This is also why it is in our parashah that two Jews prophecy that Moshe will not enter the Land. This is why Hashem’s response to Bnei Yisrael’s complaints was to appoint a sanhedrin/high court alongside Moshe. This is consistent with the above, for Chazal say that the mahn fell only in Moshe’s merit. In the verses which follow, Bnei Yisrael lodge their complaints against the mahn. Because of this distance between Moshe and Bnei Yisrael, he could not lead them once-and-for-all into the Land. The root of this uncertainty, R’ Schorr explains, was the fact that Bnei Yisrael had made the golden calf at Har Sinai, thus distancing themselves from Hashem and also from Moshe (who was on the mountain and was not involved). What was their complaint?Ĭhassidic works explain that Bnei Yisrael were unsure whether the miracle of traveling three-days’ distance in one day was good or not. Instead, the “third” book opens by informing us that Bnei Yisrael were complaining about an unspecified subject.
Indeed, had Bnei Yisrael loyally followed Moshe, they would have entered the Land at that time and never been exiled. Rashi writes that they made this trip in only one day because Hashem was “in a hurry” to take His people into Eretz Yisrael. (According to this view, verses 10:35-36 are a free-standing book.)Īt the end of the “first” book, we read that Bnei Yisrael traveled a distance of three days from Har Sinai. The Book of Bemidbar is actually three books, of which the end of one, all of the second, and the beginning of the third are found in our parashah. He explained as follows:Īccording to one opinion in the gemara, there are not five books of the Torah, but seven. R’ Gedaliah Schorr z”l taught that in this week’s parashah, Bnei Yisrael enter a transitional period – the beginning of the end of Moshe’s reign.
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