Ok, folks, this one had me befuddled. I mean, I understood what the words said, I just didn’t quite get the teaching. But after a couple times through it made more sense.
I’m doing this mostly all in translation because it is just too confusing otherwise. Here goes:
Numbers (B’midbar) 11:24
“Eldad and Meidad are prophesying in the camp”
According to Rashi, says Simcha Bunam,
“They prophesied that Moses died and Joshua replaced him.”
R’ Bunam asks:
Whence does Rashi deduce their prophesy?
The Torah tells us that the daughter of Pharaoh
named him “Mo-She-H,” as she did, from
“for from the water MaShitiHu, I drew him”
[ki min ha mayim mashitihu]
(So Moses, משה, in Hebrew, M-Sh-H, is an acronym of Ma•Sh•iti•Hu).
But R’Simcha Bunam, our teacher, further states:
It should have stated ” MiMaYiM” [not min ha-mayim]
(meaning “from water” vs. “from the water”)
which would result in the acronym
“Moshe met, Yehoshua machnis“
(Moses died and Joshua took his place)
As R’Bunam further explains:
The nun “N” and the heh “H” are dropped.
Thus, Eldad and Meidad came and spoke their prophecy, not
“b’machnes” (in the camp), but “ba’mo’ach” ”with intelligence”
In their prophecy, they saw the erasure of the nun, ”N” and the heh, “H.” And what is left,
is, as a matter of course, MiMayim, from which the acronym is made, as Rashi stated, “Moshe Met, Yehoshuah Machnis” (Moses died, Joshua took his place).
So after some long reflection I understand what Rashi says… It is for him an understanding that needs no proof. Haven’t we all been there? When we know something absolutely to be true, and try though we might to explain the logic of it, our friends just sort of smile and wave?
I’ve known people like that — people who just knew unknowable things that were hinted at, subtly, somehow, in some tiny detail everyone else overlooked. Or as someone once said: Not to understand another man’s purpose does not make him crazy.
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Digital Maggid
