by R. Gidon Rothstein
From a Man of Gd
The first verse of theĀ parshaĀ gives Ramban much to discuss, and Iām not going to resist the urge to engage with it at length.
××ר×× ×¤×Ø×§ ××:(×)Ā ×Ö°×Ö¹Ö£××Ŗ ×Ö·×ְּרָ×ÖøÖ× ×ֲש×ֶ֨ר ×ֵּרַք×Ö° ×ֹש×Ö¶Ö× ×Ö“Ö„××©× ×Öø×Ö±×Ö¹×Ö“Ö×× ×Ö¶×ŖÖ¾×Ö¼Ö°× ÖµÖ£× ×֓ש×ְרָ×ÖµÖ× ×Ö“×¤Ö°× ÖµÖ× ××Ö¹×ŖÖ½×Ö¹:
DevarimĀ 33;1: This is the blessing Moshe, the man of Gd, blessed the Children of Israel before his death.
Ramban picks up on two elements of this verse, which we read onĀ Simchat Torah. First, the reference to Moshe as a man of Gd tells us to expect that theseĀ berachotĀ will be effective. Rambanās beautiful phrase isĀ u-tefillat yesharim retzono, the prayer of the righteous is His Will. As weāll see in his discussion of the use of the wordĀ ve-zot, I think he likely means that the righteous are so tapped into Hashemās Will that whatever they say articulates that Will.
[Another option would be that the righteous choose which of several possible futures will come to fruition, and that Hashem does what they want. Ramban seems to go in this more conservative direction, so weāll leave it there].
Part of what signals Mosheās ability/right to express effective blessings is that he is referred to as anĀ ish haElokim, as were many other prophets. I think Rambanās hinting thatĀ ElokimĀ refers to the Gd of Nature, as it were, the world as it runs in its ordinary way. Prophets work up to an understanding of how that natural order works (with Hashemās input) well enough that they also know how to ask or invoke particular possible futures, rather than others.
At the end of theĀ parsha, Mosheās also calledĀ eved Hashem,Ā using the other common Name. Ramban says aĀ maskil,Ā an enlightened one, will understand, but does not elaborate. My guess is that we connect this Name with the Attribute of Mercy; Ramban might be implying that we cannot have any real grasp of how that aspect works, not nearly enough to be able to claim to predict, ask, or tell that aspect of Hashem what should happen. When it comes toĀ Hashem, the best we can achieve is being an obedient servant.
ThisĀ Is the Blessing
Ramban also picks up on the Torahās use of the wordĀ ve-zot, and this. He ascribes an esoteric significance to the word, linking it toĀ TehillimĀ 118;23ās declaration āki me-Hashem hayeta zot,Ā for from Hashem was this,ā and to the Torahās saying about Yaāakov (BereshitĀ 49;28), āthis is what their father said to them.āĀ TehillimĀ 119;56 also uses the wordĀ zotĀ to refer to a blessing, in that case the City of David, where Hashem has commanded blessing for eternity.
He closes by saying the enlightened would understand, but adds a clue in that he says that a passage inĀ Bereshit RabbahĀ 100;12 assumes his idea. That Midrash says the Torahās use ofĀ ve-zotĀ for Yaāakovās blessing left the door open for another man to come later and pick up where he left off, which is why Moshe opened withĀ ve-zot. He also told them (in the Midrashās reading) that they had earned these blessings when they accepted the Torah, about which Moshe had saidĀ ve-zot haTorah, and this is the Torah. That Torah also encompasses the covenant Hashem had told Avraham, inĀ BereshitĀ 17;10,Ā zot beriti,Ā this is my covenant.
At one level, this is Midrash being Midrash, ascribing connection and significance to all the appearances of a slightly out of place word. In our case, it links the covenant, the Torah, and the blessings. While Yaāakov only articulated some of them, Moshe came (after the covenant had been turned into a Torah, still identified asĀ zot) to round them out.
Rambanās reference to that Midrash is why I take him to mean Mosheās blessings would surely come to fruition because he was articulating what Hashem wanted to do anyway. These arenāt so much blessings as the ānaturalā outcome of being partners to a covenant and then a Torah.
The Dedication of the Desert
××ר×× ×¤×Ø×§ ××:×Ā ×Ö·×Ö¼Ö¹××Ö·Öר ×Ö°×§Ö¹×ÖøÖ×§ ×Ö“×”Ö¼Ö“×× Ö·Ö„× ×Ö¼Öø×Ö ×Ö°×Öø×ØÖ·Ö¤× ×֓שּ×Öµ×¢Ö“××ØÖ ×ÖøÖ××Ö¹ …Ā (×) …×Ö°×Öµ×Ö ×ŖÖ¼Ö»×Ö¼Ö£×Ö¼ ×ְרַ×Ö°×Ö¶Ö×Öø…:
DevarimĀ 33;2: He said, āHashem appeared from Sinai and shined towards them from Seirā¦Verse 3: ā¦they assemble (or bow down) at your feetā¦
Ramban notices that verse two jumps from Sinai to Seir (and Paran), a gap of thirty-eight years. Thatās because the Jewish people were inĀ niduiĀ during this time, partially shunned by Hashem, with Moshe Rabbenu not receiving prophecy. I find that a fascinating ideaāthe Jews gathering theirĀ manĀ every day for food, being led by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, their clothes not wearing out, but also not having any direct interaction with Hashem.
