These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly portion: #1371 The Hatzala Member Who is NOT On Call On Shabbos, Can He Go On the Call Anyway? Good Shabbos!
Moshe’s Critique of Yehoshua: You Need to Understand the Cry Behind the Sounds
The pasuk says, “Yehoshua heard the sound of the people in its shouting, and he said to Moshe, ‘The sound of battle is in the camp!'” (Shemos 32:17). Moshe Rabbeinu descended from the mountain, Klal Yisrael had made the egel (golden calf), they are partying in the presence of the egel, and Yehoshua interprets the sounds as that of a war. Moshe corrects him: “This is not the sound of might, it is not the sound of weakness, it is a “kol anos anochi shome’ah” (painful sound I hear). (Shemos 32:18).
The Yerushalmi in Maseches Taanis comments on this pasuk. Moshe criticizes Yehushua here: The one who is destined to lead 600,000 Jewish soldiers does not know how to distinguish between one type of sound and another?”
This is reminiscent of a mother knowing what is bothering her baby when she hears the baby cry. There is a certain cry that indicates the baby is in pain, there is a certain cry that indicates the baby wants attention, there are certain cries that indicate a stomach ache, and others that indicate an ear ache. A mother recognizes the difference in the cries. That is, in effect, the critique Moshe leveled at Yehoshua: As the future leader of the people, you need to recognize the difference between one type of cry and another.
What was the difference in the cries over here that Moshe immediately recognized to not be “a cry of war in the camp?” Rav Schwab, in his beautiful sefer on Chumash, Ma’ayan Beis Hashoevah, writes that Yehoshua heard the noise of drunken people. He assumed that this was the beginning of a rebellion. The people were drunk and now they wanted their freedom. They planned to rebel and throw off the leadership of Moshe Rabbeinu and the leadership of the Ribono shel Olam. This was the drunken noise that Yehoshua perceived.
Moshe Rabbeinu was, in effect, telling Yehoshua that the reason they were drunk was not because there was a rebellion. This was not the beginning of a mutiny. The reason they were drunk was that they were in pain. When people are in pain, they sometimes get drunk. People mistakenly believe that alcohol can (at least temporarily) put them out of their misery.
Moshe told Yehoshua, “Kol anos anochi shome’ah” – the thing that I hear is people who are troubled. People are confused. The people know that I am their leader and now they think that I am dead. These are desperate people. Sometimes, when people find themselves in such desperation, they try to put themselves out of their misery by getting themselves drunk. Yes, after becoming drunk, they are now dancing around and seemingly having a good time, but it is only a temporary fix, and it is masking the kol anos – the sound of suffering that the people are enduring.
This was Moshe’s critique of his disciple: As a future leader, your job is to know the difference between various kinds of sounds – those of pure joy and those of supposed joy masking a deeper suffering. This is something that psychologists often zero in on. People may act and speak in a certain way but their words and actions reflect a deeper pain that may be hidden from others, and perhaps even from themselves. It is the job of mental health professionals to try to discover that deeper source of pain that causes people to act out in ways that are hard to comprehend.
If You Think It’s a Mitzva, You Will Never Do Teshuva!
The pasuk says: “It happened as he drew near the camp, and he saw the calf and the dances, that Moshe’s anger burned; he threw down the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the bottom of the mountain.” (Shemos 32:19). The Rishonim are bothered by a question: Moshe Rabbeinu did not need to come down from the mountain to know the situation. The Ribono shel Olam Himself told Moshe “Go, descend, for your nation has been corrupted… They made a molten calf.” (Shemos 32:7-8). At that point, Moshe Rabbeinu should have either decided “I will leave the luchos up here, go down, give them mussar, and make them do teshuva,” or he should have broken the luchos while he was still up on the top of the mountain.
Apparently, at that point in time, Moshe Rabbeinu was not prepared to break the luchos – or didn’t think he needed to break them. It was only after he came down and “saw the calf and the dancing” that he “broke the luchos at the foot of the mountain.” Why now? Why not earlier?
