[Avodah] More on the Stature of Moshe Rabbeinu According to RSRH

[Yitzchok Levine]

The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bamidbar 10: 31 - 32

10: 31 But he said: Please do not leave us! For I 
am asking this because you are familiar with the 
places of our camping in the wilderness and you
can serve us as eyes.

10: 32  If you go with us, it shall be that the 
same good that God in His goodness will do for us, we will do for you.

This request that Moshe made of his father-in-law and recorded for
all time is of great importance, for the request that his father-in-law
should help them with his judgment and with his knowledge of the
terrain can bring us to a correct evaluation of Moshe’s mission.

As we have already seen (Shemos 18:13-27), Yisro’s organizational
advice proves that Moshe did not have the organizational skills required
of a state-building lawmaker. Likewise, the fact related here refutes all
the idle chatter about Moshe’s knowledge of the ways of the wilderness,
according to which the Divine wonder of our journeying in the wilderness
is merely the result of clever and shrewd leadership. Moshe, who
needed the advice of his father-in-law in order to organize the judicial
system and to make proper arrangements for the camps, and recorded
both of these instances for everlasting memory among his people —
this man could not have led his people and given it Torah on his own;
he could have accomplished it only as the instrument of God. He would
have been the very last person to ascribe to himself a halo of superhuman
insight and miraculous power (cf. Commentary, Shemos 18:24). 
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