Comentários de Citação sobre Números 12:12

Speak to Aaron your brother. Why did it mention brotherhood here? It’s to tell you that Aaron should not rely on the brotherhood, thinking that he will not die when entering the holy place due to the merit of his brother Moses, so that he shouldn’t be half his flesh consumed as Rashi explained in Parashat Beha’alotcha (12:12) on the verse let him not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed. Therefore it says: Even though he is your brother, nevertheless he should not rely on this at all. Or it says: Since he is your brother, and if he dies it would be as if half your flesh is consumed, therefore it is especially incumbent upon you to warn him. And some say: Even though he is your brother in prophecy, and it is written regarding the giving of the Torah and you shall come up, you and Aaron (Exodus 19:24), and he might think that just as Moses is permitted to enter at any time, for in all My house he is trusted (Numbers 12:7), like a trusted householder who enters his master’s house whenever he wishes, so too he [Aaron] may enter. Therefore you need to warn him especially.

We may understand that by means of these two miracles, i.e. Moses’ staff turning into a snake and his hand becoming afflicted with tzoraat, G’d hinted to him that it was in His power to kill the living and to revive the dead. The staff had been a dried out piece of wood, devoid of life of any sort, and by throwing it on the ground it turned into a living organism. Moses’ hand on the other hand, which had been part of a perfectly healthy living organism, suddenly became as if dead. The disease tzoraat is viewed by the Bible as a form of death as we know from Moses’ prayer for his sister Miriam (Numbers 12,12) “do not let her remain like a dead person!” G’d (Moses) performed both of these miracles here in the desert and later in the presence of the assembled Jewish people in Egypt (4,30). This was what G’d had meant when He said: “so that they will believe that the Lord G’d has indeed appeared to you” (verse 5). The second miracle was repeated in accordance with G’d having said: “in the event they will not believe the impression made by the first miracle, they will believe the impact of the second miracle” (verse 8).
The question remains why these miracles had first to be performed in the desert, i.e. while Moses was standing at the foot of Mount Chorev. After all, surely Moses did not doubt anything G’d told him! We have to accept what our sages Shemot Rabbah 3,15) handed down to us as their tradition, i.e. that the first miracle Moses had to perform was to make him aware that he had slandered the Jewish people when he had stated that the people would not believe that G’d had appointed him as their redeemer. He had no right to say this (4,1) after G’d Himself had told him in 3,18 ושמעו לקולך, “they (the Jewish people) will hearken to your voice (message).” The second miracle, that of Moses’ hand becoming afflicted with tzoraat was as a punishment for his slandering his people and not believing G’d. The miracles performed a different function each time Moses performed it.

על פני השדה, “in the open country.” According to the plain meaning of the text the reason that the live bird is released into open country is connected to the fact that the disease it atones for, i.e. carries away with it in a symbolic fashion, was one that was infectious. It is appropriate therefore to release the bird to where it is unlikely to infect anyone (compare Ibn Ezra). This would also explain the spirit of impurity which had settled on the afflicted person as a result of his having submitted to these negative emanations originating with the original serpent. This is all due to his behavior which paralleled that of that serpent when it engaged in slander. This is also why throughout the Talmud and even in the Torah, (compare Aaron’s plea on behalf of Miriam in Numbers 12,12) a person afflicted with this dread disease is compared to a dead person, i.e. the root cause of all defilement and ritual impurity.
Another allusion contained in the words על פני השדה may be to the פורחות השדה, “tramp-like demons,” which infest those areas much as Satan is at home in the desert. Remember that the bird being released here had first been dipped in the blood of its mate which had been slaughtered. The whole procedure of what is happening to the two birds and their atoning for the sin of an individual is reminiscent of the two male goats on Yom Kippur which atone for the collective sins of the people, the live scapegoat being consigned to virgin territory as a “gift, or bribe to Satan.” In this instance the live bird “carried” with it the sins of the person on whose behalf it was offered.
This bird was not allowed to be released either to the desert or the sea as we know from Torat Kohanim Sifra Metzora 2,5 where the examples given are that one must not stand in Jaffa and release the bird in the direction of the sea, nor must one stand in some cultivated area of the country and release the bird into the desert.

והעבירו תער AND LET THEM SHAVE [ALL THEIR FLESH] — I have found in the work of R. Moses the Preacher the following: Because they were made propitiatory substitutes for the firstborn who had worshipped the idol (the Golden Calf), and it (idolatry) is called (Psalms 106:28) “offerings to the dead”, and the leper is also called dead (cf. Numbers 12:12), it (Scripture) requires them to shave their body like lepers.