) is of the root t’chilah (beginning).³²⁵“Since Moses prayed that the attribute of justice be withheld from the people, Scripture therefore uses the word vay’chal [of the root t’chilah, meaning “beginning” or “first”], because [in the order of the attributes as they are arranged from lowest to highest, the one of justice] is nearest to us” (Ricanti). See also Bachya, in my edition, Vol. II, p. 332. Understand it and you will know.

ועתה הניחה לי, "And now, let Me be, etc." The reason G'd said: "and now," was because He had already tried to put Moses in a good mood by offering to make an entire new Jewish nation with Moses as its founding patriarch when He said to him: "and I shall make you a great nation." This promise was designed to silence Moses into not protesting G'd's intention to destroy the present Jewish people. Moses thought to himself that G'd's promise was hardly any reassurance seeing that what happened to Abraham's descendants was liable to happen to his own descendants with similarly terrible results. This is why G'd said to Moses that he should leave Him be only "for now;" G'd implied that if Moses would leave Him alone now He would promise Moses that history would not repeat itself with any of Moses' descendants if he were to become the founding father of a new Jewish nation. There could be either one of two reasons why history would not repeat itself. 1) Moses' descendants would be more virtuous than the present generation of Jews and they would not succumb to the kind of provocation by Satan that the present Jewish people had succumbed to. 2) Even assuming that the "new" Jewish people would succumb to a situation similar to that facing the present one, G'd would not again ask Moses or their leader at that time not to intercede on their behalf. There would always be a chance to nullify any decree of G'd to destroy the new Jewish people.