It would likely challenge their confidence that Hashem was leading them, even with all those signs of continuing involvement. That element of it (I skipped other parts of the comment) connects well to Rambanās reading of the phrase in verse 3, different than the translations I found. In his view,Ā tukuĀ is likeĀ huku, were hit, and he takes it to mean the Jews suffered in the desert and yet faithfully followed Hashem. They didnāt care, in Rambanās view, about famine, drought, serpents and scorpions.
This refers back toĀ DevarimĀ 8;15, where Moshe warned the Jews about how their arrogance might lead them to forget all Hashem has done for them. In his list of what Hashem had done appears the fact that Hashem led them through a land of serpents and scorpions, with no water or food, and produced water from a rock and gave them theĀ man.
Ramban seems to be reading that as if the Jew suffered from all those before Hashem saved them from it, and he mentionsĀ Yirmiyahu2;2ās speaking of the Jewsā following Hashem in the desert asĀ chessed neāurayikh, kindness of your youth, that they went after Hashem in a land that was not planted (and therefore didnāt have readily available food supplies).
It is clearly Rambanās view, with basis in Tanach, but it raises interesting questions about what counts as a merit and what not. The Jews left Egypt because Paroh kicked them out, and once in the desert, itās not clear how theyād have made it had they not followed Hashem. Various sources also show that disobedience led to death, such as with the Jews who insisted on going to Israel after hearing the punishment for crying at the spiesā report.
Heās not fabricating anything, but to see the Jews as having suffered for Hashem in the desert is a particularly beneficent viewpoint.
There Will Be Twelve
The last comment we have time for this week picks up on the fact that Moshe does not bless the tribe of Shimāon. Ibn Ezra and Rashi attribute that to their malfeasance, that they were the main sinners at Peāor. We infer that from the fact that Zimri, whom Pinchas killed, was the head of a clan of that tribe, and that Shimāonās numbers dropped over the course of theĀ BamidbarĀ much more than any other tribeāin the count at the start of the book, there are 59,200 men in Shimāon, and only 22,300 in the count inĀ Pinchas.
Since 24,000 people died in the plague that punished those who worshipped Peāor, tradition thought Shimāon must have participated disproportionately in the sin, and therefore lost numbers disproportionately as well.
Ramban argues that other tribes also lost population, and Shimāon lost many more than 24,000. Besides, verses make clear that Peāor was a national sin, not limited to one tribe, and had already been atoned. So thatās not sufficient reason to exclude Shimāon from theĀ berachotĀ in thisĀ parsha.
Regardless of the historical fact, his alternative suggestion is also more far-reaching. He says the Jewish peopleĀ always have twelve tribes. When Yaāakov blessed them, Ephraim and Menasheh were grouped together as part of Yosef (as they were at the ceremony on Mt. Gerizim), so there were twelve; at the dedication of the Mishkan, in their encampments (and settling the Land), Levi wasnāt included as a tribe, so there were again twelve.
InĀ VeZot HaBerachah, Levi needed to be explicitly included, since they werenāt going to get a share in the Land. Yet Moshe also wanted to ratify Ephraim and Menashehās identities as tribes, which had been true of them throughout the time in the desert. Somebody had to be left out, because there needed to be twelve, to correspond to natural phenomena that come in twelves (the months of the year, for one example–Ā Ā Ramban doesnāt expand, but he clearly means that the tribes in some way represent or reflect some aspects of Nature, giving the Jewish people, in their tribes, a role in the workings of the world at large).
YechezkelĀ 48 doesnāt mention Levi at the beginning of the chapter, because Yosefās sons are named individually. Later in the chapter, when he does bring up Levi, he refers to Yosef rather than Menasheh and Efrayim.
A Tribe Thatās Part of the Whole
Why make Shimon odd man out? Because there werenāt that many of them, and Yaāakovās minimal blessing was that they would be scattered throughout the people. If so, they could benefit from those other tribeās blessings, and Moshe could leave them out here.
The specifics of Shimonās fate as a tribe in all honesty interest me less than Rambanās assumption that twelve was the necessary number of tribes, because the tribes correspond to deep truths of the universe (such as months of the year,Ā mazalotĀ in the sky, and so on).
Itās a good reminder of Rambanās view of the intermixing of the physical and metaphysical, a view that also expressed itself in the first verse of theĀ parsha,Ā about Mosheās blessing and its connection to Hashemās view of the future of the world (and that seems to me to be a main theme of Ramban inĀ DevarimĀ as a book).