Avot291
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
Today's shiur is dedicated by Edie Freedman
in memory of her mother,
Seema Pulier, Seema bat Ozer z"l,
whose Yahrzeit is today.
TRACTATE AVOT, CHAPTER FIVE, MISHNAH FOUR (recap):
Ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in Egypt and ten at the [Red] Sea. In the desert, ten times did our ancestors try the Omnipresent, blessed be He; as it is said [Numbers 14:22] These ten times have they tried me and not listened to my voice.
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
12:
The last item in our present mishnah is concerned with the ten times that our ancestors tried God's patience during their sojourn in the Sinai wilderness. In our survey of these ten times we have reached the fifth item.
13:
The fifth of the ten trials of God's patience is closely linked with the fourth, since both are connected with the miraculous supply of manna. In explanation #11 in the previous shiur [Avot 290] we saw that although the people had been instructed that all the manna collected each day was to be consumed that same day and not left over until the morrow some of the people disobeyed this instruction. But this was not the only act of disobedience in connection with the manna. Moses instructed the people that every Friday they were to collect a double amount of manna, because the following day was "God's Sabbath", a day on which he would not provide manna. Most of the people, of course, obeyed Moses. But we also read [Exodus 16:27] that
Some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found nothing.
That this was a trial of God's patience becomes clear from God's reaction to this act of disobedience:
And God said to Moses, "How long will you people refuse to obey My commandments and My teachings?" [Exodus 16:28]
14:
The people now moved deeper into the wilderness, and once again, as at Marah [see Avot 290, explanation #9], they complained that they had no water to drink. That this was not a complaint of a people dying of thirst but that of quarrelsome folk we can see from Moses' response to their complaint:
The people quarreled with Moses. "Give us water to drink," they said; and Moses replied to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test God?" [Exodus 17:2]
This was the occasion when Moses was told to strike a rock with his staff and water gushed from it. The nature of the incident is made clear both by the name given to the place where it occurred and also the description of the people's motivation:
The place was named Massah [Testing] and Merivah [Quarreling], because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested God, saying, "Is God present among us or not?" [Exodus 17:7]
15:
We now come to the seventh time our ancestors tried God's patience, and this incident is the most well known of them all. The same people who but seven weeks earlier had witnessed the divine presence at Sinai and accepted God's sovereignty now turns to Aaron with a despicable request:
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered against Aaron and said to him, "Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt – we do not know what has happened to him."
God's displeasure – to put the reaction as mildly as possible – was so great that God intended the destruction of the people (the progeny of Abraham) who had failed Him and to start afresh with a new people that Moses would generate. It was only Moses' urgent intercession on behalf of the people that averted the divine wrath.
To be continued.
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