Chapter 8, verse 2, of parshas Eikev states: “You shall remember the entire path which the L‑rd your G‑d led you these forty years in the desert, in order to afflict you, to test you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” Rashi, quoting the words “Whether you would keep His commandments,” comments, “That you should not test Him, nor criticize Him in your heart.”
There are some difficulties in this comment of Rashi’s
1) Rashi never comments unless there is a difficulty in the plain interpretation of the verse. The words “Whether you would keep His commandments or not” seem perfectly understandable without any comment by Rashi. We have learned about keeping the commandments many times before this verse, and it therefore seems unnecessary for Rashi to make any comment.
2) Not only does Rashi deem it proper to make a comment, but he interprets these words not in their plain sense. He says they do not refer to the keeping of the commandments, but to the idea of a test — “That you should not test Him, nor criticize Him in your heart” — although the words plainly say “Whether you would keep His commandments.
3) The beginning of the verse seems to contradict Rashi’s interpretation. It states: “You shall remember the entire path which the L‑rd your G‑d led you these forty years in the desert, in order to afflict you, to test you....” The Hebrew word for the phrase “to test you” used in this verse is ‘lenasoschoh” (from root “nesoyon”). Now, if we say as Rashi does, that “Whether you would keep His commandments” means “That you should not test Him,” why does not Scripture use the same terminology for “test” as it does in the first part of the verse, a word stemming from the root “nesoyon”? Since the verse changes terminology, and the latter part of the verse uses the phrase “Whether you would keep His commandments,” we must conclude that it means just that: the keeping of the commandments. and not the idea of testing!
4) We have learned previously, in parshas Beshallach, the following verse (Shmos 16:4): “I will make bread rain down to you from the sky (“manna”) and the people will go out and gather enough for each day, in order that I shall test them [to see] whether they will walk in [the path of] My Torah or not.” Rashi thus explains that the words “Whether they will walk in [the path of] My Torah” means “Whether they will keep the mitzvos associated with it [the manna], that they should not leave over any of it, and they should not go out on Shabbos to gather it.” According to this interpretation, that “Whether they will walk in [the path of] My Torah” refers to the mitzvos associated with the manna, the words “Whether they will keep His commandments” in our verse should also refer to the mitzvos associated with the manna.
There is another difficulty in our parshah, which Rashi does not comment upon. Scripture states further on (end of parshas Savo — 29:4): “I have led you in the desert forty years; your clothes did not wear out on you, and the shoes on your feet did not wear out.” Rashi there explains that this verse is a continuation of the preceding one, which states: “The L‑rd did not give you a heart to know and eyes to see and ears to hear, until this day.” Scripture is saying that G‑d did not give Jews a heart to know, eyes to see and ears to hear until the fortieth year in the desert. Rashi explains that this means that “No man understands thoroughly the mind of his teacher, nor the wisdom of his teachings, before forty years; therefore G‑d was not strict with you until this day. But from now on He will be strict.”
We see from this verse that Rashi deems it necessary to explain that before forty years have passed, a person cannot thoroughly grasp his teacher’s knowledge. If so, Rashi should have explained this the first time the concept of forty years appears — in our parshah, Eikev, where the term forty years appears twice. Why does Rashi wait until parshas Savo? Moreover, the explanation he gives in parshas Savo — that until the fortieth year G‑d “was not strict” with the Jews since they could not understand properly His wisdom — is an argument in favor of Jews, and therefore Rashi should have presented it at the first opportunity, in our parshah.
Also puzzling is the difference in terminology between our parshah and parshas Savo. In our parshah it states: “You shall remember the entire path which the L‑rd your G‑d led you these forty years,” whereas in parshas Savo it states: “I have led you in the desert forty years” (omitting the word “these”).
The Explanation
Our verse, in which it states “these forty years,” refers to all the forty years of the Jews’ travels in the desert. In parshas Savo, however, the verse is referring to the fortieth year. It is talking of “this day,” after the forty years in the desert. Scripture is reminding the Jews of what happened during the “forty years” — the past — in order to talk about the present, the fortieth year .
Now we can understand why Rashi interprets “Whether you would keep His commandments” as meaning “That you should not test Him, nor criticize Him in your heart.” Since this verse is talking of the entire forty years in the desert, it cannot be interpreted as meaning the literal keeping of G‑d’s commandments, for during these forty years the keeping of the commandments varied. Part of these forty years was before the Torah was given; and even after Matan Torah, some mitzvos came into being only later, such as Pesach Sheni, and the inheritance laws (which came into being only at the end of the forty years). It is therefore impossible to interpret the words “Whether you would keep His commandments” literally, since there were differences in this area during “these forty years.
This verse also cannot be interpreted as referring to the mitzvos associated with the manna, as Rashi interprets in parshas Beshallach, for in parshas Beshallach the verse is talking about the particular incident of the raining down of the manna, whereas our verse is talking about the general travels in the desert for forty years.
Rashi is therefore forced to interpret the term “Whether you would keep His commandments” as referring to a general matter that was present during the forty years equally — “That you should not test Him nor criticize Him in your heart.” This applies to all the Jews’ journeys in the desert: When the Jews left Egypt to enter Eretz Yisrael, G‑d could have taken them directly to Eretz Yisrael, through the land of the Philistines, without having to wander in the desert for forty years. Further, even if they did not go through the land of the Philistines, they could have gone on a way that led through surrounding cities, without having to actually go in the desolate wilderness. But G‑d did not do so for He wanted to test the Jews — to see if they would follow the pillar of cloud into the desolate wilderness, a place without food or water, instead of traveling through inhabited cities. And the Jews did not refuse to follow the Pillar of cloud.
Rashi adds that “Whether you would keep His commandments” means also “nor criticize Him in your heart.” Rashi adds this for the first part of the verse says, “to test you, to know what is in your heart.” This implies that besides the actual test of whether the Jews would listen to G‑d (“to test you”), there is the additional matter of “to know what is in your heart.” Rashi explains that this refers to “criticize Him in your heart” that since even if one’s actual conduct is consonant to G‑d’s will, one may still inwardly criticize it, it is necessary to negate even such feelings — “nor criticize Him in your heart.”
That our parshah is referring to the whole forty years in the desert (“these forty years”), while parshas Savo is talking about the fortieth year, also explains why Rashi comments on the meaning of forty years in parshas Savo and not in our parshah. Rashi explains the significance of the forty years — that since a person doesn’t fully comprehend his teacher’s wisdom before forty years, G‑d was not strict with the Jews “until this day” — until forty years had passed.
Such a concept applies only at the end of the forty years, when it is a novel concept. At the beginning of the forty years, it is fairly obvious that as yet “The L‑rd did not give you a heart to know and eyes to see and ears to hear.” It is only after many years have passed that it is necessary for Torah to teach us a new thing: That until the end of a full forty years, no matter how many years had passed, G‑d still was not strict with the Jews since they as yet had not fully comprehended His commandments.
Rashi therefore makes his comment in parshas Savo, which talks of the end of the forty years. Our parshah, in contrast, refers to the entire forty year duration, including the beginning of this period, when it is unnecessary to say that “The L‑rd did not give you a heart to know.”
[Sichos in English]
