Chukat 5781; 8 Tammuz 5781

BS”D June 18, 2021 8 Tammuz 5781 Potomac Torah Study Center Vol. 8 #35, June 18, 2021; Chukat 5781; 8 Tammuz 5781 NOTE: Devrei Torah presented weekly in Loving Memory of Rabbi Leonard S. Cahan z”l, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Har Shalom, who started me on my road to learning 50 years ago and was our family Rebbe and close friend until his untimely death. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Family and friends sponsor the Devrei Torah this Shabbat in loving memory of Iran Kohan-Sedgh, Iran Tova Bat David HaKohen z”l. Iran was the loving wife of Mehrdad Kohen, devoted mother of Joseph and Shirine, cherished teacher of many children in our community, and close friend to all who knew and loved her. Iran’s family and friends honored her at Magen David on the first anniversary of her burial, 7 Tammuz. May Iran’s name and memory always be for a blessing in our community. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Devrei Torah are now Available for Download (normally by noon on Fridays) from www.PotomacTorah.org. Thanks to Bill Landau for hosting the Devrei Torah. New: a limited number of copies of the first attachment will now be available at Beth Sholom on the Shabbas table! ______________________________________________________________________________ Sefer Bemidbar opens with great hope as B’Nai Yisrael prepare to leave the base of Har Sinai for the final trip to the land that God had promised to our Patriarchs. When the people actually start the journey (chapter 11), everything starts going wrong. The week starting 22 Sivan is the climax, starting with Miriam’s tzaraat (22 Sivan), then the uprising of Korach and 250 of his followers (some time later that week), and finally the departure of the Meraglim (29 Sivan), a disaster that concluds with the reaction to the majority report when they return on 9 Av. With intense displeasure, God decrees that all adults of the generation of the Exodus, except Calev and Yehoshua, will die in the Midbar (and thus not enter Israel). Starting with chapter 11, death is a recurring theme. Chukat opens with the law of the Red Heifer, the ritual required to re- establish ritual purity (tahara) after contact with a dead body (chapter 19). While God presented this law to Moshe at Har Sinai, the Torah presents it here, in the midst of a discussion of the deaths of the adults of the time of the Exodus. The Torah then skips 38 years (as if nothing else involving the first generation is worthy of note) and resumes in chapter 20 with events of the 40th year. The theme of death continues, because the discussion opens with Miriam’s death and its consequences. The Torah opens chapter 20 by announcing that the people have reached Midbar Zin. The absence of an opening Vav (=”and”) indicates a new topic. The Torah normally opens new stories with a vav to indicate a connection from one to the next. The absence of the vav here is a strong signal that there has been a gap, and a new story is starting. After Miriam’s death, there is no more water. The people complain, and Moshe appeals to Hashem. God tells Moshe to take his staff, go to “the rock,” and ask it to provide water. Moshe takes his staff, calls the people rebels, hits the rock, and water rushes out. God tells Moshe and Aharon that because they did not have sufficient faith to perform a Kiddush HaShem, they would not be able to enter the land. Commentators have debated for two thousand years trying to understand the nature of Moshe’s sin. Yanki Tauber, in his Dvar Torah below (see p. 15), reviews the theories of numerous traditional commentators. In his parsha class this week, Rabbi Antine of Beth Sholom pointed to 20:12, where God tells both Moshe and Aharon that He is punishing both of them, because they both failed to provide a Kiddush HaShem in bringing forth water. Rabbi Antine stated that any explanation of the sin must explain why and how both Moshe and Aharon sinned at Mei Meriva. 1 As usual, Rabbi David Fohrman has compelling new insights on this puzzle. He notes that the sin at Mei Meriva appears in the Torah immediately after Miriam’s death. The Midrash gives a second clue, the tradition that the rock that Moshe hit at God’s command forty years earlier turned into a well that followed B’Nai Yisrael wherever they went until it dried up after she died. Miriam appears in every crisis involving water, starting when as a young child she watches over baby Moshe when he is in his teva in the Nile River. Miriam watches over Moshe at the Nile, at the Sea of Reeds, and later in the Midbar – each time Moshe is involved with a crisis involving water. Miriam watches, always confident that