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This shiur was
inspired by Rav Copperman’s קדושת פשוטו של מקרא on פרשת שמות.
In this week’s parsha, Moshe is called to his historic mission, and he declines:
Rashi cites an interesting aggadic interpretation:
From a פשט perspective, Moshe’s refusal and then being forced to accept is dramatic irony, since we know that in the end he will fail to lead בני ישראל all the way to the ארץ זבת חלב ודבש.
But the דרש puts that into Moshe’s mind. He knows that he will fail.
But if “it was only because of his sin in the wilderness that Moses was denied the privilege of entering the Land”, how could it be foretold? Doesn’t he have free will? How could he be forced to make that error?
I asked our new Robotic Overlord about this:
The דרש, in this kind of case, looks for the “subconcious” level of understanding the text. Why is Moshe fighting this mission so fiercely?
The דרש sees this subtext throughout the Torah:
The gemara that is Rashi’s source adds an important detail:
The border between dramatic irony and prophecy is very fuzzy. The נבואה is directed at us, the readers. It gets more explicit later, as Moshe’s leadership falters in פרשת בהעלותך:
But, earlier in the same parsha:
And finally, we see the sin that will deny him “the privilege of entering the Land”:
The Maharal is bothered by all this:
His answer is that there is a process being hinted at:
The term he uses for the first stage, “עלה במחשבה”, has a specific meaning:
It refers to the מדת הדין, strict cause and effect. It is how the world would turn out all other things being equal. If nothing changes, Moshe is subject to העשוי לפרעה תראה, ולא העשוי למלכי שבעה אמות. The next step is the גזירה of the explicit נבואה of משה מת ויהושע מכניס את ישראל לארץ. But a גזירה isn’t נגזר in stone:
It’s not so much three independent levels as a spectrum. It goes from from Moshe’s foreshadowing (אין סופי להכניסם לארץ) to ה׳'s hint (העשוי לפרעה תראה, ולא כשאביאם לארץ) to מתנבאין ואינן יודעין מה מתנבאין to מתנבאים משה מת to לא תביאו בשבועה. And it starts from our parsha, and Moshe’s original objection:
Moshe is at an unimaginably high level. But he doesn’t have faith in the people. And that will have tragic consequences.
Many pixels have been darkened over the question of what exactly “לא האמנתם בי” means. I think it hearkens back to our parsha. But the real message of the midrash is that it’s not a Greek tragedy.