One of the most beautiful images in Tanakh is that of God capturing our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:9). It’s evocative to imagine God taking our sparkling tears as though they were jewels and carefully storing them away. It shows He listens, He hears, and that our pain is not for nothing. Our pain is precious- so precious that God stores every tear as though it were treasure.
The God who stores tears is also the God who comforts. When Samuel is hurt by the nation’s rejection of his leadership, God declares, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, so that I should not be king over them” (I Samuel 8:7). This is not about you, God soothes. It is not that you have done wrong. It is that they have turned away from me.
In this week’s parsha, we witness something remarkable. We witness Moses’ distress.
Moses sends for Datan and Aviram in an attempt to reason with them. They respond unreasonably:
Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab; but they said, “We will not come! Is it not enough that you brought us from a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, that you would also lord it over us? Even if you had brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and given us possession of fields and vineyards, should you gouge out the eyes of those involved? We will not come!
-Numbers 16: 12-14
Moses’ response is to feel distressed. Rashi specifically explains that it is distress rather than anger that Moses feels.
Why is Moses distressed?
I think it is because in that moment Moses was so totally mischaracterized that it hurt. Datan and Aviram’s reality was one where white was black and black was white. It was an upside down reality. In this reality, Egypt, the land where they had been enslaved, was “a land flowing with milk and honey.” They then declared that Moses had brought them to “die in the wilderness,” an outcome that Bnei Yisrael had brought upon themselves despite Moses’ best efforts to stop them. Additionally, they accused him of “lording over them” when his only intent had been to make peace, not to assert his authority. (Indeed, we see in the next scene that Moshe goes to them so clearly it was not about forcing them to come to him.)
Moses seems more upset about this piece of dialogue than any insult that Korach had offered him. And it makes sense to me that he was that upset, because Datan and Aviram’s accusations struck at the heart of who he was, twisting all his efforts and accusing him of being a person he was not.
In response to this total mischaracterization of who he was, Moses prays:
“Pay no regard to their oblation. I have not taken the donkey of any one of them, nor have I wronged any one of them.”
-Numbers 16:15
But the prayer doesn’t end there. God makes clear he plans to kill the rebellious members of the nation. He also requests that Moses tell the people to move away from Korach, Datan and Aviram’s tents and possessions.
But it is Moses who further declares,
“By this you shall know that it was יהוה who sent me to do all these things; that they are not of my own devising: if these people’s death is that of all humankind, if their lot is humankind’s common fate, it was not יהוה who sent me. But if יהוה brings about something unheard-of, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, you shall know that those involved have spurned יהוה.”
-Numbers 16:28-30
This suggests that while the punishment was to be death, it is Moses who chooses its final form.
The Sforno explains:
אל תפן אל מנחתם. אל תפן אל שום מין קרבן שיקריבו לכפר עליהם על הפך ירח מנחה וזה כי איני מוחל על עלבוני ואין למחול להם בלעדי זה כאמרם (יומא פרק י"ה) עונות שבין אדם לחבירו אין יום הכפורים מכפר עד שירצה חברו. וכן ירמיהו (יח, כ - כג) אמר אל תכפר על עונם וחטאתם מלפניך אל תמחי. כי כרו שיחה ללכדני זכור עמדי לפניך לדבר עליהם טובה:
The way I understand this, Moses was so hurt by Datan and Aviram’s claims that he cautioned God not to allow them to avoid punishment through trying to atone for their sin. Don’t accept their offering, Moses declares- because I have not forgiven them. If they approach me for forgiveness, recognizing the extent to which they have misunderstood and mischaracterized me, well and good. If not, however, they deserve the punishment they will receive.
To me, this scenario is a powerful reflection on the prayer of the wronged. When someone is deeply wronged, their prayers have immense power. God listens to Moses’ requests in this scene. He does not permit Datan and Aviram to weasel their way out of punishment through promising God any number of things to spare their lives. And He follows through on Moses’s declaration, making sure they die unnaturally.
Moses is not the only individual in Tanakh to be fundamentally misunderstood.
Like my namesake, Chana, in the book of Samuel, I have stood before people who looked righteous and holy and passed judgment upon me- where they were totally mistaken. They mischaracterized and misunderstood me, my motivations, and who I was as a human being. But unlike Eli, who had the humility to recognize that he was mistaken, that Chana had indeed not been drunk, and who therefore did his utmost to fix his mistake- blessing her with a child- none of these people have ever apologized to me. Some of them have made roundabout comments to people who know me, but they have never looked at me directly and said, “I was wrong, and I am sorry.”
And when I was a teenager, because this happened when I was a teenager, I prayed. The prayer of the wronged.
And here is what I know: that prayer was powerful.
So the next time someone stands before you and begs you to see her- to consider her point of view- you might do well to remember Moses in this scene. The extent of his distress. His request that the people who hurt him not be able to evade consequences. His choice of how they will hurt, and the God who cares enough about him to see it through.
In Judaism, God is not only the God of love, mercy and compassion. He is also the God of Justice.
And it’s that iteration of God that comforted teenage me.