“Now, if You would, please forgive their sin. If not, You can blot me out from the book that You have written.” (Shemot 32:32)
Moshe’s name is not mentioned explicitly in Parshat Tetzaveh. He is referred to only with the pronoun “you.” After the sin of the Golden Calf, when the Jewish people were in danger of being destroyed, Moshe begged God to forgive the people’s sins, and if not, to blot his name out of the Torah. Even though God forgave them, Moshe’s words were fulfilled and his name was erased from one portion in the Torah.
Why was Moshe punished for exhibiting self-sacrifice for the Jewish people?
When God first approached Moshe at the Burning Bush, Moshe questioned his worthiness to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. Even after God had answered all his doubts, Moshe still replied, “Send this mission with the one you usually send” (Shemot 4:13). Here, Moshe revealed the real reason behind his unwillingness to accept this mission. He was afraid of slighting his older brother Aharon, who had suffered together with the Jewish people and had been, until then, God’s emissary to them.
God responded in anger. According to Rabbi Yossi (Talmud, Zevachim 102a), Moshe was actually punished for his reticence. He had been destined to be the progenitor of the line of kohanim, and Aharon was to be an ordinary Levi. Now this designation was reversed.
It seems incongruous that Moshe should have been punished so severely for refusing the mission out of sensitivity to his brother’s feelings.
The Sages tell us that one who suspects another wrongly is smitten in his own body (Shabbat 97a). If there are no grounds to suspect another, then the suspicion reflects on the one who is suspicious. He knows that if he were in a similar position himself, he probably would have acted as he suspects his friend of acting. Therefore, his suspicion is based on a personal blemish, and this is the personal impairment that the Sages refer to as being smitten bodily.
Moshe’s suspicion that Aharon would feel slighted was groundless. God told Moshe that Aharon would have nothing but joy in his heart upon hearing that Moshe had been chosen. Therefore the basis for Moshe’s suspicion must have been within himself. And it was this slight blemish that God responded to by punishing Moshe.
A kohen becomes God’s agent and representative, and therefore must be a selfless servant, totally negating his own self. If Moshe could not free himself of the self-concern he projected onto Aharon, he was found unfit to be the kohen. Aharon’s selflessness was beyond question—it made no difference to him who the redeemer was, as long as God’s mission was fulfilled—and he was therefore found fit to be the kohen gadol.
Moshe rectified this slight blemish of self-interest when he asked that his name be erased from the Torah if God did not forgive the Jewish people. To publicize Moshe’s rectification of his original blemish, his name was deleted from Tetzaveh, in which the installation of kohanim is discussed. Moshe might have been jealous of Aharon’s status as kohen gadol. To show that he was not, the Torah alludes to his earlier willingness to have his name removed entirely from the Torah. The Torah, therefore, deletes his name and refers to him as “you.” It made no difference to Moshe who was the kohen gadol—as long as there was a kohen gadol to fulfill God’s plan for the Jewish people.
Rabbi Zev Leff is the rabbi of Moshav Matisyahu, and a renowned author, lecturer and educator. He is a member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau (www.mizrachi.org/speakers).
