Комментарий к Бамидбар 21:4

דרך ים סוף BY THE WAY OF THE RED SEA — As soon as Aaron died and this war came upon them they turned back on the way to the Red Sea; this was the way on which they had turned back when there had been enacted against them the decree that they must wander in the wilderness in consequence of their murmuring after having received the report of the spies, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 1:40), “And take your journey into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea”. Here they went back seven stages, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 10:6), “And the children of Israel journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah; there Aaron died”. But did he really die at Moserah; was it not at Mount Hor that he died?” But the explanation is, that there (at Moserah) they again mourned and lamented for him just as though he there lay dead before them. Go and examine the list of the stages (Numbers 33:31—37) and you will find that there are seven stages from Moserah to Mount Hor (Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 18).

ויסעו מהר ההר דרך ים סוף לסבב את ארץ אדם, “They journeyed away from Hor Hahar in the direction of the Sea of Reeds to commence their trip around the land of Edom.” Seeing that the King of Edom did not permit them to cross his territory they were forced to backtrack seven way stations before taking the route around the land of Edom. Our sages in Tanchuma Chukat 18 link this to Deut. 10,6: “the Children of Israel had traveled from Be'erot Yaakon to Mosserot where Aaron died. We know that Aaron had died at Hor Hahar. The meaning therefore is that they backtracked and only eulogized Aaron at Mosserot so that it appeared to them as if Aaron had died then.

Since Aharon had died… Rashi is answering the question: What is meant by “they traveled from Mount Hor by the Reed Sea route…”? Surely before they came to Mount Hor they were circling around the land of Edom, as it is written “Edom refused…” (above 20:21). Thus it is evident that they had already turned back [in order to circle around Edom]. So why does it say now that they turned back? Rashi answers that “since Aharon died….”

V. 4. דרך ים סוף, es war dies ein scheinbarer Rückzug und ein langer Umweg. Dewarim 2, 1 heißt es: ותקצר נפש העם בדרך .ונסב את הר שעיר ימים רבים (vergl. Schmot 6, 9) מקצר רוח. Wie dort bemerkt ist קצר רוח, und so auch hier קצר נפש, wahrscheinlich Gegensatz zu ארך אפים und bezeichnet die Ungeduld, רוח und נפש reichen nicht aus, das verlangte Ziel zu erwarten. Insbesondere hier reichte die נפש, reichten die vorwärts strebenden Lebensgeister nicht aus, die Mühe des langen Weges mit Hinblick auf das zu erreichende Ziel geduldig zu ertragen. Ein wirklich unbefriedigtes Bedürfnis lag nicht vor.

ויסעו מהר ההר דרך ים סוף, “they journeyed from Hor Hahar in the direction of the sea of reeds, ...making a long detour around the Land of Edom, and the people’s state of mind became very short tempered.” Their dissatisfaction was not caused by the journey, but by the fact that they traveled in the opposite direction of their objective, i.e. crossing the river Jordan. This was as hard for them to swallow as if they had been sentenced to death. They had felt until recently that they were close to their objective and would soon taste the fruit of the Holy Land and they now saw all their hopes as dissolving like an illusion. To the question what they had to complain about as long as they had manna and water, the answer is that once one has set one’s sights on something that can be enjoyed by the senses, eyes, ears, taste buds, feeling it with one’s hands and one’s sense of smell, the sameness and predictability of the manna, instead of being a sign of how G–d provided for them, became something of insignificance, קלקל, “lightweight” for them. The Torah therefore told us already in Numbers 11,8 that the manna, far from being so insubstantial, lightweight, insignificant, lent itself to grinding between stones, pounding, in a mortar, boiling in a pot, making into cakes. Moreover, it tasted like cream. [It is human nature that familiarity breeds contempt. After forty years of the same diet without getting to the destination they were seeking, the people’s reaction is understandable, although it had been due to their having displayed themselves as not yet worthy to dislodge the Canaanites from their homeland. Ed.] The pleasant taste of treated manna is also described in Numbers 11,8.

Traveling was insufferable to the people. It was insufferable because they came close to the place from which they would enter the Land and then they faced a long distance again. This is as expressed in Eruvin (53b), that a short cut that becomes the long way around is more difficult than a long way that ends up short.

ויסעו מהר ההר, “they journeyed on from Hor Hahar;” the Torah now returns to the subject which had been interrupted when it described the detour around the territory of Edom. It had been interrupted by the report of the death of Aaron and the battle against Amalek as a result of that.

