ספר שמות

Exodus 19,9.“and they will also have enduring faith in ‎you.” Rashi understands the word: ‎וגם‎, “and also,” as ‎referring to the people having faith in the prophets in future ‎generations.I believe, that this conforms to what Nachmanides has ‎written in his commentary on Parshat Mishpatim on Exodus ‎‎23,20, commencing with:‎הנה אנכי שולח מלאך לפניך...ועשית כל אשר ‏דבר אליך‎, “Here I shall send an angel ahead of you and you shall do ‎all that I will tell you to do,” to tell us that “you must not listen ‎and do what the angel (prophet) tells you unless it conforms to ‎what I tell you,” i.e. you must not listen to prophets when they ‎tell you to violate any of the commandments G’d has revealed in ‎the Torah. The word ‎בך‎ “within you,” are the key to ‎understanding this verse. [The difficulty appears to be also ‎the word ‎לעולם‎, which normally is understood to mean “forever,” ‎but is a term that cannot be applied in that sense to mortal ‎human beings. Ed.] The Torah hints that if and when ‎future prophets will tell the people what to do and this conforms ‎to what Moses during his lifetime had told them to do, then the ‎people’s faith in such prophets will be not only justified but they ‎are commanded to obey such prophets. Rashi hints at this ‎with the word ‎אחריך‎, “after you,” which in his commentary is not ‎to be understood as a time frame, i.e. after Moses has died, but as ‎a reference to prophets who would “take after you,” i.e. teach the ‎same Torah without perverting any of it. The Israelites’ duty to ‎have faith in prophets after Moses’ death, is contingent on the ‎loyalty of these prophets to Moses’ Torah.‎If we need to look for proof that this interpretation of the ‎word ‎אחריך‎, is linguistically correct, the Talmud B’rachot 61 ‎refers us to Judges 13,11 ‎וילך מנוח אחרי אשתו‎, normally translated ‎as “Manoach walked behind his wife,” instead it translates it as ‎‎“Manoach followed the advice of his wife.” Similarly, here, the ‎Jewish people are to follow that advice of their outstanding leader ‎Moses during all future generations, i.e. ‎לעולם‎.‎Incidentally, we find that in the Zohar the ‎מצות‎ are also ‎referred to as ‎עצות‎ when the author speaks of ‎עיתין דאורייתא‎, “the ‎Torah’s suggestions.” [I have found ‎עיטין‎ in the ‎‎Zohar 7 times, only as describing either good or bad advice, ‎never as referring to the Torah. Ed.]‎In Maimonides’ hilchot Temurah, near the end, the ‎author the author refers to his having interpreted the word ‎שלישים‎ in Exodus 14,7, normally translated as “captains” to refer ‎to advisors, experts, men who recognize the truth, ‎מועצות‎. ‎Prophets who do not hand down to their people their true ‎tradition and urge them to abandon some of the laws of the ‎Torah could certainly not qualify for the term “prophet.”What we have written answers the question asked by many ‎how a “prophet” who performs a miracle or more than one ‎miracle to legitimize himself in the eyes of the people could have ‎been allowed to do so by G’d? The answer is simple. The Torah ‎commands us not to believe the “prophet” on the basis of any so-‎called miracles he performs unless he does not suggest that the ‎people do anything that contradicts what is their collective ‎tradition since the time of Moses.‎The Torah repeats this theme in greater details in ‎Deuteronomy 13,1-5.‎The author proceeds now to explain the word ‎לעולם‎ according ‎to a method of exegesis he calls: ‎דרך חדוד אמת‎.‎The Talmud Yevamot 90 states, and this is accepted as a ‎‎halachically valid conclusion by Maimonides in his ‎introduction to his monumental work Mishneh Torah in the ‎section entitled yessodey hatorah, “fundamental principles ‎of the Torah,” (chapter 9,2) that if a prophet commands violation ‎of a negative Biblical commandment temporarily, when ‎circumstance demand this, as for instance when the prophet ‎Elijah offered sacrifices on Mount Carmel after repairing a ‎defunct altar in violation of the commandment that the only ‎place where this may be done is in the Temple in Jerusalem, the ‎people are not only permitted to obey his command but are ‎obligated to do so on pain of the death penalty. The same ‎principle does not hold true when said prophet commands, even ‎temporarily, to violate a positive commandment of the Torah. ‎Positive commandments of the Torah are never to be abolished, ‎not even temporarily. This is what G’d had in mind when He had ‎Moses write in the Torah that the people would have faith in ‎Moses as a prophet, ‎לעולם‎, “forever,” (for want of a better word.).‎ ‎ ‎