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There are a lot of mitzvot in this week’s parsha. One seems straightforward:
But Rashi points out that it seems redundant:
Ramban says that the איסור is not so much one of stealing, but of denying the historical division of the land, which is a denial of the מסורה:
And the Sifrei midrashically extends this to mis-attributing the מסורה of תורה שבעל פה:
(The citation from משלי is part of the proof that the איסור should be taken figuratively; ספר משלי is by definition metaphoric.)
תורה is our נחלתך אשר תנחל.
We know the gemara that citing ones sources is important:
But the Sifrei here makes it an actual לא תעשה. Rav Baruch Epstein (the Torah Temimah) says that is only in the case that it changes the הלכה למעשה:
(It
seems to me that mentioning רב אליעזר and רבי יהושע is a midrashic pun; the literal איסור is confusing the work of אלעזר הכהן and יהושע בן נון.)
Rav Epstein is then bothered by an episode in the gemara, where two tannaim agree on the halacha but disagree on the scriptural derivation:
Doesn’t רב ששת know that מחליף…עובר בלא תעשה?
The Torah was not given to מלאכי השרת, and we have to be aware of our limitations.
Rav Epstein then adds an idea from קוהלת.
נחלה here is of course talking about the מסורה:
Why רב ששת specifically? All the amoraim knew their משנה and ברייתא.
But to truly learn Torah, we need both חכמה and נחלה (and fortunately for those of us with imperfect memory, that נחלה can be written down). And the נחלה includes not just the facts but also the people to taught them. That is an inherent part of how one acquires Torah:
When we realize the chain of tradition of the מסורה, we connect ourselves back to מעמד הר סיני and forward to the ultimate גאולה.
לא תסיג גבול רעך אשר גבלו ראשנים is a statement of who we are.