Friday, July 24, 2020

Is there Merit to Blaming Others? What if we KNOW It's Their Fault!

Parshat Devarim

 by Rabbi Avi Billet

Moshe begins the book of Devarim recalling two episodes from early in the wilderness experience: appointment of judges and spies. The latter retelling begins in 1:20 and sounds something like this: “We had gotten to a point where we were ready to go up and conquer the land, and you all insisted that we send spies. I capitulated. The spies went in, and upon their negative report, your parents” – remember, he is speaking to the second generation – “gave up on the land, demonstrated a lack of faith in God, and really doomed themselves to the wilderness for 40 years.” 

 In this context, of recounting the tale of the Spies, Moshe says, “God got angry. God swore none of the people of that generation would enter the land, except for Kalev, who fulfilled My instructions properly.” Then Moshe pontificates a little and notes, “God also got angry at me on your account – בגללכם – saying ‘You too will not go there.’” (1:37) 

Though Netziv attributes this verse to Moshe simply explaining that he will not be entering the land (for reasons related to the Mei Merivah/Rock incident), that doesn’t adequately explain away why Moshe refers to his non-entry to the land in the middle of his recounting Kalev’s and Yehoshua’s roles at the spies story. Oddly enough, in Parshat Va’eschanan, Moshe also indicates twice that the reason he will not be going into the land is the fault of the Israelites. 

Devarim 3:25: Moshe recounts how he had asked if he could cross over and see the land. “God got angry at me – למענכם – on your account! and He did not listen, and he told me to drop it.” 

In 4:21, in the context of telling the people of Revelation, and important rules surrounding not abandoning God, Moshe says “God was angry at me על דבריכם – on your words. And He swore I would not be crossing the Jordan and entering the land.” 

The context of these narratives are not in recalling the Rock incident. So why is God so angry at Moshe? Why does Moshe keep blaming the people – בגללכם, למענכם, and על דבריכם? 

Or HaChaim explains: 

“The real reason Moshe pins his non entry into the land on the people is because they established the בכייה לדורות [a reference to turning 9 Av, the day the spies reported, into a day of crying, as if God said, “You’re crying about the Land I promised to you? I’ll give you a reason to cry!”] when they cried on Tisha B’Av over the incident of the spies. The Talmud in Sotah 9a notes that had Moshe entered the land and built the temple it would never have been destroyed. In Midrash Tehillim, on the verse in chapter 79 
1A song of Asaph. O God! Nations have come into Your heritage, they have defiled Your Holy Temple, they have made Jerusalem into heaps.
  א מִזְמ֗וֹר לְאָ֫סָ֥ף אֱֽלֹהִ֡ים בָּ֚אוּ גוֹיִ֨ם | בְּנַֽחֲלָתֶ֗ךָ טִ֖מְּאוּ אֶת־הֵיכַ֣ל קָדְשֶׁ֑ךָ שָׂ֖מוּ אֶת־יְרֽוּשָׁלִַ֣ם לְעִיִּֽים: 
this speaks of God throwing His wrath against sticks and stones rather than against people. For had Moshe entered the land and built the Mikdash, God would have deferred His wrath from Moshe’s temple and instead taken it out on the people. 

“For this reason, God decreed at the time of the spies that Moshe too would die in the wilderness. When Moshe says ‘Hashem got angry at me בגללכם’ he means בגלגול דברים שלכם. Through the circuit of your words at the time of the spies. Had there not been a sin of the spies, Moshe likely WOULD have entered the land at that time. And, yes, he would have built the Beis Hamikdash. But the בחינת הרע, the character of evil that entered the people through their acceptance of the report of the spies, never would have become part of the DNA of the nation of Israel. 

“But isn’t Moshe’s death tied to Mei Merivah?! 

“Answer: Had Moshe sanctified God’s name at Mei Merivah, Israel would have returned to their initial level of purity which they had prior to the sin of the spies. And through the tremendous Kiddush Hashem, God would have annulled the promise that Moshe would not enter the land, and he WOULD HAVE entered, and he WOULD have built the temple to last forever. And it would have lasted forever.” 

