A Priest, a Rabbi and a King ....... – Shmot
וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל אַהֲרֹן לֵךְ לִקְרַאת מֹשֶׁה הַמִּדְבָּרָה וַיֵּלֶךְ וַיִּפְגְּשֵׁהוּ בְּהַר הָאֱלֹהִים וַיִּשַּׁק לוֹ (שמות ד, כז).
In this week’s parsha we encounter the two main characters of sefer Shmot, the brothers Aharon Hakohen and Moshe Rabbeinu. The purpose of this shiur is to contrast these two icons and to analyze what makes each of them special in their own right.
The first interesting thing to note is that they are from the tribe of Levi. In last week’s parsha Vayechi, Levi (and Shimon) were castigated by Yaakov Avinu for having a bad temper. In the shiur on Mikeitz we analyzed the genetic makeup of the tribe of Levi, how they started off badly but ended up well. It was this zealous nature and sense of absolute justice that enabled them to transcend the cesspool of Egypt, remain devoted to HKB”H and subsequently become the leaders of the nation. According to Chazal, while the rest of Am Yisrael stopped performing brit milah in Egypt, only the tribe of Levi continued to perform this mitzva (Malbim, Yehoshua 5).
The central determinant in the character of the two figures Aharon and Moshe is that they were from the tribe of Levi.
When the parsha describes the birth of Moshe (Shmot 2, 1-9) no names are mentioned. A “man” from Levi took a “woman” from Levi for his wife. The “woman” conceived and gave birth to a “son” and hid him for three months. She then hid “the boy” in a basket and placed it in the water on the banks of the Nile. His “sister” watched from afar to see what would happen to him. The (anonymous) daughter of Pharaoh fished him out of the water and the “sister” went to call the “mother” of the child to feed him. No names!
Contrast this with the last few parshiyot. When Leah gave birth to a son she called him …. Reuven, Shimon. Rachel gave birth to a son and called him Yosef, Ben Oni …. Straight off the bat: the name of the mother, the name of the child, the name of the sister (Dinah). Here with the birth of Moshe – nobody has names?
Sefer ברוך יאמרו says that the Torah did this because the only thing that is relevant in the whole story was that they were from the tribe of Levi - that tells us the whole story – who Amram was (the “man”), who Yocheved was (the “woman”), who Moshe was (the “son”), who Miriam was (the “sister”). Even Aharon is mentioned anonymously. The Ba’al Haturim on the passuk וַתִּפְתַּח וַתִּרְאֵהוּ אֶת הַיֶּלֶד וְהִנֵּה נַעַר בֹּכֶה (שמות ב, ו) asks “Why does the passuk start off talking about a ילד and then suddenly switch to נער?” and answers that the ילד in question was Moshe and the נער was Aharon who was crying. The gematriya of נער בכה is זה אהרן הכהן.
Later the Torah tells us the names, Moshe, Aharon, Miriam, but in the beginning of the story it is not relevant what their names were, only that they were from the tribe of Levi, who did a tikkun for their negative character trait that Yaakov reprimanded them for and became the gedolei hador.
The Targum Yonatan fills in the names. Amram was the gadol hador and because of the decree of Pharaoh that all boys were to be cast into the Nile, he separated from his wife/aunt Yocheved (the rest of the husbands in Am Yisrael followed suit). Amram’s daughter Miriam reprimanded her father saying that his decree was even more extreme than Pharaoh’s, as it affected not only the sons but also the daughters. As a result Amram remarried Yocheved and subsequently gave birth to Moshe.
During their “growing up” the psukkim and Midrashim focus almost entirely on Moshe and very little on Aharon. How Moshe grew up in the palace of Pharaoh, when he was older and started becoming active in easing his brothers’ suffering, killing the Egyptian, fleeing Egypt, his years in Kush, with Yitro, the burning bush, Tzipporah, etc. This is all detailed at length. If it were not for The Ba’al Haturim above, we would not even have known that Aharon existed!
The first time Aharon’s name is mentioned is when Moshe is reluctant to accept HKB”H’s mission to return to Egypt to redeem Am Yisrael. Moshe does not want to go and says that he is not a good “speaker”. However, when it goes beyond simple humility, HKB”H becomes angry with Moshe וַיִּחַר אַף ה' בְּמֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר הֲלֹא אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ הַלֵּוִי יָדַעְתִּי כִּי דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר הוּא וְגַם הִנֵּה הוּא יֹצֵא לִקְרָאתֶךָ וְרָאֲךָ וְשָׂמַח בְּלִבּוֹ (שמות ד, יד) .
Chazal say that until that point HKB”H intended that Moshe would be the נביא, the מלך and also the כהן גדול but as a result of his lack of enthusiasm to fulfill HKB”H’s command he relinquished the כהונה to Aharon.
It is actually ironic that Moshe says that he is not a big “speaker” and Hashem sends Aharon with him because supposedly Aharon is a good speaker דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר הוּא. Although Moshe claims he is not so good at speaking, he seems to do a lot of it. When Hashem communicates with him there is a conversation going on (later when Miriam speaks lashon harah against Moshe regarding Tzipporah, the passuk says פה אל פה אדבר בו (במדבר יב, ח)). It is not a one sided monologue Hashem only speaking to Moshe, but also Moshe responding, even questioning.
If you count the number of psukkim in the Torah that say וידבר משה or ויאמר משה - there are seventy psukkim in which Moshe “speaks”. How many psukkim have Aharon “speaking”? Only four! So who is really the “speaker”?