The Ramban in Parshas Ekev actually alludes to this question. The Ramban comments on the pasuk there (Devorim 9:17) “And I grabbed hold of the two luchos and I threw them from upon my two hands and I broke them before your eyes” as follows: Their aveira (sin) was too much to bear. At this point in time, Moshe recognized that their aveira was beyond redemption. The thing that Moshe saw that made the matter intolerable for him was the fact that they were dancing around the egel. The fact that they made an egel was apparently not enough for Moshe to conclude that they were beyond repair. But when he saw them also dancing around it – that, says Ramban, made him conclude that their aveira was too much to bear. Then he broke the luchos.
The Seforno says almost the same thing as the Ramban, although slightly differently. In this week’s parsha, the Seforno writes: “When Moshe saw that they were rejoicing in the corruption they made, he got angry and broke the luchos.” Again, it was bad enough to make an egel, but to celebrate that great aveira made it beyond hope that they would meekly return to their state of innocence.
It emerges from both the Ramban and the Seforno that the straw that broke the camel’s back was really the fact that Moshe saw the dancing around the egel! What does this mean? I would like to offer two insights into this question – one from a contemporary source and one from a commentary of the previous century.
The contemporary source is the sefer Avir Yakov, who quotes his Rebbi, Rav Aharon Dovid Willner, who is a rav in Monsey. He says a very interesting thing: The Mishna Berura quotes an Ari z”l that says about himself that the pinnacle of spiritual elevation that he achieved in his life was when he achieved an overpowering simcha shel mitzva – an emotion of joy through the performance of a mitzva. He achieved his greatest aliyah shel ruchniyus (spiritual elevation) when he did a mitzva with great joy.
A person can do a mitzvah and a person can do a mitzvah b’simcha. When the mitzva performance is done b’simcha, it really penetrates your essence. It goes into the marrow of your bones, so to speak. A person can go through the motions and shake a lulav or eat matzah and fulfill the mitzvos. However, when the same mitzva is done with a passion and an excitement and simcha, it becomes internalized and merges with the essence of the person.
That is why Moshe was initially able to tolerate the knowledge that they made an egel. He accepted the fact that they sinned, knowing that for every aveira, a person can do teshuva. But when an aveira is done with such simcha, that is something else. Adding the dimension of simcha to an action supercharges it – in either direction! Just like a mitzva done b’simcha is internalized, so too an aveira done b’simcha is internalized. It becomes too much a part of you to easily purge it from your essence. Therefore, up until now, Moshe didn’t destroy the luchos, because he held out the hope for teshuva. Once he saw the dancing and the joy with which they celebrated the egel, it became a different story. That was too much to uproot and therefore, at that point, he broke the luchos.
The other explanation I heard was in the name of the Maggid of Yerushalyim, Rav Sholom Schwardron (1912-1997), who quoted this thought in the name of Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein, the Slabodka Rosh Yeshiva. The Maggid said that when a person does an aveira, there is guilt. He knows he did wrong and therefore he is “karov l’teshuva” (close to repentance). But when someone does an aveira and turns it into a mitzva, there is not going to be teshuva because why would someone do teshuva for a ‘mitzva‘?
As long as Moshe was only aware that they made an avodah zarah, he reconciled himself with the idea. Avodah zarah is a terrible aveira, but a person can do teshuva for avodah zarah, just like he can do teshuva for any aveira. But when they celebrated the aveira with dancing and pointing in declaration: “This is your god Israel who took you out of the Land of Egypt…” They made it like Simchas Torah, except that it was not Simchas Torah – it was simchas ha’egel. They turned it into a mitzva. Then, Moshe felt that they were beyond hope.
We see this all the time. People do things wrong. They do teshuva. They feel bad about it. They feel guilty. But when they do something which is an aveira, for example, they are involved in a machlokes or they are involved in lashon hara but it has already become for them “a mitzvah!” then they are very far from doing teshuva.
Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein relates this to an incident in Tanach. Geichazi (the Gabbai, so to speak, for Elisha Hanavi) was somewhat of a sordid character. Among other things, he did two things that were wrong: First, when the Shunamite woman came to Elisha to bemoan the apparent death of her son, Geichazi was involved in what in modern parlance would be called sexual harassment (touching her in an inappropriate manner). Even after that incident, Elisha still kept Geichazi on. However, when Naaman, the General of Aram, came to Elisha seeking a cure for his tzaraas (having been to every specialist in the world without finding a cure) and Elisha told him to immerse in the Yarden (Jordan River) – which indeed cured him from his tzaraas – Elisha dismissed Naaman without asking for any payment. Geichazi ran after Naaman and shook him down for some money. So Geichazi had lust for women and money.
When that second incident happened, Elisha told Geichazi that he was finished. “No more!” In our mind, the touching of a woman inappropriately, which borders on giluy arayos (sexual immorality), should have had greater consequences than asking for a little money as compensation for services rendered. Why was Elisha prepared to overlook Geichazi’s first aveira and not his second aveira?
The answer is that when Geichazi acted inappropriately with the Shunamite woman, he knew that he did something wrong. He knew his actions bordered on giluy arayos and he felt guilty about it. For that, he was prepared to do teshuva. But taking money from the wealthy general of Aram did not trouble Geichazi in the slightest. He fully justified it as “payment for services rendered.” When you think you did nothing wrong and you experience no guilt for your actions, that is indeed an aveira for which teshuva will not be forthcoming, and for that he was dismissed.
Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]
Edited by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]
This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas Vayakeil/Pikudei is provided below:
- # 047 – Pikuach Nefesh: To Save a Life
- # 090 – The Melacha of Carrying
- # 138 – The Melacha of Tying Knots on Shabbos
- # 185 – The Melacha of Writing
- # 231 – Making a Siyum
- # 275 – Electricity in Halacha
- # 321 – Leap Year and the Second Adar
- # 365 – The Melacha of Tearing
- # 409 – The Melacha of Melabain (Laundering)
- # 453 – Wearing A Watch on Shabbos
- # 497 – The Tefillah of B’rich Sh’mei
- # 541 – Learning Kabbalah
- # 585 – The Melacha of Trapping
- # 629 – Sitting in Judgement on Shabbos
- # 672 – The Mishebeirach in Halacha
- # 673 – Putting A Sefer Torah in the Aron
- # 717 – One Hundred Brachos A Day
- # 761 – Killing Two Birds with One Stone
- # 805 – Baruch Sh’omar, Ashrei and Yishtabach
- # 849 – Saying L’shem Yichud – A Good Idea?
- # 893 – The Unique Parshas Sh’kolim
- # 937 – Magnetic Forces
- # 980 – Siyum M’sechta: For The Past Or For The Future?
- #1024 – Turning That Old Dress Into A Cover for a Sefer Torah?
- #1068 – “This (Aron Kodesh/Ner Tamid/Window) Is Donated By”…A Good Idea
- #1111 – Paying the Baal Koreh/Chazan/Babysitter for Shabbos
- #1154 – Does The Husband’s Early Kabolas Shabbos Affect His Wife?
- #1197 – Hachana Issues: Loading Dishwasher on Shabbos; Defrosting For Yom.Tov Sheni
- #1241 – The Case of the Mishloach Manos That Was Delivered to the Wrong Person
- #1285 – “It’s A Siman Min HaShamayim”: Is There Such A Thing?
- #1328 – A Fascinating Muktzeh/Tevilas Keilim Shaila
- #1329 – Finishing a sefer of Tanach: Does It Warrant a Seudas Siyum? And Other Siyum Issues
- #1371 – The Hatzala Member Who is NOT On Call On Shabbos, Can He Go On the Call Anyway?
- #1416 – Does the Prohibition of Not Taking Medicine on Shabbos Still Apply in Our Day and Age?
- #1461 – What Do the Urim ve’Tumim and Scrabble Have to Do With Each Other?
- #1503 – Being Mechalel Shabbos to Relieve the Anxiety of a Choleh Mesukan – Is it Mutar?
- #1546 – The Issur of Maaseh Shabbos Oops I Turned on the Light by Accident – Now What?
- #1590 – Must We Spend Shabbos Near Hospital During 9th Month To Avoid Driving on Shabbos?
- #1628 – Oy! The Light Is On in the Fridge!
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