Shalom everyone and thank you for joining me in the study of Parashat Ba'a alotha. I would like to talk about the beginning of the end, and what do I mean by that? Let's start. The Torah describes that towards the end of the parsha some kind of situation that Moshe's siblings are in a way standing up against him, which we definitely didn't see it until now. Last week, when we spoke about the priestly blessing, we spoke about how much Aharon had admiration to Moshe, and he was so happy that Moshe accepted upon himself and was chosen to be the leader. So we always think Moshe, Aaron, Miriam are like the greatest siblings ever. But just a week goes by, and in our Pasha we have the following sentence. Now I will need to stop here for a second and uh speak a little bit about the Hebrew here. Mostly in Hebrew you will say, le daber to speak al, on, or el towards. The word bemoshe, it's literally being translated as, and Miriam and Aaron spoke within moshe, which is a very strange and very unique way to describe it. And what are they talking about? Alo dota isha kushita shalakach ki isha kushit lakach. They are talking about this. Um I would say um this I will you know what I will not translate it yet. I will call it Aisha Kushit. So some people will say the dark-skinned woman, and some people will say from Kush, from the land of Kush, which is Ethiopia, or maybe from Idian, or maybe different interpretations, but for now, let's just keep it with the Hebrew, Isha Kushit. Isha it's a woman and Kushit, let's just leave it away the way it is. Because he took that woman. Okay, so what's the problem? He chose this wife, this woman to be his wife. So what's what's the problem? What's going on here? So the Sifrei, which is Midrashtanaim, says the following. Rabishimon ve amrale Miriam, umimriyam amrale aharon, ve aharon, o sifal divrihim, ve nasu venatnu badvarim. What's going on here? So Rabshimon says, look, look at the pasuk. Miriam spoke, veharon and aharon, but who spoke first? So you will say Miriam. Rapshimon says, no, no, no, someone else initiated this discussion. Who was that? Tipporah. Who was Tipporah? Tipporah was Moshe's wife. So Raphimon says the sequence of events is like that. Tipporah, Moshe's wife, spoke to Miriam. Miriam spoke to Aaron. Aaron had a few more things, you know, his thoughts about the discussion and about the issue, and this is how it evolved. But still, we don't know what's the what uh what's the discussion about? Uh so what was the what was the issue? Amru. Kevanjanit Manuaskinim, Idliku Holisrael Nerote, Vasusim Ha, Bishwil Shalushivimz Kenimlesra. So this Midrash says that when Moshe asked God for help, Hashem says to Moshe, you know what? Take 70 elders and basically empower them to also help you, and they will help you. So when they when these 70 elders were chosen, the Jewish people made a celebration and start lighting candles and all sorts of uh festivities. So Miriam, Moshe's sister, when she saw all the festivity and the celebration because of the appointment of the 70 elders, she says, Ah, so nice, good for them, good for their wives, good for their families. It's a wonderful thing. They were chosen to help Moshe lead the Jewish people. So until now, it's great. So what's the problem? Amrala Tsipporah. So Tsipporah says to Miriam, Al tom riashre ne shoteim ella oi leneshotehin. He says, Don't say, don't praise their wives. Meaning those 70 elders, their wives are going to be miserable. It's not good for them that their husbands were appointed to be leaders or assistant leaders to Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? Tsipora is now revealing a very intimate detail to her sister-in-law, telling Miriam, I don't know what are you celebrating. I know one thing. When my husband was appointed to be the leader, this was the last day I saw him. He is not intimate with me, he is not with me, he does not support me, he just is not around. So why are you saying that those women, the 70 women who are married to these 70 elders, should be happy. They should be sad. They are miserable, they are going to have a miserable life. This midrash gives us so many details that are not written, obviously, in the Pasoq. Is that when Miriam heard that her little brother, her younger brother, Moshe Rabinu, basically separated himself from his wife, she went to Aharon and she said, What's going on with our brother? You know, you, Aharon, you were appointed to be a high priest, you are still with your wife. And also it's interesting to note that without Sipporah telling Miriam, Miriam would never know that. So here we see, and I would like to digress here for a second, we don't know too much about Siippora. We know that she was the daughter of Ithro and she married Moshe. They had two children. Sippora, in a way, saved Moshe on the way to Egypt by circumcising one of his children. And then Tipporah comes along again with Itro, and we don't really know anything about it anymore. We don't know anything about Moshe's children. We know a little bit later in the Tanakh. But nothing of glory or fame or praise. We don't know much about her and what did she do exactly? Because the focus is so much on Moshe. And in a way, that's what the Midrash says. Tipporah says to Miriam, the minute that Moshe, my husband, was chosen to be the leader, I was chosen to be