ספר שמות

An alternative explanation of the line: ‎ויעבור ה' על פניו ‏ויקרא וגו'‏‎, “Hashem passed before him and proclaimed, ‎etc.;” also based on the statement in Rosh Hashanah 17 that ‎G’d wrapped Himself in a prayer shawl similar to the one worn by ‎the reader leading the congregation in prayer.‎G’d is advising Moses that if, when praying for forgiveness, ‎the Jewish people will emulate the example set for them by ‎‎Hashem, He will forgive their sins and they will have ‎atonement. We need to understand this statement of the Talmud ‎on a less simplistic level, of course. The Talmud Avodah ‎Zarah 3 provides the key to a more mature understanding of ‎this statement in the Talmud. The Talmud there explains that G’d ‎does not deal with the Jewish people in the manner that a despot ‎deals with his subjects when they have been guilty of violating his ‎decrees. The reason for this is that after all, the Jewish people ‎were the principal reason why G’d created the universe in the ‎first place as stated explicitly in Yalkut Shimoni 1,2 that the ‎world was created on account of Israel which is called ‎ראשית‎ ‎‎(Jeremiah 2,3). If G’d were to apply the yardstick to Israel that ‎befits its lofty standing in the celestial regions, it would not have ‎a chance to survive for a single hour as the burden imposed upon ‎them of having to serve as a model for other creatures would ‎have been too overwhelming.‎[Compare when Moses said to Aaron that his sons died ‎not because they were so undeserving to live, objectively, but on ‎account of the principle of ‎בקרובי אקדש ‏‎, that G’d is especially ‎strict with people who have become intimates of His, so that He ‎would not be accused of favoritism. (Leviticus 10,3) Ed.]‎G’d is aware that not withstanding the fact that since man’s ‎source of life is rooted in the holy and Divine root of the Creator ‎Himself, and he could therefore be expected to emulate his ‎Creator and be almost equally pure and holy, the fact remains, as ‎our sages have stated: ‎אין צדיק ולא יחטא‎, “there has not yet been a ‎righteous human being who has not committed a sin on at least ‎one occasion.” While it is true that a king’s son is expected to lead ‎a life that reflects his aristocratic background, nonetheless the ‎king will not disown his son if now and again he stepped out of ‎line. The Jewish people too, are called G’d’s Children, so G’d will ‎not turn His back on them because they have sometimes sinned, ‎inadvertently, in most cases. G’d promises Moses in our verse that ‎He will adopt the less stringent yardsticks for judging man, a ‎yardstick that is compatible with conditions on earth, an ‎environment that is fraught with a multitude of temptations. ‎When a rich man, comes face to face with a poor man, he is ‎aware that only by the grace of G’d does he enjoy so much more ‎material wealth than his less fortunate peer, and reflecting on ‎this fact he will supply the poor man with what he needs to ‎augment his livelihood.