In our Parsha Tetzaveh, the laws regarding the annointment, the vestments and the Avodah (service) of the Kohanim are enunciated for the Jewish people. But wait! Stop the music. Something seems amiss.
Our Parsha, unlike any other place throughout Torah (including Sefer Devarim where Moshe himself speaks to the Jewish people in one continuous Mussar shmooze reviewing the laws and the events of the 40 years in BaMidbar and where each of the Parshiyot are distinguished only by the sections Halachas enunciated) from the time of his birth through Vezos HaBeracha, omits any mention of Moshe Rabbeinu.
A few years ago, Rabbi Wagensberg, in his Shiur on our Parsha, brought sources which gave possible explanations for the absence of Moshe’s name from the Parsha. He mentions the Ba’al HaTurim who stated that Moshe’s name is absent because of his response to Hashem after Cha’it HaEigel. When Hashem stated his intention to destroy B’nai Yisrael and start again creating a people from Moshe’s seed, Moshe responded that “If you do not forgive their sin, blot me out from the book which you have written.” (Midrash Says, Sh’mos, Tetzaveh, P.273) “The Midrash Says” goes on to state that “A Tzaddik’s words must take effect (even if the condition attached to them is not fulfilled). Hashem consequently erased Moshe’s name from Parsha Tetzaveh.” (Midrash Says, Sh’mos, Tetzaveh, P.273)
Rabbi Wagensberg also brought The Gr’a as a source, which it is said, stated that during the week of Parsha Tetzaveh, Moshe was niftar and we commemorate his Yahrtzeit. For that reason, Hashem has omitted Moshe’s name from the Parsha. However in Biblical Times in Eretz Yisrael, Torah was read in a 3 year cycle and not a 1 year cycle. It’s not possible that the Great Vilna Gaon would have overlooked this point. Obviously, something else is at work here.
He then proposes a possible answer as to why Moshe was not openly mentioned, but rather concealed — Nistar in our Parsha. Parsha Tetzaveh has 101 posukim. If one counts the inside, concealed letters of Moshe’s name (Mem, Mem; Shin, Yud, Nun; Hay, Aleph), You find Mem = 40, Yud = 10, Nun = 50 and Aleph = 1. Hashem, it seems, omitted Moshe’s name from the Parsha not out of anger for Moshe but maybe, out of anger at B’nai Yisrael who were far beneath Moshe’s level of Selflessness and Spirituality.
But then a revelation hits me “up alongside the head.” Perhaps one could theorize that the great ones have been taken from us; Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Carlebach, Rav Me’ir Kahane, Rav Schach and the many other great names of the great Tzaddikim go on and on, too numerous to remember; and last year at this time, the Tzaddik Adir Zik, who fought with all of his talents, resources and with his last breaths out of an endless, passionate love for his Jewish brethren. Adir Zik was niftar a mere 10 days before last year’s heinous Knesset passage of the Expulsion law which legally stole property and possessions from our fellow Jews while promising compensation for those removed from their homes, possessions and employment. The compensation, by and large has been withheld from our Jewish brethren to this day, to this moment.
And it seems that throughout history from the death of the Tzaddik Metushelach which preceded the Mabul, the great flood, by a mere 7 days, through to our days when the deaths of a number of great Gedolim predated Oslo and, including Tzaddikim, like Adir Zik, whose deaths predated terrible events such that perhaps Hashem can’t bear to have the great Tzaddikim live to witness what Am Yisrael wreaks upon itself.
And another possible answer as to why Moshe Rabbeinu’s name is missing in our Parsha could be out of anger at B’nai Yisrael who were far beneath Moshe’s level of Selflessness and Spirituality. Perhaps Hashem is angry at an Am Yisrael who lacks collective “fire in the belly”, who lacks a loving passion for their Jewish brethren and for Eretz Yisrael; our Biblical Jewish heritage and legacy. Perhaps collectively, we don’t want our land badly enough. Perhaps collectively, it’s each guy for himself and his own and to heck with Am Yehudi, to heck with “…that place; after all, it’s not my neighborhood at risk.” Not your community?? Not yet. But, “As sure as Hashem made little green apples and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime …“
This week, unelected, Acting Prime Minister Olmert marched out his own Trial-Balloon man, former Shabak Head Avi Dichter to present his [Olmert’s] plans for the next expulsions of Jews from their homes and properties at legalized gunpoint; this time from Yehuda and the Shomron.
But perhaps, after Gush Katif, the Shalhevet neighborhood in Chevron and the police violence and brutality in Amona (click here and here), chas v’chalila that it would be written in future history that the religious turned the other cheek yet again, instead of tossing the anti-Torah bumbs out on election day — seeing that ALL of the Amona criminals stand trial on earth as well as in Shemayim. All of them from Olmert, to Ezra and Karadi, to Mofaz and Halutz and the perpetrators beneathe them who followed immoral orders deserve to stand trial for crimes against the Jewish people, even if it means doing what we didn’t do last year before the Gush Katif expulsion; following the Ukrainian model and putting a 100,000 Jews in front of Knesset 24/7; not for how it might affect the mindset and actions of an Ehud Olmert or a Peres, Silvan Shalom, Mofaz, Gideon Ezra, etc., but for the rock-solid dedication and unity it would build amongst ourselves, ala Mordechai and Esther and the Jews of the city of Shushan. Last year, the Am Yisrael was too busy fighting and hating each other and were too self-directed to care about the Klal and so 9,000 formerly productive, independent citizens are now destitute, devoid of their property and possessions and dependent upon the chessed of many others, while Kassams rain down upon S’derot and Askelon threatening homes, lives and vital services.
Because we didn’t stand Hashem’s test in foiling last year’s Gezeira in it’s legislative stages, or in it’s physical stages, Hashem has now given us sterner tests. And that, I believe is the message this year behind our Parsha Tetzaveh.
May it be in this year and beyond, that our brethren; the refugee families from Gush Katif and the Shomron (may they soon be restored to new homes and neighborhoods, Bati Knesset, Yeshivot in Gush Katif and the Shomron and only happiness and success for all time), as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard (may he soon know freedom and long life in Eretz Yisrael) be central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream.
May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Meiyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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