by myself. Oh, really, that was the outcome. And Miriam is very upset. This is not a Jewish way. A leader needs to be married and he needs to have a family, and yeah, he needs to find the balance between the people and the family. So she speaks to Aaron, and then listen to that. Moshe is an arrogant person. Our brother is an arrogant person. Miriam and Aaron, they sit for a cup of coffee and they speak about their brother, and they say, We don't understand Mushe. No one told him to separate himself from his wife. Ah, because maybe because he's a prophet. Okay, we are also prophets. There are other prophets. Avraham, Itzraq, Yaakov, they also had some kind of prophecy and they were married, they had children, they had family. Since when you become a prophet and you separate yourself from your wife. Ah, probably the reason is what? He's arrogant, he's pompous. He thinks that you know no one is good enough for him, so that's why he needs to be by himself. That's wrong. Hashem spoke to us too and never told us to get divorced. So now we have something interesting in this midrash. These two siblings, brother and sister, are talking about what Moshe did, and they totally do not approve it. Not only did they do not approve it, but they condemn it, they don't understand it, and they blame Moshe or accuse Moshe in something that Moshe is the furthest from being arrogant, as Hashem said later on. He is the most humble person on earth. But he did something that was questionable, something that they couldn't understand and definitely couldn't accept, so they start talking about it, criticizing Moshe Rabbein. So if you look back at the Pasuk, so there was an event, the empowering of the 70 elders that were done by was done by Moshe. There was a celebration to celebrate their appointments. Miriam is saying, Oh my, this is wonderful for them, it's wonderful for their wives. And Tsipporah, Moshe's wife, comes along and says, That's great for them, that's horrible for them. They're going to be miserable like me. And Miriam and Alice is miserable like you. Why? Moshe separated himself from you? That's that's wrong. He's arrogant. And that's the conversation. The Bachol Sho, Ab Yosef Bchosho, said something profound. He says the following. That Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moshe or within Moshe or on Moshe, about a woman that he took. But he's saying something that it's definitely not like the Midrash and it's not like the tradition of Hazal. He says that Miriam and Aaron, they looked at their younger brother and they said, Mai, I just don't understand him. He went ahead and married a woman from Kushim, from a different country, from a different nation. They don't circumcise themselves, which means not from the Jewish people. But he didn't find a nice Jewish girl here, that he had to find it somewhere else. So, first and foremost, we are not sure here that they are talking about Sipporah. Because he got married with Sipporah before he became the leader, before he spoke to God. Don't forget, he killed the Egyptian, he fled Egypt, found himself in Midian. Let's say that that's the story. And then Yitro says to his daughters, where is the person who saved you? They brought him into the family, and then he married Sipoah. So that was before God spoke to him. So it seems to be that we are not talking about Tippoah here. We are talking about another woman. Now, we didn't know that Moshe got married with a second wife. Where did he find her? Or maybe it is Tippoa and she just called Ishakushit. But whatever it is, whatever if he had one wife or he had two, they were not from the Jewish nation. And Miriam and Aaron are looking at that and say, what's wrong with our younger brother? What he couldn't find a nice Jewish girl? What? No one here is good enough for him that he needs to find somewhere else. Now this is a this is a very tough interpretation. The common denominator between the Bechol Show and the Sifray is that they both accused him in being midga'e, which means being arrogant. And therefore, no one else is good for me. This is the Bechol Show. Or the Midrash says I need to separate myself from her. So that's the common denominator. But the way you get there, it's totally different. So that's the Bechol Show. Rapsim Shan Rafal Hirsch has a very interesting insight to share with us. He says, A milim a rak ach bemoshe di bere Hashem Morot Beverushkesha Haduk Benevuat Moshe Levena Udaki Ishakushit Lakach. The words Arak Achbemoshe di Berashem, meaning, but only Moshe spoke to God? Or only God spoke only to Moshe? So there is a connection, there is a link between Moshe's prophecy to the fact that he took this Ishakushit. What's the connection? Meaning because he became God's prophet, that's why he took this woman. Which means he took this woman, that's what they thought, and he will try to explain what does it mean, Ishakushit, that because he was a prophet, he felt that he needs to marry this woman. Miriam and Aron says, We are also prophets, and we didn't need to marry Ishakushit. What does that mean? So he says, So Rapsim should this entire paragraph, the first paragraph, is just to show us Ishakushit does not mean a woman from the land of Kush, or a woman from the land of Ethiopia, or a woman that uh from the land of Midian. It probably represents something