These are the words that Moshe spoke to all the Jews…[2]
This is how the Torah introduces us to Moshe’s monologue reproaching his flock, shortly before his death. It is long. Very long. How does HKBH view detailed examinations of the faults of His children?
Chazal[3] say, it’s complicated. It depends on whom the admonition is addressed to. “’These are the words’ – this is what the pasuk[4] means when it states, ‘One who rebukes adam/a person aharay will find favor.’” The word aharay is understood by the commentators to mean afterwards, in the end. (I.e. even though it may be more comfortable to flatter the evildoer, in the end, the person who admonishes him is the one who will find favor.) Or, aharay might be seen as “fallen away,” as an adjective. In other words, the (i.e. one who rebukes the person who has fallen away from Hashem’s commandments). Both interpretations can be sustained with a bit of license.
That license, however, may not be called for. The word acharay really means “after, or away from, me.” The midrash goes on to explain the pasuk in Mishlei that way, if one can assume that the word adam is sometimes used as a reference to all of Klal Yisrael. It praises Moshe for rebuking Hashem, as if it were, in conjunction with rebuking the Bnei Yisrael. In other words, in the aftermath of the chet ha-egel, Moshe rebuked the people for sinning acharay, or leading away from Me.[5] This was a good thing. But Moshe also added fervent pleas to Hashem – both before[6] and after[7] addressing the people – not to severely punish the Jews, thus “rebuking” Hashem by asking Him to show his sinning children love and compassion.
What do Chazal want to point out here? Nothing less than clear instruction to all Jewish leaders: the only rebuke of the people welcomed by Hashem is one that is accompanied by mitigating their sin! Furthermore, it must not lead to any prosecutorial harm to them.
The pesukim that follow demonstrate this. Moshe pulls no punches as he addresses his people. “How can I carry you alone – your troubles, your burdens, your quarrels?”[8] He castigates them for obstructing justice through legal maneuvering, and fabricating nasty rumors about him at every turn.[9] He is not particularly warm and complimentary. His solution to the problem is to try to share the burden with wise and understanding people. “So I took the heads of your people,”[10] and turned them into associate judges. How did he take them? He “persuaded them verbally. ‘Fortunate are you! Over whom do you come to be appointed? Over the children of Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov. Over people called brothers and friends [of HKBH].’”[11] He gushes his enthusiasm for the people!
There is no contradiction. When speaking to the people, he was deliberately unsparing. To make an impression, he had to be harsh. But he never lost sight of the important truth that Klal Yisrael is always the beloved of Hashem. When he spoke to the small group of judicial appointees, he opened up and shared his genuine feelings.
Yeshaya came under fire for saying, “Woe to me! I am undone. I am a man of tameh lips, and I live among a nation of tameh lips.”[12] Chazal[13] record Hashem’s response. “About yourself, you are permitted to say that your lips are tameh. But about Yisrael you say that you live among a nation of tameh lips? They preceded naaseh to nishma! They declare My oneness every day – and you call them a people of tameh lips?”
Yet, the same Yeshaya began his prophecy with even stronger words. “Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken G-d; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.”[14] Why was he not criticized for this? The difference is simple. The earlier speech was directed to a population that he needed to move to teshuvah. Blunt force was necessary. The later one was a conversation with HKBH.
In speaking to Hashem, a leader has but one task: to defend, to mitigate, to put Klal Yisrael in the best possible light.
- Adapted from Be’er Moshe, by the Ozherover Rebbe zt”l ↑
- Devarim 1:1 ↑
- Devarim Rabbah 1:2 ↑
- Mishlei 28:23 ↑
- Shemos 32:30 ↑
- Shemos 32:11 ↑
- Shemos 32:32 ↑
- Devarim 1:12 ↑
- See Rashi, citing Sifrei ↑
- Devarim 1:15 ↑
- Rashi, citing Sifrei ↑
- Yeshayahu 6:5 ↑
- Tanchuma, Vayishlach ↑
- Yeshayahu 1:4 ↑