Musar para sa Deuteronomio 20:12

In order to explain somewhat the quality of peace, I shall adduce some of the apothegms of Chazal on this subject. This is from Ma'aloth Hamiddoth: "Know, my sons, that peace is among the highest qualities, it being one of the names of the Holy One Blessed be He, as it is written (Judges 6:24): And he called it [(the altar) 'the L-rd-Shalom.'" Wherever peace is found, fear of Heaven is found. Where there is no peace, there is no fear of Heaven. Great is peace before the Blessed One, our sages of blessed memory saying in the aggadah (Yevamoth 65b, Bava Metzia 87a): "Great is peace, even Scripture prevaricating to maintain peace between Abraham and Sarah. For whereas she said (Bereshith 18:12): 'And my lord [Abraham] is old,' G-d transmitted this to Abraham as (Ibid. 13): 'And I [Sarah] am old.'" Similarly (Ibid. 40:16-17): "and they had it reported to Joseph: 'Your father commanded before he died: "So shall you say to Joseph: 'Forgive, I pray you, the offense of your brothers and their sin, for they accorded you evil.'" Now nowhere do we find Jacob commanding any such thing at all, for he entertained no apprehension whatever of Joseph's conduct. My sons, come and see how great is the power of peace, for the Holy One Blessed be He said that even foes should be approached with peace as it is written (Devarim 20:10): "When you draw close to a city to wage war against it, call out to it for peace." Great is peace, for it consummates the priestly benediction, as it is written (Numbers 6:26): "And He shall repose peace upon you." Great is peace, for it is the consummation of prayer, as it is written (Psalms 29:11): "The L-rd will give His people strength; the L-rd will bless His people with peace." And what is more, in the day of Israel's consolation, the first report shall be of peace, as it is written (Isaiah 52:7): "How comely upon the mountains are the feet of the herald, announcing peace!" My sons, come and see how great is the power of peace, for the Holy One Blessed be He said that even foes should be approached with peace, as it is written (Devarim 20:10): "When you draw near to a city to wage war against it, call out to it for peace." It was stated of R. Yochanan b. Zakkai that no one ever preceded him in greeting, not even a gentile in the marketplace. And our sages of blessed memory have stated (Avoth 4:15): "Extend greeting to all men." What is meant by greeting "all men"? Even if you see that he is ill disposed towards you, extend greeting to him; for if you do so, you will cause him to love you. What is more, even if he will not condescend to make peace with you, the Holy One Blessed be He will deliver him into your hand and humble him beneath you, as it is written (Devarim 20:1): "And if it [the city] does not make peace with you, but wages war against you, then you shall besiege it, and the L-rd your G-d will deliver it into your hand…" And so we find with David, may peace be upon him, that he pursued peace with Saul, as it is written (Psalms 120:7): "I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war." Not only was Saul not appeased, but he pursued David to do him injury, and the Holy One Blessed be He delivered him into David's hand in the cave and in the encampment. And even so, it never entered David's heart to do him wrong. For one must love peace and pursue peace, as it is written (Ibid. 34:15): "Seek peace and pursue it." Seek it with your friend and pursue it with your enemy. Seek it in your place and pursue it in other places. Seek it with your body and pursue it with your money. [Sometimes one must be liberal with his money to seize upon the "stronghold of peace."] Seek it for yourself and pursue it for others. Seek it today and pursue it tomorrow. And do not despair, saying: "I will never achieve peace," but pursue it until you do achieve it. And what is the pursuit of peace? Thus have our sages of blessed memory said (Sanhedrin 110a): "This is speaking peace at a time of dispute and sacrificing one's honor for the general good, as was done by Moses, as it is written (Numbers 16:25): 'And Moses arose and he went to Dathan and Aviram…,'" and suspending one's affairs to make peace between a man and his wife, a man and his neighbor, and a teacher and his student — even to the extent of arranging a meal for two to make peace between them.

