The Daily Chizzuk of our Rebbe Rav Eliezer Berland shlit”a – “They heard the prophecy that Moshe would not enter the Land, but they didn’t understand the prophecy properly”
These are his holy words:
Belshazzar was an unfortunate man. After he drank a thousand bottles, he needed the bathroom and there wasn’t a bathroom. There in the palace there was no bathroom. They didn’t build the palace with a bathroom. Once, it wasn’t like today that there is a water faucet and it’s straightaway washed away.
Where the king stood, there was a curtain. Everyone was drunk, and then he slid down by way of the curtain. They didn’t see him. He knew how to do this artfully.
Then he couldn’t enter back into the palace. Went out and didn’t enter. Now a problem was created. The king went out and cannot enter. What should be done? They need to open the door for him.
He is with a golden crown and [royal] purple garments. Like this he came to the palace gate, and who does he see? Darius and Cyrus, the bodyguards, guarding the entrance, and the king had told the bodyguards, “Today, don’t let anyone enter.” And he came and said to them, “I am the king. Behold, my crown and the purple. Let me enter.”
They said to him, “The king said that even if someone comes and says that he is the king – to eliminate him, because behold, the king is inside the palace. So someone, it seems, is dressing up like the king.”
Darius and Cyrus grabbed a giant candelabra, a candelabra of ten kilograms, and beat him on the head. His whole head opened up. He was dying until the morning, until 5 in the morning. Why specifically 5 in the morning?
Because “Kingship does not touch its fellow [does not overlap with another kingship] even a hairsbreadth” (Yoma 38b). He died when [it was possible] to distinguish between a wolf and a dog, between a donkey and a wild donkey (arod) (Berachot 9b) [the earliest time that it’s possible to recite Kriyat Shema in the morning].
Arod (wild donkey) is the numerical value 274, that the moment that Rachel and Leah are separated, there is the arod. Because Moshe said to spy out the land. He saw the humility of Yehoshua. The spies wanted to kill Yehoshua, because the moment that they heard that Moshe was dead, they said, “We are not entering the land. We are going on strike until we hear that Moshe is alive.”
But really this was a false prophecy, because Moshe lived for 40 years after the prophecy. He wasn’t dead, and even if he would die, there would be the revival of the dead.
What is this that Moshe is dead? That there will be revival of the dead, there will the third Temple of fire. They didn’t understand the prophecy. It’s impossible to rely on a prophecy. Like Hashem said to David “from morning to afternoon,” and this was three seconds, and only Avishai ben Tzeruya, who was equal to 70,000, died.
Hashem says to Adam HaRishon, “You will certainly die (mot tamut)” (Bereishit 2:17). How much is this “mot tamut”? A thousand years? If Hashem had said to him “tamut,” then it would have been immediately. But “mot tamut” is perhaps another 10,000 years, even 100,000 years. “Mot tamut” – there is time. True, you won’t live forever, a million years, but perhaps you will live 100,000 years. In the end, he lived 930 years. Also good. If only I would be alive for 930 years.
“Until [it’s possible] to distinguish between a wolf and a dog, a donkey and a wild donkey (arod).” The arod is created when a separation is made between Rachel and Leah, because Lamed Alef Heh [the letters of Leah] is [the initial letters of] “Latur Et Ha’aretz (to spy out the land).”
[“They ascended and spied out the land, from the Wilderness of Zin to the] expanse at the approach to Chamat (Rehov Levo Chamat)” (Bamidbar 13:21) – this is RaCheL. The spies went by way of Rachel. Moshe told them [in his sending them] to go by way of Leah – because now the redemption is dependent only on Leah, because now the redemption will only be through Leah.
