torah: rabbi david etengoff

The problem of anger touched even Moshe

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The first of our two parshiot (Matot and Masei) contains a rather quizzical pasuk: “Eleazar the kohen said to the soldiers returning from battle, ‘This is the statute that the L-rd commanded Moses’.”1 (Sefer Bamidbar 31:21) Eleazar’s new and unprecedented role as the teacher of our nation is particularly perplexing. Since Moses was the rebbe par excellence — and the one commanded by the L-rd — why and how did it become Eleazar’s job to teach “the statute that the L-rd commanded” to the Jewish people? Rashi, basing himself upon Midrash Sifrei Matot 48, suggests the following: 

Eleazar the kohen: Since Moses came to a state of anger, he came to err, as the laws of purging gentile vessels eluded him. [Therefore, Eleazar had to teach them.] A similar incident happened on the eighth day of the investitures [of the kohanim], as it says, “He [Moses] became angry with Eleazar and Ithamar” (Sefer Vayikra 10:16); he came to a state of anger, so he came to err. Similarly, in the episode of “Now listen, you rebels… and struck the rock” (Sefer Bamidbar 20:10-11); through anger, he came to err. 

The shared approach of the Midrash Sifrei and Rashi as to why Eleazar suddenly became the provisional rebbe of the Jewish people is found, as well, in a parallel passage in Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 66b:

Reish Lakish said: “In regards to every man who becomes angry, if he is a Sage, his wisdom departs from him … [we learn this] from Moses. For it is written, “Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had returned from the campaign of war,” (Sefer Bamidbar 31:14) and it is written, “Eleazar the kohen said to the soldiers returning from battle, ‘This is the statute that the L-rd commanded Moses’.” (Sefer Bamidbar 31:21) From this it follows that [the halacha of koshering vessels that was presented to the Jewish people by Elazar] had been forgotten by Moses.2

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