Moshe and Aharon were told at Mei Merivah you will not bring THIS congregation. But that does not limit them or prevent them from taking a future group of Am Yisrael into the land, such as, perhaps, a reemerging nation that is ready after the resurrection which accompanies the Final Redemption. 

What is the Or HaChaim telling us? 

He is saying that at the time of the spies incident, all the people had to do was listen to one man, who stood up against everyone else and said “We can conquer the land and defeat the inhabitants.” They had to listen to the pair of Yehoshua and Kalev who said “The land is very very good.” But they didn’t. 

They allowed a Shiga’on, a craze, to overtake them, and they – that generation - were doomed to the wilderness. The Nation would make it, but not that specific generation. And even the next generation had a chance for a Tikkun, to fix things in a manner that would allow Moshe and Aharon to bring them in to the land, but those opportunities were lost. Moshe could therefore blame the people for his non-entry, because they were never worthy of having him bring them into the land after the spies incident. 

Whether we blame the people (for any incident), Moshe (for whichever tales seem to condemn him), or circumstances, the opportunity was in fact lost to fix past deeds. 

Our challenge in our times is to wonder whether such an opportunity for Geulah (redemption) is lost forever. Can Moshe once again lead us, and can his leadership bring us to the Promised Land forever? 

I suppose anything is possible. But not if there are blame games. 

In watching the national and political landscape (here and in Israel), and in perceiving the winds which advance and keep turning in every direction, there is an awful lot of blaming going around. Moshe blamed the people for his inability to enter the land – and it may well be the case from the spies incident. We can even suggest (see Malbim in Bamidbar 20) that Moshe’s death came about because the people were unworthy of having him as a leader. 

But what if Moshe got it wrong and the fault for being unable to enter the land rested on himself? 

Every movement and platform that ventures into the realm of being political blames all the ills of society on everyone else. Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats. Fill in the blank on every other political movement (the examples I gave are the easiest to share without getting too political). 

But what if instead of blaming others we just all improved ourselves? What if instead of trying to change others we all moved a little more towards moderation than to extremism? Of trying to understand the other, rather than blame the other? 

How much of a Bechinat Hara (as Or HaChaim put it) do we carry? What eye leads us in our perception of others? Why does it never see the faults we ourselves carry? 

Too much of the world is a mystery. As advanced as we are, as much as we know, we’re likely not at the tip of the iceberg of the expanse of human knowledge. The pandemic has shown this to be true. There is much learning being done, but even the learning is undermined by politics. Why does that have to be the case? It’s so so sad. 

Moshe blamed the people for his inability to enter the land, because the people did not see how their succumbing to the words of the spies brought them down levels! They could not continue on their trajectory into the land, with Moshe at the helm. Their kedusha level dropped so much when they distrusted God over the Land and because they trusted a few negative people. 

And when they had the chance to bring their level up, to show the ultimate trust in God over issuing water from a Rock, somehow the connections couldn’t be made, between the people and Moshe, between the people and God, between Moshe and God. 

Human beings share this world, and we share in the need to see the humanity of others, and to share in the humanity of others. We must be kind, courteous, respectful, and decent. 

The thought police are doing all of us a disservice. We don’t learn when there is no opposition. We can’t refine our views when those very views are not challenged, or when any alternate view is silenced in the name of censorship and oppression, or through the label of “misinformation” without actual substantive debate. 

The Rabbis don’t let Moshe get away with blaming the Israelites for his non-entry into the land. After all, the people didn’t conspire against Moshe. (Had they conspired against him, they would be evil, and it would be their fault.) But the people also didn’t blame Moshe for his own non-entry. In that sense, they let him be.  

Silencing others, destroying others, blaming others, instead of engaging in human conversation, the likes of which have advanced free societies more than anything else in human history, gets us nowhere. When people can get together and converse in the courtroom of ideas, amazing things can take place, incredible advancements in thought, planning, problem solving can be achieved. 

Perhaps we don’t need Moshe to lead us to the Promised Land. But we do need to be able to live and thrive there as one nation under God. And that works best when the cacophony of human intellect meets and discusses, instead of shouting and blaming and getting nothing accomplished.

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