Tribal lands

Twice in our history Hashem has said He wanted to destroy the Jews, and twice Moshe "argued" with Hashem and won: by the Golden Calf and the spies.

The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 44:9 + Bamidbar Rabba 16:22) have 4 stage conversations with Moshe and Hashem:
1. Hashem says He wants to destroy the Jews
2. Moshe says that Hashem made a promise to the Patriarchs
3. Hashem says that He will let Moshe be the sole survivor, and fulfil the promise through Moshe

Here is where they differ - at the Golden Calf Moshe says that he cannot become a nation, as he only represents one tribe - Levi! Moshe says that all the Tribes have an assurance, at which point Hashem concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

By the spies, this fourth point is different - Moshe says that letting the nation continue through him would be a Chillul Hashem - a desecration of G-d's Name - that people would speculate that Hashem could not sustain them in the desert, and so they died. Hashem replies that these people will have heard of His miracles in Egypt, so this would have no basis! Moshe counters by saying that perhaps people will say that the kings of Canaan were too great for the G-d of the Jews, at which point G-d concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out that it is clear that the Golden Calf argument was better - life continued as normal. The spies arguments clearly wasn't so great - all the Jews of that generation died out and they wandered in the desert for an additional 39 years as a result! Why didn't Moshe use the tried and tested winning argument, that the Tribes also had an assurance?

In our Parsha, Ki Sisa, Moshe says: זְכֹר לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתָּ לָהֶם בָּךְ וַתְּדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲכֶם כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמָיִם וְכָל הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֶתֵּן לְזַרְעֲכֶם וְנָחֲלוּ לְעֹלָם - "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your very Self, and to whom You said: 'I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land which I said that I would give to your seed, they shall keep it as their possession forever'" (32:13)

Where is the assurance about the Tribes? And why mention the promise about the land, out of all the promises He had made to the Patriarchs?

The Gemara (Bava Basra 122a) discusses how the land was divided up, and concludes that it was divided up amongst the tribes. The Brisker Rov points out that mentioning the land is therefore a mention of the tribes, which answers a point that may be bothering the more astute reader - what assurance to the tribes were we referring to?)

Armed as we are with this knowledge, the Ramban (14:17) answers why Moshe could not winning argument that had worked so well by the Golden Calf again when he argued with GHashem about the spies - he could not mention the land - as the spies had explicitly stated that they did not want it!

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out the difference between the question and answer stage. When we asked why Moshe could not use the winning argument, we thought that the assurance was independent of anything, at the answer stage we realised that the assurance is tied and intrinsic to the land.

Benefitting from Miracles

R' Chaim Brisker asks how the jug of oil the Hasmoneans found in the Chanukah story was suitable for use beyond the first day, seeing as it wasn't olive oil after the first day, it was שמן נס, and the commandment to light the Menorah was with olive oil specifically. However you answer the Beis Yosef's legendary question, at the end of the day, 7/8 days were lit with something that might physically have been olive oil, but wasn't from an olive! What was the point of using it after the first day? And secondly, there is a Gemara in Taanis 24 that states that one shouldn't benefit from a miracle:

"...מהא לא תזבנון, דמעשה נסים הוא..."

An example of this maybe the stories of old school Rabbonim in Eastern Europe who didn't have food for Shabbos, and when the Rebbetzin found something for them to eat, the Rabbi would refuse it on the grounds it would diminish from his Olam Habah, perhaps with this Gemara in mind.

Let us go on a tangent for a moment, to R' Yonasan ben Uziel by Parshas Vayakhel, in Shemos 35:27, where it says the princes, הַנְּשִׂאִם, brought הַשָּׁמֶן לְמָאוֹר and spices, but it says הַנְּשִׂאִם without the letter י. which Rashi explains to mean that their intentions were good, but their actions were lacking, in that they underestimated the will of the Jewish people to donate materials for the construction of the Mishkan, so their name was shortened here to teach us to act wholeheartedly. R' Yonasan ben Uziel explains differently, and he read Nesiim with no letters as Neshaim, Aramaic for clouds.

(כז) וענני שמיא אזלין לפישון ודליין מתמן ית אבני בורלות חילא וית אבני אשלמותא לשקעא באיפודא ובחושנא ומחתן יתהון באנפי מדברא אזלין רברבני ישראל ומייתן יתהון לצרוך עיבידתא

(כח) ותיבין ענני שמיא ואזלין לגן עדן ונסבין מתמן ית בושמא בחירא וית משחא דזיתא לאנהרותא וית אפרסמא דכיא למשח רבותא ולקטורת בוסמיא

Essentially, clouds came to the princes, with stones, oil and spices from Heaven! Hafla VaFeleh! (Unbelievable!)

R' Chaim Zevin asks R'Chaim Brisker's question here, how could they use these for the Mishkan, they might have physically been olive oil/stones/spices, but again, they were Maasei Nissim. And again, the Gemara in Taanis.

We can answer this by looking at our Sidra, 8:11

וַתָּבֹא אֵלָיו הַיּוֹנָה לְעֵת עֶרֶב, וְהִנֵּה עֲלֵה-זַיִת טָרָף בְּפִיהָ - the bird came back in the evening with an olive branch in it's mouth.

Hardly earth-shattering.

On this, the Ramban says:

"רבי ביריי אמר, נפתחו לה שערי גן עדן והביאה אות"

that ".....the olive branch was from Gan Eden". Earth-shattering!

Knowing this, R' Tzvi Pesach Franck concludes that we can differentiate between miracles. The cases we are discussing were not Yesh Meayin- something from nothing. These were Yesh MeYesh, something from something, they were in Heaven! They were then moved to Earth. They were thus completely permissible, much like the Manna, which was not a new "thing", rather, it is what the angels grind to make their bread (Tractate Yuma). He draws the conclusion that nothing new was created, which was what the issur by Taanis was referring to. That is to say that the miracle was not their creation, which would be forbidden to benefit from according to Taanis 24, but rather, their miraculous manipulation to be somewhere else at the relevant times.

Sneak peak at Parshas Toldos 27:25, where it says:

"וַיֹּאמֶר, הַגִּשָׁה לִּי וְאֹכְלָה מִצֵּיד בְּנִי--לְמַעַן תְּבָרֶכְךָ, נַפְשִׁי; וַיַּגֶּשׁ-לוֹ, וַיֹּאכַל, וַיָּבֵא לוֹ יַיִן, וַיֵּשְׁתְּ"

"And he said: 'Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee.' And he brought it near to him, and he did eat; and he brought him wine, and he drank."

If we read backwards slightly, the more astute reader will note that at no point did his mother prepare wine, and R' Yonason ben Uziel again points out the previous idea of things existing in Heaven and says

ואמר קריב לי ואיכול מצידא דברי בגין תברכינך נפשי וקריב ליה ואכל ולא הוה חמרא גביה ואזדמן ליה מלאכא ואייתי מן חמרא דאצטנע בעינבויי מן יומי שירוי עלמא ויהביה ביד יעקב ויעקב אמטי ליה לאבוי ושתי

".......an angel brought wine made from grapes that were in heaven since Creation......"

We can ask the same questions, Maasei Nissim, and assur to benefit from, and the answer is in the quote. They were in Heaven from creation. No problems! But what a phenomenal Yesod about the nature of Heaven...

Geshmack !