Parsha Tetzaveh -- Commission & Omission
by Moshe Burt

This has been a week from Gehenom for the Jewish people.  This past Wednesday night marked the first time that I can recollect in our history when a "Jewish" Government of a "sovereign" Jewish nation voluntarily passed into law the expulsion of the B'nai Yisrael from parts of The Land of Israel, that which Hashem bequeathed us; our Biblical Jewish heritage and legacy for ALL TIME.  It's been an exceedingly painful week.

And in our Parsha Tetzaveh, the laws regarding the annointment, the vestments and the Avodah (service) of the Kohanim are enunciated for the Jewish people.  But wait! Stop the music.  Something seems amiss.  Our Parsha, unlike any other place throughout Torah (including Sefer Devarim where Moshe himself speaks to the Jewish people in one continuous Mussar shmooze reviewing the laws and the events of the 40 years in BaMidbar and where each of the Parshiyot are distinguished only by the sections Halachas enunciated) from the time of his birth through Vezos HaBeracha, omits any mention of Moshe Rabbeinu.

A few years ago, Rabbi Wagensberg, in his Shiur on our Parsha, brought sources which gave possible explanations for the absence of Moshe's name from the Parsha.  He mentions the Ba'al HaTurim who stated that Moshe's name is absent because of his response to Hashem after Cha'it HaEigel.  When Hashem stated his intention to destroy B'nai Yisrael and start again creating a people from Moshe's seed, Moshe responded that "If you do not forgive their sin, blot me out from the book which you have written." (Midrash Says, Sh'mos, Tetzaveh, P.273)  "The Midrash Says" goes on to state that "A Tzaddik's words must take effect (even if the condition attached to them is not fulfilled).  Hashem consequently erased Moshe's name from Parsha Tetzaveh." (Midrash Says, Sh'mos, Tetzaveh, P.273)

Rabbi Wagensberg also brought The Gr'a as a source, which it is said, stated that during the week of Parsha Tetzaveh, Moshe was niftar and we commemorate his Yahrtzeit. For that reason, Hashem has omitted Moshe's name from the Parsha.  However in Biblical Times in Eretz Yisrael, Torah was read in a 3 year cycle and not a 1 year cycle.  It's not possible that the Great Vilna Gaon would have overlooked this point.  Obviously, something else is at work here.

He then proposes a possible answer as to why Moshe was not openly mentioned, but rather concealed -- Nistar in our Parsha.  Parsha Tetzaveh has 101 posukim.  If one counts the inside, concealed letters of Moshe's name (Mem, Mem; Shin, Yud, Nun; Hay, Aleph), You find Mem = 40, Yud = 10, Nun = 50 and Aleph = 1.  Hashem, it seems, omitted Moshe's name from the Parsha not out of anger for Moshe but maybe, out of anger at B'nai Yisrael who were far beneath Moshe's level of Selflessness and Spirituality.

But then a revelation, a thunderbolt seems to hit me yet again "up alongside the head."  Perhaps one could theorize that the great ones have been taken from us; Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Carlebach, Rav Me'ir Kahane, Rav Schach and the many other great names of the great Tzaddikim go on and on, too numerous to remember; and most recently, the Tzaddik Adir Zik, who fought with all of his talents, resources and with his last breaths out of an endless, passionate love for his Jewish brethren.  Adir Zik was niftar a mere 10 days before this heinous Knesset passage of the Expulsion law. 

And it seems that throughout history from the death of the Tzaddik Metushelach which preceded the Mabul, the great flood, by a mere 7 days, through to our days when the deaths of a number of great Gedolim predated Oslo and yet more, including Tzaddikim like Adir Zik, predated terrible events such that perhaps Hashem can't bear to have the great Tzaddikim live to witness what Am Yisrael wrought upon itself.

And just as a possible answer as to why Moshe Rabbeinu's name is missing in our Parsha could be out of anger at B'nai Yisrael who were far beneath Moshe's level of Selflessness and Spirituality, perhaps Hashem is angry at an Am Yisrael who lacks collective "fire in the belly", who lacks a loving passion for their Jewish brethren and for Eretz Yisrael; our Biblical Jewish heritage and legacy.  Perhaps collectively, we don't want our land badly enough.  Perhaps collectively, it's each guy for himself and his own and to heck with Am Yehudi, to heck with "...that place; after all, it's not my neighborhood at risk."  Not your community??  Not yet.  But, "As sure as Hashem made little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime ..." 

Perhaps chas v'chalila it would be written in future history that, instead of following the Ukrainian model and putting a 100,000 Jews in front of Knesset 24/7; not for how it might affect the mindset and actions of Arik Sharon or Peres, Silvan Shalom, Ehud Olmert or Bibi Netanyahu, but for the rock-solid dedication and unity it would build amongst ourselves, ala Mordechai and Esther and the Jews of the city of Shushan, that the Am Yisrael was too busy fighting and hating each other and were too self-directed to care about the Klal.

Am Yehudi, now that you sat silently, and let Expulsion pass into law, with all of it's implications to your fellow, brother Jew, to your tax bite, to your bank minus and to your very doorstep in Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Rechovot, Ramla and beyond, what are you prepared to do to see that heinus law, this Gezeira Rah is never put into action, that Expulsion never happens??

Because we didn't stand Hashem's test in foiling this Gezeira in it's legislative stages, Hashem has given us a sterner test.  And that, I believe is the message this year behind our Parsha Tetzaveh.

In the merit of B'Ezrat Hashem, our collective unity, emunah and actions, and the proper motivations for them, may we ALL be zocha to have our Tefillah reach Shemayim, unimpeded, ungarbled.  As Rabbi Moshe Ungar would say each Thursday evening at his Gemara Shiur back in Phildelphia, in "the old country", B'Ezrat Hashem, may we be zocha to demand, to compel Hashem to do "what he wants to do, to bring us the Moshiach and the Ge'ula Shlaima, "bimhayro b'yameinu -- speedily, in our time." 

May we see an end to low, dirty politics, political equivocation, perfidy and false cheshbonot; freedom and long life in Eretz Yisrael for Jonathan Pollard and special merit for our brethren currently subject to police harrassment, political interrogation and political persecution.  And IY'H, may it be that come this Rosh Hashana, that we pray thanks to Hashem for keeping our Brethren in Gush Katif and the Shomron in their homes and neighborhoods and away from the horror and Chillul Hashem of expulsion.
 
May we see the "Yom Hashem Al Kol HaGoyim" Achshav -- Immediately, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!! 

****************************************************************************************
Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Help the Sefer Torah Network continue it's mission to help needy locations in Eretz Yisrael to acquire their own Sifrei Torah