else, which is in the cholamikra, if we will search in the entire Bible, Ma Yakas Chebene Vua Leven in Yane ishut. If we will try to analyze what's the reciprocity, the connection, the relationship between prophecy and being married and family life, there's only one time in Tanakh that there is a link, there is a connection between prophecy and family life. Where? When we receive the Torah. In Shmout, in Exodus chapter 19, Hashem said to the people, you need to separate from your wives for three days until you experience God's revelation on Harsinai, and then you can go back to be with your wives. Which means, in order for you, the Jewish people, to be able to maintain, to be able to be ready to hear God's word and the Ten Commandments, you need to separate yourself from your wife. So only once in the entire Tanakh that we have that connection that if in order to hear the prophecy, you need to what? To separate yourself from your wife. So what did they think? They thought only once in history, Hashem said, in order to hear God's words, you need to separate from your wife. Where? By the way, if you look at Tanakh, in all the prophets, all of them were married. And if they didn't want to, Hashem, in a way, ordered them to get married. All the kings were married, the Kohanim, the priests were married. So Miriam and Aharon thought, we are prophets. Everyone else was a prophet before us. All of them had married life, they had family lives. So what's wrong with Moshe? So that's what they thought. Where was their mistake? Which means they did not understand Moshe's level of prophecy. They thought, you know, I prophesies, you prophesies, he prophesies. It's the same thing. They could not fathom the idea that Moshe is on a totally different level. At in his level, he probably cannot have a family life. And he says that's what Rashim Shan says. And also they misunderstood or they did not know the instructions that were given after the receiving of the Torah. Because it says, to the nation, Hashem says, which means go back to your tent, go back home, which means meaning all the people, for this moment, when you heard God's word, that's when you need to be separated from your wife. But after that, go back to your life. It's okay. However, Moshe was commanded to remain by himself and not to go back to his wife. How do we know? You stay here right here. You cannot go back. So now says, Miriam and Aaron totally misunderstood. A, they thought that Moshe is like them, which was wrong. B, Moshe did receive a commandment that he needs to separate himself from his wife. Why? Maybe because of the level of prophecy, maybe because of the daily occurrence of that. But Moshe was a unique phenomenon. And only him, no any other prophet, can be not married. But Moshe had to separate from his wife. And then he says. Miriam and Aaron, they really didn't do it because they were envy of Moshe. They tried to protect this woman. It might be Tsipora, it might be another woman, but they tried to protect that woman. They felt that it's just not fair that Moshe had in a way to sacrifice her because of his prophecy. The problem was that with all due respect to them and to their care, Hashem commended him to do it. Now, to fully understand why would Hashem commend such a thing, Dafka, specifically to Moshe, as I said before, we can maybe claim that it's because of the continued occurrence, the daily occurrence of revelation, and Moshe always had to be on call. But in a way, at the end of the day, it's very sad because his wife was miserable. We don't know much about Moshe as a father. We know about him as a teacher, but not too much about the father. And not only that, we do know that part of his descendants were not exactly the most righteous people. And it might be that because he didn't have time to be with them. But whatever it is, that's the discrepancy between what Miriam and Aaron thought and the reality, according to Rapsim Shu Mafaiosh. The Natsiv says the following. Okay, so until now we are okay. So he they they unlike the horse show, the siffray, that they accused him of being arrogant and pompous and no one's good for me, they said something else. Look, he married her. No for sure, he knew for sure that what? That she's not Jewish. He met her in Midian. And she was willing to convert. How exactly she converted in Midian? Don't ask me now, but she converted somehow. Now, Miriam and Aaron say to themselves, now Moshe became the leader. And he is the ultimate prophet. He is embarrassed by her. And that's this is probably the reason why he separated himself from her, says Miriam and Aharun. On one hand, it's it's impressive that they really felt for her. They said it's it's not felt for her. She converted, she left her parents and her religion, and she joined us. And now, because Moshe was promoted, now he's embarrassed to be with her. I mean, that was your choice. You want to divorce her, divorce her, but don't be with her and separate yourself from her and not and not pay any quote-unquote attention to her. That's what they spoke about. And then what Hashem revealed to them was you are wrong. He is not with her, not because he's embarrassed by her, and it's not because he looks at her, God forbid, in a superior way. Oh, you are just a convert. Not at all. It's just I commended him to separate himself