I have already published on that subject when explaining Deut. 34,11, which describes all the wonders and miracles that Moses performed as remaining forever unparalleled, that Moses' great מעלה, merit, was that the miracles he performed were under the aegis of the Ineffable Name of G–d, and that therefore the people at large were not able to recognize this as they had not attained that spiritual level. Only the elite of the people would be able to perceive the spiritual domain from which the miracles performed by Moses had originated. Such miracles were to be performed only for the eyes of a holy nation that were true servants of the Lord, not before the eyes of those who denied His powers and were not firmly attached to G–d. On this occasion an עדה שלימה who had access to the level of Torah that we had described as תורת ידוד תמימה congregated with others of the caliber קהל ה' and the Torah thereupon refers to both groups jointly as בני ישראל. The Torah commences its report in 20,3, with the words: וירב העם, "The people quarreled with Moses, saying if only we had died in the desert with our brothers in the presence of G–d." In other words, the lowest group of people, the ones who had originally been fellow travelers, started the quarrel. They continued: "Why did you bring the congregation of G–d to this desert that we might die there, both we and our beasts?" They tried to gain support, by making it appear that their main concern was the קהל ה', the spiritual elite of the nation. They accused Moses and Aaron of indifference to the fate of the spiritual elite of the Jewish people. By reading the next verse as a continuation of verse 5, we see their true meaning: "Moses and Aaron came to the entrance of the tent of meeting on account of the קהל," meaning that Moses interceded even on account of the קהל. At this point, G–d commanded Moses and Aaron to assemble the עדה, i.e. a level of people lower than the קהל ידוד, the spiritual elite, and of course also the קהל ידוד, who were on a higher spiritual niveau than the עדה, as pointed out earlier, and who were certainly worthy to witness the miracle about to be performed. It would appear that the sin of Moses and Aaron was that they had approached G–d even for the sake of the קהל, the group inferior to the עדה, (who had felt the lack of water as described in verse 2). Moses did not sin then by calling the people מורים. The only people whom he called מורים, were descendants of Gentiles, not the descendants of Abraham. It certainly was not sinful to call people who regressed to their spiritual level prior to their conversion "rebellious." When punishing Moses and Aaron, G–d says in 20,12: לא תביאו את הקהל הזה אל הארץ, "Because you did not keep faith with Me, you will not lead this congregation to the land." This means that Moses was not going to be worthy to lead the category of קהל to the Holy land, much less the spiritually higher categories of the people such as עדה. Moses was no longer considered fit to lead even the קהל, a spiritually inferior group of people, who, though they would live in the Holy Land, would not receive a hereditary share therein. Moses and Aaron would accordingly no longer be considered suitable to lead the עדה and קהל ידוד sections of the people. The words אשר נתתי להם, "to whom I have given the land," refer to these upper echelons of the people. This creates the impression that the majority of the people qualified as בני ישראל rather than as goy or קהל. On the other hand, and from various other occasions, we are entitled to conclude that the עם were the most numerous section of the nation. I have explained elsewhere the meaning of the statement attributed to Rav Huna that a person is remarkably insensitive to the help he receives from G–d. Saul was considered personally more pious than David, as we know from the statement by G–d that "if you had been Saul, and he had been David, I would have killed many Davids on his account."

In view of this we can also understand Deut. 1,37, when Moses said: "G–d was also angry with me on your account." Moses employs the expression בי, against me. We find the same expression here when G–d said to him יען כי לא האמנתם בי להקדישני, "because you did not have enough faith in Me to sanctify Me" (20,12). In Deut. 1,32, however, the wording is ובדבר הזה אינכם מאמינים. The true significance is as I have explained, that a decree already existed, but the actions needed to trigger this decree had not yet occurred. Because of a previous sin Moses had committed, G–d had already become angry at Moses on account of Israel. Now this anger, i.e. decree, became translated into effective reality. This is the reason why the Torah stresses המה מי מריבה אשר רבו בני ישראל, "these are the very same waters of strife the children of Israel quarreled (already previously)." If it were not so, the expression המה, would be uncalled for. Now the various commentaries that have been offered on this passage.