Parshat Chukat – 5764

The “Tragicomic Book of BaMidbar”

It has often been said that the Book of BaMidbar is the saddest of the “Chamishah Chumshei Torah,” the Five Books of Moses. This is because in this Book the account is given of the loss of the dream of an entire generation; namely, the dream of those who had been released from slavery, and who had witnessed the Revelation of HaShem at Mount Sinai when they received the Torah, to enter the Holy Land of Israel. The tragedy of this Generation of the Wilderness goes so far as there is a debate concerning its ultimate fate. In Maseches Sanhedrin, Chapter “Chelek,” we find a discussion concerning whether this Generation, along with others, have a “share in the ‘World-to-Come.’ ”

Rabbi Akiva is involved with his Rebbe, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, in a dispute concerning the ultimate fate of the Generation of the Wilderness. Rabbi Akiva says they “...have no share in the World-to-Come and will not rise for Judgment, based on the verse, ‘In the Wilderness, they will expire, and there they will die.’ (BaMidbar 14:35) Rabbi Eliezer says, ‘About them it is written, ‘Gather for Me My righteous ones, those with whom I made the Covenant of Sacrifice.’ (Tehilim 50:5)”

Is this the Rabbi Akiva that we know?

Rabbi Akiva’s view seems to be totally out of character. Isn’t he the one who remarked that the most important principle in the Torah is “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (VaYikra 19:18) The Talmud itself notes the apparent deviation by Rabbi Akiva from his usual pleasant and benevolent demeanor. “Rabbah bar bar Chanah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, ‘Rabbi Akiva has abandoned his righteousness, for he ignores the words of HaShem regarding the Generation of the Wilderness, ‘I remember for you the affection of your youth, the love of your engagement time; how you followed Me into the Wilderness, into a land that was not sown.’ (Yirmiyahu 2:2) And if their descendants enter the World-to-Come, shouldn’t they as well’ ”

A Possible Explanation

I think that a possible explanation for this opinion of Rabbi Akiva that seems out of character, based on the ideas of the “Kedushat Levi” of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, is as follows: Rabbi Akiva had himself risen to tremendous spiritual heights. He had entered the “Pardes,” the mystical “Orchard,” where he had found intimate knowledge of HaShem, similar to that obtained by the “Dor De’ah,” the “Generation of Knowledge,” none other than the “Generation of the Wilderness,” that had come closest to HaShem. And he too had come from nowhere, if not from slavery, then from the slavery of ignorance, as an unlettered shepherd who hated Torah scholars and the Torah World.

In describing the experiences of the Generation of the Wilderness, that give insight into why they are also called the “Generation of Knowledge,” the “Kedushat Levi” says in his writings on Shavuot, “The ‘Generation of the Wilderness’ saw the Miracles that occurred at the Sea and they saw at the Sea the Greatness of the Creator, Blessed is He, as our Sages, Z”L, have said (Mechilta Beshalach, the “Shirah;” 3) ‘The lowly handmaiden saw at the Sea what Yechezkel ben Buzi did not see in his ‘Vision of the Chariot.’ And they said, ‘This is my G-d, and I shall beautify Him.’ (Shemot 9:2) And they also stood at the time of the Giving of the Torah and saw then also the Infinite Greatness of the Creator (“Zohar HaKadosh,” Part 2, 82a).

Thus it turns out that there was nothing left for them to see in the ‘World-to-Come’ that they hadn’t already seen in ‘This-World.’ See also the ‘Shelah’ on the verse (Devarim 5:21-22), ‘And they said, behold, HaShem has shown us His Glory and His Greatness, and now, why should we die?’ ”

“Kedushat Levi” also says, in Parshat Shelach, regarding the verse in BaMidbar 20:1 concerning the death of Miriam, that she died by a “Mitat Neshikah,” a Divine Kiss, as we learn by a derivation from “sham” – “sham” from the death of Moshe, and this applies as well to the Generation of the Wilderness, about whom it is written, “...ve-sham yamutu;” “and there they will die,” the very verse cited by Rabbi Akiva, implying that their deaths were also by “mitat neshikah.”

Thus Rabbi Akiva meant his remarks only in great praise of the Generation of the Wilderness, saying that they had no need to die, rise and be judged in the “World-to-Come,” because they had already experienced such intimate contact with their Creator in “This-World.”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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