from my wife. She could be the daughter of uh, I don't know, the next uh leader or the most prestigious Jew. That's not the issue. The issue is that I need Moshe to be on call every day, all day long, and he cannot give any time to his family. But it's so interesting to see how each commentator tried to understand what exactly was the issue. The Torah, in a way, makes it so so uh, there is so much ambiguity. They spoke about Moshe, about this woman. What exactly are they talking about? So here we have three, already three different interpretations. And when you think about it, it's something that I called it the beginning of the end. And why the beginning of the end? Parashat be alotcha is in a way divided to three groups, which by the way, we all know that we have five books of Moshe, Khamishaku Mashim, but really the Talmud talks about seven books, because Sefer Bamidbar, the book of Numbers, the book that we are dealing with, is divided to three. Until chapter 10, then there is the Parsha Uva'i bin Sa'aron, and then the next one. So Sephur Bamidbar is divided to three, so you have basically seven books. Now, why it's divided like that? Because until chapter ten, it seems to be that everything goes by the plan, the divine plan. Going out from Egypt, getting the Torah, yes, there is the golden calf. Okay, there is something very severe, the Jews had to repent, Hashem said, I forgave you, the building of the Mishkan, and they are getting ready to go into Eret Israel. But then there is uh there are a few sins, and the Jews do things without any thought, and Hashem punishes them. And this one, this story is the beginning of the end, the end of Moshe's leadership. Because if you remember, next week's parsha will be Parashat Shlach, where we send the spies, they badmouth the land of Israel, and they create a terrible, terrible punishment for the Jewish people to just go around and around for 40 years. The next week's parsha, Korach, it's the one who rebelled against Moshe and basically accused Moshe in being a liar and basically making up everything that he did. Where did it start? It started right here. When your own family, your own siblings, and think about it, without Miriam, there was no Moshe. According to our sages, she was the one to convince her parents to get together and to have a baby. She was the one who watched Moshe in the little uh Teva, in the little basket on the Nile River. She was the one to sing the song of the song of the sea after Moshe sang it. Aharon was the one, as we spoke last week, had tremendous joy in Moshe becoming the leader. They did so many things together. They took Am Israel from Egypt together. Who Aaron Moshe, who Moshe Ve Aaron. Sometimes it says Moshe before Aaron, sometimes Aaron before Moshe. They knew how to walk together. So Moshe always knew they got his back. They are there for him. But now, whatever interpretation you choose, they do not understand him at all. They underestimate him. They think he's exactly like them. Part of it might be that it was Moshe's humility. Maybe because Moshe was so humble, people thought he's just like a regular guy. And they had all those thoughts that, you know, maybe he's embarrassed by this woman, or maybe he's arrogant, he couldn't find any other Jewish girl, or maybe because of his prophecy that they didn't understand and didn't even talk to him. And that's, in my opinion, is the worst. I always had this concept and this perception that they were close siblings. Also in age. Aaron was basically only three years older than Moshe, and Miriam probably was maybe older than Aharon, or between Miriam, between Aharon and Moshe. But even if she was older than Aaron, so she was five, six years older than Moshe Rabbeinu. So in a way, it's like always we have in mind, you know, Moshe, Aaron, and Miriam. And the perception is that they, you know, they got together, and if there is an issue, they will speak to each other. Even Miriam and Aharon spoke about him. Which reminds me a bit Joseph and his brothers. And which reminds me what we are dealing with today. Instead of people talking to each other, they speak on each other and about each other. When you speak about someone, and you come already with your own perception on him or her, it's not going to lead us anywhere. And perhaps that's what the Torah tried to emphasize. The content of the conversation might be different things to different people, different interpretations. But the problem is that they didn't talk to Moshe. Go and say, younger brother, we would like to meet and talk about something. We heard something or we saw something. We would like to discuss it with you. Please explain it to us. They didn't give Moshe the chance. And that's in a way why Hashem had to intervene and to tell them, you are all so wrong. So definitely, one of the main lessons that we can learn from this story is that even with Moshe's family, it was not perfect. But it's more than that. It all begins with a conversation. You have something, speak to the person. Don't keep it in your heart and don't speak about him. You need to try to find a way to communicate your misunderstanding or disappointment or frustration or even anger to him and not towards or about or on him. And when there is such a conversation, stories like that probably would not happen. Thank you.