לסבב את ארץ אדום TO GO ROUND THE LAND OF EDOM — to go round it, because they would not permit them to pass through their land.

But they returned there … and eulogized him. You might ask: Why did they eulogize him at Moseirah? The answer is that in Parshas Pinchos (Bamidbar 26:13) and Parshas Eikev (Devarim 10:6) Rashi explains why they eulogized him at Moseirah. This is the essence of his words: When they returned to Moseirah, the Levites chased after them until Moseirah and killed several families, as Rashi explains in Parshas Pinchos. Thus they eulogized him there because it was due to Aharon’s death that the Clouds of Glory departed from them, leading the Canaanites to hear and come to attack them. This caused them to return to Moseirah, and because they returned, several families were killed. Consequently they eulogized him there, given that it was due to his death that all of these events befell them, as I explained. The reason why here Rashi explains that they turned back seven journeys, while in Parshas Pinchos he explains that they turned back eight journeys is explained elsewhere (Bamidbar 26:13). Here it means aside from the last journey there were seven journeys.

מהר ההר דרך ים סוף, “from Hor Hahar, in the direction of the sea of Reeds, i.e. from north to south in order to detour around Edom. This was not a detour around Mount Seir, of which we are told in Deuteronomy 2,1. Here we are speaking of the twenty first year of the Israelites, immediately after the nineteen years the Israelites had remained in Kadesh Barnea the point from which the spies had been sent out. After that they detoured around the territory of Edom until they came to the Kadesh in the desert of Tzin. The detour around Edom occurred in the fortieth year after the Exodus, and was due to the King of Edom’s refusal to grant the Israelites the right to use his territory as transit toward the Jordan river. They also detoured around the southern part of the Kingdom of Moav, as the Torah had not given them the right to harass that country, as we read in Judges 11,17. When they arrived at a place called Ovot, (verse 10) which was located at the south eastern corner of the Kingdom of Moav, they turned north and turned left in the direction of the river Arnon, as we read in verse Deuteronomy 919. The number of way stations during that period, have not been enumerated, although each has been mentioned in Parshat Massey, but some may have had more than one name. (Numbers 33,4143).

ותקצר נפש העם בדרך AND THE SOUL OF THE PEOPLE WAS MUCH DISCOURAGED BECAUSE OF THE WAY — because of the difficulties of the journey which were so hard for them. They said: Now we are close enough to enter the land, and yet we have to turn back. Just so had our fathers to turn back and they stayed in the wilderness thirty eight years until this day. —Consequently their soul became discouraged because of the hardship of the journey. In O. F., En cure del tour. — It would not be correct to say that ותקצר נפש העם בדרך means “[and the soul of the people was discouraged] while they were on the journey” and that it (the text) does not explain what it was discouraged through, for in every passage in Scripture where you find the phrase “the soul being discouraged”, it is there explained through what it became discouraged (the preposition ב being prefixed to the word that expresses the cause of discouragement). For example, (Zechariah 11:8) “And my soul became impatient of them (בהם)”, and, for example, (Judges 10:16): “And His soul became impatient with the enemies on account of the misery (בעמל) they inflicted upon Israel”. To anything that is hard for a man to bear the expression “the shortening of soul” (קצור נפש) is applicable - he is like a person upon whom trouble comes and his mind is not large enough to contain that matter and there is no room in his heart for that worry to abide there. Of the thing that causes the trouble the term “large” is used, denoting that it is too huge and heavy for a person. For example, (Zechariah 11:8) וגם נפשם בחלה בי, which signifies “(And also their souls] were great upon Me”; (Job. 10:16), “And it becomes large (it is a burden to Thee) even that Thou huntest me as though I were a lion”. (See Rashi on these verses and on Niddah 47a). To sum up the explanation: the phrase “shortening of the soul through a thing” signifies that one cannot bear it — that the mind cannot bear it.

ותקצר נפש העם בדרך, “and the people became impatient because of the length of the way.” The root קצר in the sense of impatient, occurs also in Exodus 6,9, when the people did not respond to Moses’ promises, i.e. ומקוצר רוח, “on account of an impatient spirit.” In this instance, the lengthy and strenuous detour around the boundaries of the Kingdom of Edom had tried their patience to breaking point. Rashi explains why the meaning of the word could not possibly be the “shortness of the way,” as after 38 years plus they perceived themselves as getting further away from their destination rather than closer to it. An alternate interpretation: The protective clouds shielding the people from the hot rays of the sun had ceased to function, as a result of Aaron’s death as these had been due to his merit, just as the water supply had been due to Miriam’s merit.