Parashat Vaetchanan begins with Moshe recalling his impassioned plea to God for permission to cross the Jordan River into Eretz Yisrael along with rest of the nation, and God’s refusal to grant his request. The Sifrei presents the following explanation for God’s refusal:
You [Moshe] are serving as an example for the judges, who will say, “If Moshe, a great wise man – He [God] did not show him favor, and because he said, ‘Listen, please, O rebellious ones’ the decree was issued that he would not enter the land – then all the more so, those who delay judgment or distort judgment!”
According to the Sifrei, God’s stern, unyielding response to Moshe served as an important example to other leaders. If God did not pardon Moshe for his ever so slight failure in leadership, then certainly, the judges will be held strictly accountable for abusing their power or failing to properly execute their responsibilities.
Why does the Sifrei here emphasize specifically Moshe’s “wisdom,” describing him as “a great wise man” (“chakham gadol”)? Why didn’t it stress his personal piety, or his unparalleled prophetic level? In what way does his unique “wisdom” make him an instructive example of God’s exactitude in dealing with failures of leadership?
Rav Yehuda Leib Ginsburg, in his Yalkut Yehuda, suggests that one of the defining characteristics of a “chakham” is the ability to correct and rectify mistakes. Wise people are not necessarily perfect, but they are adept in solving problems which they unwittingly caused, and controlling the damage resulting from their mistakes. It is therefore specifically Moshe’s “chokhma” that makes God’s strict decree so instructive. Despite Moshe’s unique ability to rectify mistakes, God did not give him a pass after the incident of Mei Meriva. Sometimes, leadership failures do not lend themselves to complete rectification, and God will therefore exact strict retribution. The nation’s judges thus learned from God’s response that not all mistakes can be corrected. They must exercise extreme care to do things right the first time, and not rely on their ability to fix the situation later.
We might also suggest that due to the scarcity of wisdom, wise people are a precious and crucial commodity. Accomplished scholars – even Torah scholars – might be tempted to view themselves as indispensable and irreplaceable. God’s strict decree against Moshe, while baffling in many respects, sets an important precedent that does not allow any subsequent chakhamim to deem themselves indispensable. Regardless of how vital a service any figure might provide for the people, nobody is beyond replacement. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch commented that this message underlies the brief narrative in Parashat Shemot (4:24-26) of Moshe’s near death as he made his way to Egypt, due to his neglecting his son’s circumcision. The Torah seeks to impress upon us that the nation’s redemption does not depend on any single individual; if Moshe was lax in his personal performance of mitzvot, then God could bring the salvation through a different figure. By the same token, the judges saw how Moshe, the greatest chakham of all, was denied entry into Eretz Yisrael, and learned that no one is too important to be held accountable. To the contrary, the heavy burden of responsibility the weighs upon the leaders’ shoulders results in an especially strict level of accountability, and an infinitesimal margin of error.