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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: <A
href="mailto:cantorwolberg@cox.net">cantorwolberg@cox.net</A><BR><BR>>>It
seems strange to me that for someone who was considered to be<BR>the most humble
Biblical character of all time, had the chutzpah to <BR>say to the Almighty: "If
you don't forgive them, then count me out." <<</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>>>>>></DIV>
<DIV>"Chutzpa"? This seems to me a perverse way of looking at one of the
most poignant pesukim in the whole Torah.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><B><BR></B><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR></B><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. <A title="http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565" href="http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565" target="_blank">AOL Music takes you there.</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>