In fact Aharon is noticeably silent. Even when you would expect him to say something, like after the tragic death of his sons נדב ואביהוא, what does it say? וַיִּדֹּם אַהֲרֹן, Aharon is silent. The only time Aharon speaks in the psukkim is twice to announce that he has followed Hashem’s orders – relating Hashem’s words to Am Yisrael in Egypt (שמות ד, ל), and confirming that he has eaten the חטאת (ויקרא י, יט). The only time Aharon initiates speech in the psukkim is when he pleads with Moshe to daven for Miriam to cure her of leprosy for speaking lashon harah against Moshe.
Moshe on the other hand is not as shy. Am Yisrael sin with the עגל הזהב and with the מרגלים and Moshe repeatedly initiates conversation and pleads with Hashem to forgive them - many, many psukkim.
Notice a pattern emerging here?
Although Aharon was also a נביא the true נביא was Moshe, he reached the highest degree of נבואה. Moshe was also the מלך but he was not כהן גדול material. Aharon was כהן גדול material but not מלך and true נביא material.
To be a מלך and a נביא you need to talk. David Hamelech spoke – a lot! Think of sefer Tehilim. A huge chunk of our tefilot are the words of David Hamelech. A מלך and a נביא need to intercede on behalf of their people, to rebuke them if necessary. The worst character trait for a מלך or נביא is to be silent. They need to examine, question, judge, rebuke and rule.
To be a כהן גדול you need to be the opposite – you need to talk very little. You need to NOT question! HKB”H tells you to jump, you jump! No thousand words (like Moshe - I’m not a good speaker, Pharaoh won’t listen to me, since I have arrived it has only caused harm to Am Yisrael, etc.)
If you analyze the avodah in the Mikdash you also notice an interesting pattern. There is very little talking. Most of the avodah are actions – tvila, washing hands/feet in the kiyor, schechita, offering the korbanot on the mizbeach, fixing the lights of the Menorah (five, two), offering the ketoret, switching the Lechem Hapanim on the Shulchan, etc.
Yes, together with all these are their associated brachot, there is the shira of the Levi’im, the tefila of the כהן גדול on Yom Kippur, the vidui, etc. but the emphasis is overwhelmingly tipped towards action and less on words. Kavannah and action! These are the key features of the avodah. This is the way HKB”H intended the avodah to be.
Today, since we do not have the Mikdash, we compensate with tefila. It is a poor substitute – it is all words, very little action. True avodah requires more actions, less words. We cannot accomplish that because we do not have the Mikdash - we are not serving HKB”H the way He intended. We can approximate (even duplicate) the kavannah and the praise, however true sacrifice, which is primarily action related, is difficult to replace entirely with words. We can enhance it by physical sacrifice, like getting up earlier to daven, to be at shul earlier to say korbanot, staying longer afterward to say all the addendums (זכירות, עיקרי האמונה etc.), but we cannot entirely replace it today. We cannot truly duplicate the physical, multisensory experience of seeing the animal being sacrificed and understanding that by rights it should be us up there on the mizbeach, for the sin we committed. This is why is it not good to get too comfortable with ונשלמה פרים שפתינו, and to forget what true avodah is.
Both Moshe and Aharon were Levi’im, they both derived their strengths from their zealous devotion to HKB”H. They both had enormous humility, a tikkun for the original “temper” of the tribe of Levi. Both relinquished their sense of “self” in their total service of HKB”H and Am Yisrael. The only difference was style. Moshe filled the part of the מלך and נביא, Aharon the part of the כהן גדול.
They were a perfect team because they were totally devoid of sibling rivalry. They totally respected each other and perfectly complemented each other. This became the model for leadership in Am Yisrael – נביא, מלך, כהן. Ideally the נביא and the מלך would be the same person, like Moshe, Yehoshua, etc. This continued until Shmuel, when the roles of מלך and נביא were split between different people.
However the role of מלך and כהן were no longer intended to be the same person (although HKB”H originally intended to give all three to Moshe), reality dictated otherwise. Just like the world and reality evolved and required dynamics changes in the model - with the complaining of the moon, the fruit tree disobeying HKB”H’s directive, the sin of Adam and Chava, the selling of Yosef, the עגל הזהב, the מרגלים, etc. each time HKB”H made adjustments to the model.
When the later generations of the Chashmonaim forcibly changed the intended model and in addition to being Kohanim seized the royalty, it led to disaster, a bloodbath in Am Yisrael and eventually to the destruction of Bayit Sheini.
Aharon and Moshe were the model and later this was expanded to מלכות בית דוד. The מלך and the כהן became a lineage that was hereditary, the נביא not. It is like the three crowns כתר תורה, כתר כהונה וכתר מלכות. The crown of Torah, the נביא is “up for grabs” to anyone who is worthy and it is not hereditary, the other two are. Is heredity in power a good model? It is if there is mutual respect and symbiosis, like with Moshe and Aharon, if not it can be disastrous. Think of the צדוקים and all the kings that went astray, like Menashe.
We learn the model from Moshe and Aharon - that is where it all started. And do not think for a moment that it was problem free. Am Yisrael, just out of slavery in Egypt took time to adjust to it, think of Korach. But this was the ideal model and the duo that initiated it was the perfect duo, in their total devotion to HKB”H, to Am Yisrael and their mutual respect and symbiosis.
This will once again be the model when the Mashiach arrives – the מלך/נביא combo in Mashiach ben David and the Kohen Gadol in one of Aharon’s descendants. בבי"א.
