[Avodah] Tetzaveh "Be Careful What You Wish For"

[T613K at aol.com]

From: _cantorwolberg at cox.net_ (mailto:cantorwolberg at cox.net) 

>>It  seems strange to me that for someone who was considered to be
the most humble  Biblical character of all time, had the chutzpah to 
say to the Almighty: "If  you don't forgive them, then count me out." <<
 

>>>>>
"Chutzpa"?  This seems to me a perverse way of looking at one of the  most 
poignant pesukim in the whole Torah.
 
"Moshe, I will destroy the Jewish people and start all over again with  you 
and your children.  Your name will be glorified and you will be the  Avraham, 
Yitzchak and Yakov of a new people who are starting fresh."
 
"Ribono shel olam, I don't want that honor and that glory.  I just  want you 
to please forgive your children.  Please, don't wipe them out --  wipe me out 
instead.  Please, I don't want the glory and the honor, I don't  want to be in 
Your book -- if my people -- YOUR people -- are going to be  destroyed."
 
It was the ultimate in self-effacement -- a man who was closer to Hashem  
than any other human being in history, a man whose name is written throughout  
the holiest Book in history -- willing to let his memory and his name be erased  
and forgotten, or to put it another way, unwilling to be remembered and  
glorified by Hashem if at the same time his fellow Jews -- those  stubborn, 
recalcitrant, impossible sinners -- were not going to be forgiven  by Hashem.  I 
don't know where else in the Torah you see, in such simple  and heartfelt words, 
the depth of Moshe's love for his people and the extent of  his humility.  
"Mecheini nu misifrecha" -- "Erase me, please, from Your  book."  Like a child 
talking to his father, such simple language, but so  full of heart.

 


--Toby  Katz
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