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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Insight 5768-33: Charmah


For
Parshat Chukat.

Not yet available on the Nishma website.

2 comments:

  1. schweitzer@axxent.caMay 2, 2010 at 5:51 PM

    First of all, it's Chormah - that's a komotz koton under the cheis. Secondly, I'm surprised Rabbi Hecht didn't mention that this is the second time Chormah has been mentioned. It's also the site of the defeat of the Ma'apilim after the Meraglim disaster. I even saw somewhere that this whole episode is out of place - that the Arad/Chormah incident took place just before Shelach Lecha and that's why the people were gung ho on sending the meraglim. Having fought their first battle they figured it was going to be that way the whole way into Israel so they wanted to scout out the land. And thus the irony - they are beaten back by the Emorites to the site of their first victory. Thus it's like they're sent back to start over which would answer Rabbi Hecht's question about both Moshe and Yehoshua's dual dedications - the first one didn't count. And by the way, if anyone is interested in the best fantasy trilogy you've never heard of (available at Chapters and Amazon), I invite you to look at http://www.garnelironheart.blogspot.com/ for information on The Unending War Trilogy. You might also find some interesting divrei Torah at this blog

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  2. To be honest, it didn't dawn on me that it was the second mention of Chormah (spelled your way). I usually do not seem to notice these type of details and unless a detail of this nature is pointed out by some mefarash, I usually do not catch them on my own (my natural incliation is to the big picture). I, though, didn't see anyone who mentioned it. I do know that there are other cases where a name is mentioned twice and meforsim say it was two different places with the same name. Which leads me to my second point. Do you know who said that the two places were connected, that the time was inverted and that thee meraglim case was when they first went to Charmah? Cases like this always beg the question to try and figure out why the timing was inverted. Its also interesting in that many meforshim connect the battle with Arad with the death of Aharon arguing that it was the subsequent removal of the ananei hakavod that was seen, by Melech Arad, as "permission" to attack klal yisrael. The question then becomes, according to the pshat you are presenting, why Arad attacked before the case of the meraglim? To be honest, I have a problem with saying that the battle happened before the meraglim because wouldn't that be proof that klal yisrael could defeat the enemy and that God will be with them? What would then be the very point of the meraglim.

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