Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vaetchanan 
By Shlomo Riskin


Efrat, Israel - “And I (Moses) entreated the Lord at that time, saying, ‘... let me pass over (the river Jordan) please so that I may see the good land...’” (Deut. 3.23,25)

Moses places two entreaties before the Lord at the end of his life, one which is Biblically expressed and the other which is merely suggested between the lines of the Bible. The one which he openly expresses comes at the very beginning of this weeks’ Torah portion, and is his heartfelt request to enter the land of Israel. The other is perceived only by the Rabbis of the Midrash, and is based upon the fact that Moses expresses the need of appointing his successor right after God has agreed that the daughters of Tzelafhad can inherit their father (Numbers 21:14 The Midrash teaches).

“What caused Moses to request his replacement after the inheritance of the daughters? Since these daughters inherited their father, Moses declared, ‘This is the right moment for me to claim my need. After all, if these women can inherit, my sons should certainly inherit my glory’ 
The Holy one Blessed Be He said to him: ‘The Guardian of the fig tree shall eat of its fruit’(Proverbs 27). Your sons sat idly by themselves and were not occupied in the study of Torah. Joshua, on the other hand, served you well and extended to you much honor. He would arrive at your courthouse early in the morning and leave late at night.... Appoint Joshua the son of Nun as your successor, to fulfill the verse, ‘the guardian of the fig tree shall eat of its fruit’”. 

Hence Moses asked God to appoint his sons as his successors (although this request is not explicitly stated in the text), and Moses further asked God to allow him to enter the Land of Israel.

Tragically, both requests were denied. The first, his children as his successors, is denied because his sons are found wanting; they did not have the necessary Torah qualifications to be religious leaders in their fathers footsteps. Apparently, Moses himself realizes their lack of worthiness and therefore does not specifically make this request verbally; he merely thinks it in his heart and the Bible informs us of it by placing his request for replacement after the inheritance of the daughters of Tzelafhad. Perhaps Moses understands that he himself bears some guilt for the faults of his children. After all, he is so consumed with his relationship with the Divine that he has neither the time nor the patience for family. Does the Bible not record that he was seemingly too busy to even circumcise his son Eliezer, so that his life had to be saved by his wife Tziporah who performed the circumcision herself in order to save Moses from punishment for his neglect? (Exodus 4:24-26)? 

Moses apparently is more comfortable about making the second request, that he be allowed to enter the Promised Land. It is this entreaty which opens our portion of Vaetchanan. The entire purpose of the Exodus from Egypt is to enter the Land of Israel, and Moses even slew an Egyptian taskmaster to save a Hebrew slave, thereby making him persona non grata in the very country where he was living as a prince. After all of his sacrifices and all of his difficulties with an unwilling and backsliding Israelite nation, does he not deserve to reach his lifes goal and enter Israel?

But here again the request is denied. “And the Lord was angry at me because of you and He did not acquiesce to me...”, saying that I may not speak of this anymore (Deut. 3:26). If a parent’s legacy is limited or expanded by the quality of his children, a leader must likewise suffer the same destiny as his nation. When God originally asked Moses to assume the leadership of the Israelites and take them out of Egypt, the great prophet demurred: “The (Israelites) did not listen to Moses because of impatience and difficult work” (Exodus 6:9) The Ralbag explains this to mean that Moses was impatient with his (Moses’) people because of his difficult work in making himself intellectually and spiritually close to the Divine. Moses was apparently unwilling or incapable of convincing his people to conquer the Land of Israel; he had no patience for a people who had experienced so many miracles and was still refusing to carry out Gods will unconditionally. If as a result they were doomed to die in the desert, their leader had to share their punishment.

The story about the famous Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov will explain this idea. The Disciples of Rav Yisrael were very devoted to him - except on the morning of the Sabbath during the Additional Amidah; the great Rabbi and founder of the Hassidic movement would take so long in prayer that his disciples lost patience and yearned for a little Kiddush wine and cake. Since their Holy teacher took almost an hour for this particular prayer, they decided that they would quietly leave the synagogue, go home for Kiddush and return before the Rabbi knew that they had left. You could imagine their astonishment when - just as the last worshiper was leaving the synagogue and only ten minutes after the silent Additional Amidah had begun to be prayed - the Baal Shem Tov took three steps back and concluded his prayer. All the disciples sheepishly returned. The Baal Shem Tov explained: every 7Shabbath morning I literally climb to the heights of Heaven during this particular prayer - but the rungs of the ladder are the souls of my disciples. This morning the ladder crashed to the ground, so I had no other recourse but to conclude my prayer much earlier...” Every leader remains dependent upon his people.

In the final analysis, why were these two prayers denied the greatest leader in Jewish history? Perhaps because the very source of Moses’ greatness - his closeness to God - was also the very source of his tragedy: he lacked the patience for family or congregants who were far from his level. Perhaps he was refused by God in order to teach us that no mortal, not even Moses, leaves this world without at least half of his desires remaining unfulfilled. And perhaps he was refused merely to teach us that no matter how worthy our prayer, sometimes the Almighty answers no and we must accept a negative answer. Faith, first and foremost, implies our faithfulness to God even though He may refuse our request.

Shabbat Shalom 
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel