Myśl Żydowska do Wyjścia 32:34

Our approach will be different from that of all the classic commentators. Central to the problem is the statement by Jeremiah that G'd reserves the right to reverse even such promises as would have a positive impact on the recipient of that promise. The parable of the piece of pottery destroyed by the potter, teaches that if a product does not measure up to the expectations of its creator, the latter reserves the right to destroy it and fashion another in its place. Man, likewise, is like clay in the hands of the Almighty, and despite the fondest hopes expressed for him, he may be found unworthy before he has reached maturity. Should a group of Jews think that in order for G'd to fulfil His promises to our forefathers, their continued existence and well being is indispensable to G'd, they are in error, and are warned by the prophet that their own personal existence is by no means assured. The fact that these forefathers, although themselves recipients of G'ds promise, were constantly afraid, is evidence that their understanding of these promises had always been that they were conditional, not absolute. While it is true that generally G'ds promises are not subject to change unless there is a change in the moral stature of the recipient, there is on record an instance when the decree to spare the righteous at the time when the Temple was destroyed, was revoked. This was despite the fact that the tzaddikim referred to had not changed. The midat hadin, attribute of justice, had drawn to G'ds attention that the failure of the righteous to protest the wicked conduct of the masses was inexcusable since they could not have known that their protests would be to no avail. (Shabbat 55). It is also true that G'd frequently gives a clearly conditional promise, which is what our sages describe as "the attribute of goodness being in the ascendancy." Psalms 105,45, says of G'd, "He gave them the lands of the nations; that which others had toiled for, Israel would inherit in order to observe His statutes etc." What it all boils down to is that whenever possible, the promise of G'd is not left unfulfilled. Certainly the yardstick by which prophets are measured is the accuracy of the fulfilment of their prophecies. Astrologers of old who had a record of 80-90% accuracy in their weather prognosis, did not claim to be prophets either of G'd or the Baal. It is not to test their stature that the Torah tells us how to test such men. Similarly, anyone who teaches the omission of even a single commandment of the Torah or the addition of a single mitzvah or even the change of the traditional interpretation of that mitzvah, needs no test to tell us that he is an impostor. When Yehu reminded the people of the fall of Achav, the decisive factor was that all the details which had formed part of the prediction had come true. (Kings II 10,17) Joshua was able to tell the people that the whole promise by G'd to Moses had been fulfilled. (Joshua chapter 23) He warns however, that disobedience of G'ds commandments would result in the Jewish nation becoming the target for all the punishments listed in the chapters dealing with such eventualities. In Samuel I 3,19-20, we are told that everything Samuel predicted had come true. In this way the people knew that he was a true prophet. In our liturgy, in the benedictions following the readings from the book of prophets every week following the Torah reading, we recite the fact that G'ds word as issued through the prophets never went unfulfilled. In all cases of the prophet being an observant Jew, exhorting the people only to observe Torah law, no test of his truthfulness is needed. On the other hand, if someone even of the stature of Elijah were to ask us suddenly to disobey a law of the Torah, there is no need for a test either, since the man would have stamped himself as an impostor. Such people need to be executed.

Midrash Tanchuma on Parshat Eykev, and Midrash Shocher Tov comment on Proverbs 5,6, and Job 28,16, respectively. We find in those verses references to the mysterious way in which Torah sometimes reports the sequence of events. In the words of the Midrash, the apparent lack of cohesion is deliberate, as otherwise "every reader could heal the sick or revive the dead." We should ask therefore, why the sages endeavoured altogether to find meaning in the order in which events have been related? The truth is that our sages did not mean that there is absolutely no order in the sequences of the Torah's teachings; rather they teach that G'd arranged things in a manner that safeguarded certain secrets that He has reserved for Himself. (Isaiah 44,7) "Who but I can declare it and set it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people." This verse forms the background to our Midrashim. The enquiry why a particular event is reported at a particular point in the sequence of events, is quite legitimate, regardless of the general rule eyn mukdam, that the Torah does not claim to report events in the chronological order in which they occurred. That rule means, that even when the Torah does report events in historical order, this does not mean that the Torah's purpose is exhausted by having conveyed to us a little bit of history. Dissemination of slanderous information may stem from a variety of motivations. 1) A person may slander someone else in order to make himself look good by comparison. 