Kaisipang Hudyo sa Mga Panaghoy 2:3: Akeidat Yitzchak

At first glance, it appears that what we read in Deuteronomy is a collection of speeches by Moses, delivered at different times and places during the journeys of the Jewish people in the desert, only reported at this juncture. This is however, not so. All of the speeches delivered were delivered by Moses at the same place shortly before his death. Since Moses concentrates in this book mostly on words of admonition, recalling past mistakes, the book commences with two verses of introduction. These are to indicate the purpose of what is to follow by hinting at it via the names of the places mentioned. Only when mentioning the date and place where all these admonitions were spelled out by Moses, do we come to the text of the book of Deuteronomy itself. Since many of the 613 commandments had not yet been taught to the people, the book states that these were taught after the defeat of Sichon and Og. Following this, Moses launches into his speeches of warning and admonition to his people. He commences by saying that G'd had decreed at Mount Chorev that the people had spent enough time camping around it, and should start their journey onwards. This is the reference in our opening Midrash that Moses saw Israel in its heyday. While Israel camped around Mount Sinai, it experienced its finest hour, everybody was at his moral best, having witnessed the revelation, basking in the proximity of the Divine Presence, the shechinah. There they had received the Torah, i.e. instructions, had been given judges, had built the tabernacle and were thoroughly prepared to face what the future would hold for them. In verse eight, Moses proclaims "see I have given the land before you," and now you are morally qualified to conquer it. Moses continued saying that they had become so numerous, and he prayed to G'd that they should continue to multiply so that a single human being as their leader would not suffice. For that reason he had decided to appoint assistants who would share in the role of leadership of the people. Since the people agreed to this proposal, a total of seventy eight thousand six hundred assistants of varying degrees of authority were appointed. All of those assistants received instructions from Moses as to how to carry out their tasks as judges. (verses 9-18) Up to that point, all efforts had been directed towards ensuring a state of shalom, harmony. This is why the Midrash uses the terminology "Moses saw them beshalvatam, when they enjoyed peace and harmony. From verse nineteen on, we hear reports of Israel behaving improperly, corruptly. The problems started as soon as they moved away from Mount Chorev, the mountain of G'd. Although they had journeyed a distance of only eleven days from the Mount, they already developed reservations about carrying out G'ds command to commence taking over the land of Canaan. These reservations were verbalised by the request to send spies to investigate the land of Canaan. Israel displayed lamentable lack of faith in G'd. In Numbers 14,34, G'd tells the generation of the spies "your children will have to carry the burden of your harlotry." Throughout the Bible, we find idol worship described as harlotry, Israel being viewed as G'ds wife who had gone astray. So, Moses, experiencing this stage of behaviour of the Jewish people, had also become witness to the dissolute conduct of the Jewish people that the prophet Isaiah talks about in his opening chapter. Verse thirty four introduces the third kind of eychah, the one Jeremiah had described in Lamentations, when he bewails the decimation of the Jewish nation. The decree by G'd that a whole generation had to die in the desert, is equivalent to the later churban, destruction that Moses had to experience already in his own time. When Israel, subsequent to this decree proceeded to attack the Cannanite despite having been warned by Moses not to do so, and they were beaten off and pursued some distance, Moses witnessed the disintegration of the forces of shalom, harmony that had been forged at Sinai. The nineteen years that Israel spent encamped at Kadesh, may have been years of weeping for the golden opportunity that had been missed by that generation. If Jeremiah says "I am weeping, as I have wept," he may well refer to the weeping at the time of the spies. G'd had said at that time, that because they had wept about their fate without justification, there would come a time when they would have ample justification to weep for the fate that would then befall them. After the long years in Kadesh, when G'd gave the command to resume their travels, (2,3) this may well have signalled the end of the lengthy period of penitence. By that time, half the people were men of the new generation, and forward motion was again in order. Nevertheless, G'd makes sure that they first march around the territory of such nations as Ammon, Moab and Edom, against whom no war is to be waged. In G'ds wisdom, the very fact that no wars were fought against those nations, provided the cause for the successful conquest of Canaan, since it gave Sichon the pretext for adopting a hostile posture when Israel asked to traverse his country.

4) The fourth premise is appreciation of the fact that even the most advanced and most knowledgeable people are apt to err occasionally in matters pertaining to astronomy. This is because astronomy is subject to such precise timing, that even Moses had difficulty knowing the exact moment when the lunar cycle would renew itself. (Talmud Menachot 29) G'd instructed him by showing him, using a finger, "when it is in this position, exactly, sanctify!" It is therefore perfectly reasonable that G'd would make allowance for human error in the calculation of the arrival of the new moon. After all, the Torah was not given to angels, but to humans who are apt to err. There are altogether three causes for not declaring the new moon, or new year respectively, at its astronomically correct time. 1) Human error, due to miscalculation. 2) Deliberate falsification of the facts by the witnesses who claimed to have seen the moon, (as related in Rosh Hashanah 22) 3) Deliberate change of date by the Sanhedrin, for overriding social considerations, or even for considerations involving the proper performance of other calendar related mitzvot. If, for instance, spring is late, harvests are delayed, adding a month to the old year in order to make Passover occur in springtime,- as expressly stated in the Torah, could be such a consideration. Or, if due to an unusually long rainy season, pilgrims would be prevented from coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival, an artificially delayed date for the beginning of Nissan would serve to resolve the problem. (Sanhedrin 11)