God will find a way to solve the crisis, even when she has no idea how He will do so. Miriam’s lesson is that one must have complete faith that God will find a solution to save the Jews. This is the lesson that Moshe and Aharon should have learned from Miriam. This is the lesson that God wanted Moshe and Aharon to teach to the generation about to enter the land. Rav Soloveitchik’s famous Dvar Torah on Behaalotecha, where he argues that Moshe and Aharon failed to understand and provide optimal leadership starting with Bemidbar chapter 11, fits in with this interpretation. While Moshe was the greatest teacher in Jewish history, God apparently felt that Yehoshua was the better leader for the new generation as it entered Israel and met the challenges of starting a new phase of their history. Without Miriam to guide him, Moshe displays his anger (and probably grief over having just lost his sister and very close friend), calling the people rebels (morim, in Hebrew, spelled with the same letters as in Miriam). When he shows anger and then hits the rock instead of gently asking it to provide water, Moshe misses the opportunity to teach an important lesson to the people about to enter the land. Since Aharon should have understood Miriam’s faith, he should have alerted Moshe – thus God considers that he also should have helped teach this lesson. For forty years in the Midbar, God has been protecting B’Nai Yisrael – often with obvious miracles, but also behind the scenes. The serpents that God no longer holds back from attacking fit in with this message (21:8). God’s love and protection for B’Nai Yisrael includes hidden miracles, such as keeping snakes and serpents (very common in the desert) from attacking the people. God wants Moshe and Aharon to teach the people that God will always be with the Jews, even when they cannot see Him or His work – a very important lesson once they enter Israel and God will work without obviously violating laws of nature. During the past more than 2000 years, no nation except Israel has been able to make the land produce successfully. One can go through the areas that have not been under Jewish control since 1948 and see stone boundaries that our ancestors made many centuries ago. The land not under Jewish control is largely barren. The Jewish areas are vibrant and incredibly productive. Military scholars state that they can explain the results of all wars in history – except that they cannot explain how Israel defeated the combined Arab countries in the various wars since 1948. Miriam understood – Jews with faith in Hashem have always known that God would find a way for the Jews to win back our land when the time came. This is the lesson that God wanted Moshe and Aharon to teach to B’Nai Yisrael at Mei Meriva. While Moshe does understand and teaches this lesson in Sefer Devarim, a few weeks before his death, it is too late for God. He decides that it is time for a new leader for B’Nai Yisrael – Yehoshua, whom Moshe has been training for forty years. As we learn in Pirkei Avot, Moshe was the first Rebbe, and he passed on what he learned at Har Sinai to a never ending series of rabbis. My learning started with my beloved Rebbe, Rabbi Leonard Cahan, z”l, my beloved friend and teacher for nearly fifty years. With what I learned from him, I have been able to move on and learn more from other wonderful rabbis. May we all continue to learn and grow in our knowledge and mitzvot. Shabbat Shalom, Hannah & Alan ________________________________________________________________________________ Much of the inspiration for my weekly Dvar Torah message comes from the insights of Rabbi David Fohrman and his team of scholars at www.alephbeta.org. Please join me in supporting this wonderful organization, which has increased its scholarly work during the pandemic, despite many of its supporters having to cut back on their donations. 2 ________________________________________________________________________________ Please daven for a Refuah Shlemah for Menachem Mendel ben Chana, Eli ben Hanina, Yoram HaKohen ben Shoshana, Gedalya ben Sarah, Mordechai ben Chaya, Baruch Yitzhak ben Perl, David Leib HaKohen ben Sheina Reizel, Zev ben Sara Chaya, Uzi Yehuda ben Mirda Behla, HaRav Dovid Meir ben Chaya Tzippa; Eliav Yerachmiel ben Sara Dina, Amoz ben Tziviah, Reuven ben Masha, Meir ben Sara, Yitzhok Tzvi ben Yehudit Miriam, Yaakov Naphtali ben Michal Leah, Ramesh bat Heshmat, Rivka Chaya bat Leah, Zissel Bat Mazal, Chana Bracha bas Rochel Leah, Leah Fruma bat Musa Devorah, Hinda Behla bat Chaya Leah, Nechama bas Tikva Rachel, and Ruth bat Sarah, all of whom greatly need our prayers.

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