ספר בראשית

In the portion of ‎וזאת הברכה‎, where Moses bestows his final ‎blessing on the people before his death, the blessing for Shimon is ‎included in his blessing for Yehudah, seeing that Yaakov had not ‎seen fit to bless him on account of his part in the sale of Joseph as ‎mentioned in parshat Vayechi by Yaakov. ‎The reason that Shimon and Levi were singled out for not ‎receiving their share of the blessings was their share in the sale of ‎Joseph. Actually they became involved in that unfortunate ‎occurrence because Joseph had singled them out to tell them ‎‎(boastfully) of his dreams, especially his aspirations to become ‎king. ‎Shimon and Levi had not opposed the idea of the tribes ‎needing a king, but had preferred that the king should be ‎Yehudah, i.e. a descendant of his. History proved them quite ‎correct as the dynasty of David became the Royal dynasty, ‎whereas kings from the tribe of Joseph ruled only in Egypt, over ‎Egyptians primarily, and even King Sha’ul, though descended ‎from Rachel, was not a descendant of Joseph. [The ‎kingdom under Jerobam, a descendant of Joseph from Ephrayim, ‎over the ten tribes does not count, as he had split the nation. ‎Ed.]‎Considering this, Moses included the blessing of Shimon as a ‎sub-heading under the general heading of Yehudah’s blessing. By ‎doing so he enabled the descendants of Shimon not to feel ‎embarrassed, as their purpose in selling Joseph had been to ‎ensure that Yehudah would be able to assume the role G’d had ‎intended for him, i.e. (his) and Levi’s actions had been well ‎intentioned. Moses did bless the tribe of Levi independently, ‎specifically, -although Yaakov had not blessed that tribe- on ‎account of the characteristic described in Moses’ blessing of his ‎not “recognizing his father or his mother or even his brothers.” ‎‎(Deut. 33,9) This somewhat enigmatic statement referred to the ‎tribe of Levi having demonstrated a superior loyalty to G’d during ‎the episode of the golden calf, when, if even the closest family ‎member would have been found guilty of worshipping that idol ‎they would not have hesitated executing him. (Exodus 32,28 as ‎interpreted in Sotah 8) We are told there that a person is ‎accorded treatment commensurate with the treatment he meted ‎out to others. This means that the tribe of Levi had to be given ‎recognition for their loyalty to G’d by being blessed by Moses ‎outright and not only indirectly as was his brother Shimon. ‎‎[After all, had it not been for Moses’ having converted the ‎mixed multitude without first obtaining G’d’s consent, the whole ‎debacle of the golden calf might have been avoided. Ed.]‎At this point our author continues with Moses’ blessing of ‎the tribes in Deut. 33, explaining the introductory word ‎וזאת‎ used ‎by Moses in Deut. 33,7.‎ ‎[I do not understand why the publishers of these ‎volumes have not seen fit to append what follows in its ‎appropriate place, i.e. the commentary on ‎וזאת הברכה‎. Perhaps ‎the reason is that after the presentation of the author’s ‎commentary on Parshat Nitzavim, no systematic ‎commentary on the final 3 portions of the Torah follows; for ‎reasons I am not familiar with; the publisher may therefore have ‎decided to append these Deut. 33,7 ‎וזאת‎, “and this, etc.” ‎Ed.]‎