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Parshat Beha'alotcha

By: SFW Students & Alumna
Tobie Harris, SFW ’04-‘05

When discussing the commandment to perform Pesach for the second time, the Ramban quotes the statement of Sifrei that "It was a disgrace for Yisrael, because they performed only this one Pesach [during the entire time in the midbar]". The Ramban questions what exactly is this disgrace -- after all, it was impossible for Bnei Yisrael to perform Korban Pesach, given that it would have been too dangerous to circumcise all of their newborns while they were traveling around. And since one cannot eat Korban Pesach unless all of the males of his household are circumcised, their omission was unavoidable -- what possible disgrace can exist?

The Ramban provides two answers to this question. In one, he suggests that the Sifrei holds like the opinion in a Baraita that states that one can perform Korban Pesach even if males in his household are uncircumcised, in which case, the people had no excuse for not doing Pesach for the other 39 years. However, the Ramban questions this answer, because he considers it impossible that Moshe would not have forced them to do this mitzva, considering its stringency.

Instead, the Ramban favors his alternative explanation, namely that the disgrace stems from the sin of the M'raglim. Because of this sin, they were “pushed away” and Hashem did not send them the sort of healing wind that would have enabled them to safely circumcise their children.

When closely examined, the Ramban's answer is fascinating. After all, the Torah spent plenty of space, both in Bamidbar and D'varim, describing the disgrace of the M'raglim. But nonetheless, according to this answer, it went out of its way to highlight another, more subtle result of the sin. It is not enough for the obvious and immediate consequences of the sin to be highlighted; rather, even unavoidable sins that resulted from things that resulted from the sin are part of the same disgrace. Not only is a person responsible for their sins, but they are also held accountable for the rippling consequences of that sin, for the things that their decision made unavoidable.

This is somewhat similar to the idea in Rav Dessler's Kuntras HaBechira. He writes that if one makes a decision that lowers their n'kudat habechira, he is no longer accountable for the sins that are beyond his ability to avoid. However, he is held accountable for the choice that lowered that n'kuda, and included in that responsibility is the responsibility for all the sins that he is now unable to avoid. Similarly, Bnei Yisrael may have had no choice but to miss out on Korban Pesach. It was not a disgrace that they did so. But the sin of the m'raglim, of which this was one consequence, was that much more of a disgrace because it later resulted in this unavoidable omission.


Shabbat Shalom.