2) On the other hand, someone may spread negative information about a third party, having no ulterior motive at all. The latter type is the real ba-al lashon hara, spreader of evil gossip. The first type is simply a glory seeker, the slander being incidental to his purposes. When the Talmud Erchin 15, describes animals approaching the snake asking the reason it attacks humans, it compares the lion and the wolf with the snake. The two former either wish to still their hunger, or at least to devour the prey. The snake however, seems to poison just for the fun of it, deriving no visible benefit from its action. Korach was not a classic example of a slanderer, since he merely used slander to enhance his own stature, and to further his ambition to become a leader. For this reason, Korach is described in our classic sources as a dissident, a quarreler. The spies, however, are described as "slanderers." Since Miriam's sin, though not as severe as that of the spies, was also in the nature of slander, the story of the spies follows that of the punishment of Miriam, to alert us to the fact that the spies had not absorbed the lesson contained in Miriam's punishment. (1) If the Torah skips the introduction about the circumstances that preceded the dispatch of the spies, in this instance, it is precisely to make sure that we would not confuse the issue, and would notice that the issue was the sin of lashon hara, slander. (2) The reason twelve men were sent, was to provide the maximum chance of success. People endowed with all the good qualities cited in the Parshah, would command enough moral fortitude to prevail over their human weaknesses, if anyone could. Their eventual report would be accepted without prejudice, since they represented a cross section of the people. Should the mission fail, it would not be due to inadequate planning. The princes mentioned in Parshat Nasso, having already assumed their respective functions, were not allowed to absent themselves from their posts for such an extended period. The Torah describes the twelve spies as each being a nassi, prince, in order to show that they were not inferior to the twelve princes whom we know already. The fact that Joshua is only ranked fifth amongst them, shows that all of them had been very eminent people at the time of their appointment for this task. That the Torah does indeed list them in the order of their qualities seems borne out by the fact that the order in which they are listed corresponds neither to the order of the "flags" of the encampment, nor to the order of birth of the various sons of Jacob whose tribes they represented. The Talmud Sotah 34, discusses the various names and comes to the conclusion that their various names contained hints of their eventual disloyalty to G.d. Since this is obviously an excercise in hindsight, the original selection must have been based on the positive qualities each one of the spies had displayed prior to his being chosen for such a fateful mission. The fact that Caleb and Joshua could not even persuade their own respective tribes to accept their minority report, shows that the spies had not been chosen for any popular following they might have enjoyed. (3) The verse dealing with the name Joshua must be understood as follows. "These are the names of the men...except for Hoshaya of the tribe of Ephrayim, whom Moses later used to call Joshua." (which is the name by which he is known to us in most instances when we read about him.) Observing the goodness of the land, entailed four separate considerations. 1) Did the inhabitants appear robust and healthy? 2) Was the terrain easy to cultivate and was there an abundance of it? 3) Were there urban centres the inhabitants were happy in and proud of? 4) Did the soil yield abundantly, and was the produce of high quality? (4) Moses wanted the spies to pay attention to all these factors, so that they would look forward to this all soon being theirs. (compare verses 18-20) Concerning the type of cities,-whether open or fortified,- Moses wanted to point out that if these people still lived in fortified cities, this reflected a lack of self confidence on their part. This would give Israel a psychological advantage when setting out to attack them. The book of Joshua in chapter 6,1, reports that Jericho was completely sealed off from the inside and the outside. Immediately afterwards we are told that the inhabitants had already reached the point of despair. Although it was early in the season, and the orchards would therefore be under close scrutiny by their respective owners, Moses instructed "fortify yourselves," i.e. get a hold of yourselves and take from the fruit to taste it. Moses' insistence stemmed from his conviction that the land was excellent. The fact that the nachal eshkol, valley of the grape cluster, was so named, was only in commemoration of the spies' visit. It proves that the grapes found there were not of exceptional quality. (verse 24) They were merely representative specimens of the quality the land produced. (5) The spies brought the fruit back in order to lend credibility to the report they were about to issue. When Moses saw the fruit, he was lulled into a false sense of security, overlooking the fact that they were not making their report to the commander-in-chief, but to the nation as a whole. The Torah indicates this by describing the spies as returning from latour, from touring the country, from emphasizing its good points. When one emphasizes weak points such journeys are described as rigul, spying. The opening remarks seemed to confirm Moses' optimism. (verse 27) As soon as they uttered the word efess however, they aborted their entire mission. The fruit became an instrument to describe the desirability of the land, and to contrast this with the physical prowess of its inhabitants. From having been reporters, they suddenly assumed the role of advisors. The careful description of who lived in the land, i.e. Amalek in the South, the presence of giants, three nations in the mountains, Canaanites by the sea and the river Jordan, all these remarks were designed to create the impression that conquest of such a country was not feasible. They did not yet dare to spell this out, however. When Caleb, knowing the tenor of their remarks, interrupted, he did so to give Moses a chance to be heard, and to create