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[music]
>> You wouldn't believe what I learned
about Parshas Haazinu. Listen to what
the Kli Yakar says. It is shocking. At
the end of Moshe Rabbeinu's life, the
Torah suddenly refers to Yehoshua by his
original name, Hoshea.
Why? He had been called Yehoshua for
nearly 40 years. Why at this point does
the Torah revert to his old name?
To understand that, we need to remember
why Moshe added the letter Yud to his
name in the first place.
Before the Meraglim were sent, Moshe
changed Hoshea's name to Yehoshua,
adding a Yud before the Hey, which
formed Hashem's name, Yud and Hey, Kaf.
It was a Tefillah, Kaf Yoshia'cha
Me'atzas Hamraglim, may Hashem save you
from the council of the spies.
The Kli Yakar explains that now that the
entire generation of the Meraglim had
died, there was no longer any fear that
Yehoshua would be influenced by them. He
no longer needed that special
protection, so the Torah could once
again call him Hoshea.
This boggles my mind. Are you kidding
me? This is Yehoshua. He is about to
assume the leadership of Klal Yisrael,
as like a king.
And we're being told that until Moshe's
dying day, Yehoshua still needed
protection from the Meraglim? What
Meraglim? The actual spies had died
immediately within a month after they
were sent 40 years earlier.
If they were the only danger, Yehoshua
could have gone back to being Hoshea a
month later.
What's the Kli Yakar really saying? It
seems to me
that the danger did not come only from
the 10 spies themselves. It also came
from the people who believed in them,
followed them, and took on their
outlook. The miraglim were gone,
but their influence remained. Some
spiritual taint lingered
within that whole generation, and
apparently, even Yehoshua, no longer
such a young man,
and a great person, still required
special protection from it. Only when
that generation was gone,
did the danger finally pass. What a
lesson this is about negative peer
pressure. A rebellion could end, but its
influence can remain in the air long
afterwards. Cynicism lingers,
ideas leave traces behind,
even after the people who introduced
them are gone. And if Yehoshua required
Hashem's protection
from the atmosphere surrounding him, we
too certainly need to be careful about
the voices and influences around us.
What a powerful lesson from Ha'azinu,
the penultimate parsha
of the Torah. Wishing everybody a good
Shabbos,
and a Gmar Chatima Tova.
