By Marco Del Monte
“Yet now, if You will forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray You, out of Your book which You have written” (Ex 32:32)
The Parashah speaks of the sin of the golden calf, the breaking of the Tablets of the Law and the subsequent intercession of Moshe with Hashem to obtain forgiveness for the People of Israel.
Why does Moses choose this phrase in particular? What kind of defence plea is it to either forgive the people or erase him from the Book?
In daily life we find ourselves faced with certain situations where the performance of some mitzvot is easier for us, while the implementation of other actions is more difficult. In particular, some acts, in their execution, give us a strong emotion and others, instead, are less suggestive to us; why is this? The Chachamim explain that those actions to which we are particularly attached, and which make us feel strong emotions, derive from an ancestral memory of the soul referring to a previous reincarnation in which two possible situations occurred: either one was particularly attached to that mitzvah and put it into practice in all its details, and therefore the soul remembers its execution with nostalgia and emotion, which also makes it simpler; or it was a mitzvah that was not put into practice at all, and therefore the soul, establishing a covenant with Hashem before coming into this world, undertakes to try to perform precisely that action which caused it a deficiency in the upper worlds, and from here we derive the explanation for the strong sensation of necessity and will that one feels in carrying out that particular action.
Rav Yoram Michael Abargel ZZ"L writes in his commentary Imrei Noam (Parashat Ki Tissa, ma'amar zayin) in the name of the Zohar that, when Noah came out of the ark and saw the devastation of the world, he asked Kadosh Baruch Hu how all this could have happened. Hashem replies to Noah: "Do you only remember to say this now?! Why didn't you intercede for the world when I told you that I would send the flood?"
The reader at this point might wonder what the connection is between the phrase that Moses says in our parashah, the memory of the Soul, and Noah? The Chachamim answer that the phrase Moses says "Mecheni Na" "Blot me out, I pray thee", is the anagram of "Ani MiNoach" "I am (from) Noah", and even the word "Mecheni" itself "Blot me out" is the anagram of "Me Noach" "The waters of Noah", referring to the universal flood. It seems that a part of Noah's soul reincarnated in Moses. This soul knew that what caused it a "deficiency" in the upper worlds was precisely the fact of not having interceded in prayer so that the sin of a totally corrupt people would be forgiven. The soul of Moses, and therefore also that of Noah, "remembered" what it had to put right, and this time it succeeds, saving not only the people but also its own soul. It is no coincidence that Noah's ark and Moses' cradle are called by the same name "tevah". Therefore the parashah presents us with another great teaching: whoever intercedes for others automatically brings a berachah to themselves as well!
With the wish that we may all be inscribed in the Book of the Torah!!!!
Shabbat Shalom
Translated from the Italian with Google Gemini. The Italian text is the original.