a climate in which his own report would at least get a hearing. For that reason he made it appear as if he too had something to complain against Moses' adventurous policy of attacking such physically superior residents of the land of Canaan. In fact, he hoped that by giving his own report, emphasizing his firm belief that Israel could conquer the land, he could squelch the despondency his colleagues had evoked with their innuendos about the hopeless nature of such an undertaking. He thought that the other spies would not dare come out openly against such a campaign in the very presence of Moses. At that point, however, the other spies started to use their arguments outright. They portrayed the presence of the giants (32-33) as proof of the futility of starting a war, citing the fact that these giants included men who had survived the deluge. To contrast this with their own feeling of inadequacy, they referred to their having felt like grasshoppers by comparison to those super-men. The fact that these giants had observed twelve strange men help themselves to grapes from their orchards without the owners having become galvanised into some form of counter action, they conveniently overlooked. On the contrary, they allowed it to be taken as proof that these men were not in the least bothered by such action. They considered any danger from Jewish spies as no greater than the threat posed to them by grasshoppers. They considered the country's fertility as only due to the superhuman efforts of these giants. By describing the land as one that devours its inhabitants, they hinted that ordinary people could not survive that climate. The reason there is no preamble to the despatch of the spies, is that the very mission, having as its objective the collection of factual observations, was perfectly permissible. What was wrong was that the people, upon return of the spies, allowed them to present their interpretation of what they had seen, and that they believed those interpretations. The people's belated concern (14,3) was only a cover for their, true motivation, that of despising the land G'd was offering to them. (14,31) The positioning of verse three, in which the people describe their own fate and that of their families, makes it appear that they preferred their families' deaths to their own dying by the swords. They do not describe the fate of their wives and children as the result of their own death in action. They express their preference to whatever fate would await them in Egypt. They go so far as to suggest the appointment of a leader for such a return. G'ds answer to all this is quite appropriate. He says, in effect: "your children will enjoy that which you have despised." But you who have consigned yourselves to damnation either way, and who are already considering yourselves as corpses, you will drop dead in the desert. (7) Joshua and Caleb rent their clothing, confirming only that the land was indeed excellent. Since this had been all that they as spies had been asked to report on, they expressed the conviction that if He wished, the Lord would surely bring them to that land subject to His considering them fit for this. (6) When the people realised that the whole logic of their position had been challenged by Joshua and Caleb, they did not react with reason but with their basest instincts, trying to still the voice of conscience by attempting to murder the authors of a report they did not like. They were restrained only by the appearance of the Divine glory that scared them. Moses, who continued to remonstrate with them, could not sway them. (Deut. 1,29-33) At that point G'd despaired of their ever demonstrating true faith, and decided to let them all die at once, meaning to replace them with a new people, with Moses as its patriarch. Moses used the well worn argument that the impression such action would produce on outsiders like the Egyptians, would be counterproductive to His image. Our sages describe active forces in terms of the masculine gender, whereas they describe passive ones in terms of the feminine. It does not matter in this context whether the mashpia, the active force is actually of the male gender or vice versa, in the case of the mushpa the passive force being actually of the female gender. In that sense, G'd is always the mashpia, and everybody or everything relative to Him is always the mushpa. When Moses in 15, 11, says to G'd "if this is what You are about to do to me," and he uses the feminine gender for the word "You," the sages interpret this to mean "You will undermine Your own strength." The idea is that he argues that G'd would henceforth appear as the mushpa instead of as the mashpia, G'ds traditional role. This is the reason Moses prayed "now let the power of the Lord be great," to demonstrate that "Your" strength is indeed the source of all Power. When Israel, speaking to Moses at the time they received the ten commandments, said to Moses "you speak to us," employing the feminine pronoun in referring to Moses the man, the human being, (Deut. 6,23) they convey the same idea. They are saying that although they will then be hearing the voice of G'd only from the mushpa instead of from the mashpia, at least they would survive. (8) The fact that the argument Moses used is of the utmost significance, is proven from the words of Ezekiel, in chapter thirty six. Concerning the advent of the redemption in the future, G'd is quoted as saying "Not for your sake do I act, family of Israel, but for the sake of My holy name that you have desecrated etc." Moses, as distinct from the sin at the golden calf, invoked the attribute of adnut, Omnipotence of G'd when he appealed for forgiveness. He had realised that after all the many acts of rebellion by the Jewish people, the kind of forgiveness which is total, could not be expected as an immediate outcome of his prayer. He therefore