Daf Yomi - Sukkah 5 - Moshe and the Malach

Posted by David Farkas
The shechina never descended below 10 amos, etc. – Mharatz Chajes offers a characteristically interesting explanation, that the shechinah never interfered with man’s free will, and never made man into an angel. But if so, how did Moshe remain in the heavens for forty days when he received the Torah? In the Gemara (Shavous) we say that a man who swears not to eat for a week is forced to eat immediately because such a vow is impossible – how, then, did Moshe not eat for 40 days?

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I would suggest a novel approach to this conundrum, which I paste hear from my notes to Chumash: The Talmud (Bava Metzia 86a), deduces from two separate incidents that a man should always follow the custom of the place he finds himself in. “Moshe went up on high [where the angels live] and did not eat; angels came down to Earth to visit Abraham, and they ate. Now, [continues the Gemara] can it be they actually ate? Rather, it appeared as if they were eating.”

Now, if these two incidents are juxtaposed by the Gemara, and it is written there that the angels only appeared to be eating, does it not stand to reason that Moshe also only appeared to be fasting? In other words, perhaps the meaning is that Moshe did not eat or drink regularly, but rather sustained himself with a morsel here, and a drop of water there. A similar idea is mentioned concerning Jacob, that upon leaving the study house of Shem and Ever, he slept for the first time in fourteen years. There, all the commentators explain, the idea is that he then slept a full night sleep for the first time, not that he had not slept at all until then. If we can say the same thing here, it would resolve all the difficulties involved with the concept of a human being transforming – even temporarily -into an angel. The verse itself is no difficulty, because it can be interpreted to mean that Moshe appeared not to be eating, the same way that the word “and they ate” (Genesis 18,8) is so interpreted, i.e., they appeared to be eating..

The problem with this is, of course, that Moshe himself says that he fasted. It is one thing to interpret a narrative figuratively. It is quite another to say the same of a personal narrative. Besides, this is not the only time in Tanach we find mention of a man fasting for 40 days. In Kings I, 19:8 ח וַיָּקָם, וַיֹּאכַל וַיִּשְׁתֶּה; וַיֵּלֶךְ בְּכֹחַ הָאֲכִילָה הַהִיא, אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לַיְלָה, עַד הַר הָאֱלֹהִים, חֹרֵב, Elijah traveled on the strength of one meal for the exact same time of forty days – interestingly, the verse there continues, “until he reached the mountain of God, Horeb [Sinai]”!

Thus, this is how we might resolve the problem of Moshe. Returning to Succah however, we might offer an alternative explanation. We know that mankind yearns for leaders who are better than them. They do not want their leaders to be on the same plane as them, although they do not want them impossibly far from them either. Thus, it could be that Hashem lowers himself, as it were, to our level, but never descends beyond a demarcation line of 10 amos. There is a line that must not be crossed between God and us. This should be seen in contra-distinction to the Christians, who actually made a god out of a man.