[Avodah] Moshe Rabenu got rich from the shivrei luchos

David Riceman driceman at optimum.net
Wed May 5 09:41:52 PDT 2021


RMB:


>> 
> 
> That veered from our topic. We are discussing the maamar Chazal that
> says that Moshe Rabbeinu only got rich through selling the pieces of
> sapir he chiseled to make the luchos sheniyos.

You’re right that I confused “shivrei luchos” with “psoles haluchos”.  But I think that my point can still be salvaged.

What MR learned from the incident of the Eigel was that Torah is not a priori.  There’s a two way dialectic between Torah and the Jews, and the luchos need to be chiseled to fit the Jews and not only the Jews to fit the Torah.  And this is sameah b’helko, that he was happy with the people he had.

 In fact this fits the very Gemara you’re citing, Nedarim 38a, which makes a heikesh between the psolet and the ktav, and says Moshe generously gave the ktav to Bnei Yisrael.  And, the Gemara continues, what is the ktav, pilpula b’alma.   So rather than a fixed a priori Torah, the luchos shniyos represent dialectic.  This also fits the midrash that the first luchos didn’t need to be reviewed the way Torah does now.  See Tzafnat Paaneah al haTorah Deut. 31:19.

There is a strand of Midrash which says that Moshe’s grandson was obsessed with wealth (Yerushalmi Berachos 9:2, 64b - 65a in the reproduction of the Vilna edition I have).  I wonder if that’s related to “lo hamor ehad mayhem nasasi” at the beginning of Korah (Nu. 16:15).  Several midrashim associate that with the requirement that a dayyan be impervious to bribes, which works either with literal or metaphoric wealth.  So maybe RSS was following that strand of midrash.  But of what value is wealth in the desert?


David Riceman


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