refers to the fact that G'd had previously raised the level of the sin to a lesser category - compare verse 19- "as You have raised this people until now, ever since they have come out of Egypt." G'd responds by saying "I have forgiven, exactly in accordance with your words." (the limitations you yourself have set) This is "for the people." However, the perpetrators will have to pay an immediate price and die by the plague. (verse 37) The entire nation who had witnessed G'ds miracles at the time of the Exodus in their adult years, would henceforth no longer qualify for similar miracles at the time they would conquer the land of Canaan. They have forfeited forever the right to such revelations of G'ds power on their behalf. This was a punishment on an individual level, though at first glance it might have looked collective, since none of them would enter the holy land. The individual nature of the punishment would manifest itself when each one of them would die on a different date. However, "the wicked congregation," i.e. the ten spies, would all die at the same time at once, receive collective punishment. (9) The need for the next generation to wait forty years to enter the holy land, is directly related to the sin of the parent generation. As long as some of the former remain alive, as living testimony to the disloyalty of their covenant with G'd, the miraculous protection of G'd cannot be extended to their children when they would try to enter the holy land. The ratio of forty years for forty days is again an expression of G'ds consideration for His people. Since the spies had taken forty days before returning with a negative report, G'd allows a year for each day of delay, spreading the punishment over a period of forty years, instead of letting everybody die at once. In this manner, the whole nation would learn that G'd is merciful even when He administers punishment. He does not thin out the ranks of the people all at once, but gradually, so as not to allow their decreased numbers to become an invitation to attack by their enemies. If G'd could be merciful even in such circumstances, what tremendous display of G'ds goodness must the people have forfeited by their conduct? G'd hastens to confirm the decree by swearing an oath (verse 28). He is only too aware that the people will be overcome by a feeling of remorse and will try to sway Him from His declared intention. (10) Since repentance induced by fear, duress, does not wipe the slate clean, the people did not deserve the presence of the holy ark in their midst in the campaign they now planned. The very fact that they dared to go ahead without it, showed that they still had not appreciated who it was that alone would guarantee their success. If we are taught in the book of Joshua that the sin of one man, Achan ben Karmi, who had not yet been punished for his crime, could be the cause of the whole Jewish people suffering defeat at the hands of the small city of Ai, what would happen when a whole army of unrehabilitated sinners would face the might of the Canaanites? (compare chapter 7)

I have been induced to accept this theory by the circumstance that I have not met in any of the prophetical books with a description of God’s Providence otherwise than in relation to human beings. The prophets even express their surprise that God should take notice of man, who is too little and too unimportant to be worthy of the attention of the Creator: how, then, should other living creatures be considered as proper objects for Divine Providence! Comp. “What is man, that thou takest knowledge of him?” (Ps. 144:3); “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (ibid. 8:8). It is clearly expressed in many Scriptural passages that God provides for all men, and controls all their deeds—e.g., “He fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works” (ibid. 33:15); “For thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways” (Jer. 32:19). Again: “For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings” (Job 32:21). In the Law there occur instances of the fact that men are governed by God, and that their actions are examined by him. Comp. “In the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them” (Exod. 32:34) “I will even appoint over you terror” (Lev. 26:16); “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exod. 32:33); “The same soul will I destroy” (Lev. 23:30); “I will even set my face against that soul” (ibid. 20:6). There are many instances of this kind. All that is mentioned of the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a perfect proof that Divine Providence extends. to every man individually. But the condition of the individual beings of other living creatures is undoubtedly the same as has been stated by Aristotle. On that account it is allowed, even commanded, to kill animals; we are permitted to use them according to our pleasure. The view that other living beings are only governed by Divine Providence in the way described by Aristotle, is supported by the words of the Prophet Habakkuk. When he perceived the victories of Nebuchadnezzar, and saw the multitude of those slain by him, he said, “O God, it is as if men were abandoned, neglected, and unprotected like fish and like worms of the earth.” He thus shows that these classes are abandoned. This is expressed in the following passage: “And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them. They take up all of them with the angle,” etc. (Hab. 1:14, 15). The prophet then declares that such is not the case; for the events referred to are not the result of abandonment, forsaking, and absence of Providence, but are intended as a punishment for the people, who well deserved all that befell them. He therefore says: “O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment, and O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction” (ibid. ver. 12).