Va'eira 6:26. Moshe and Aharon

Rashi says that the Torah sometimes mentions Moshe before Aharon and sometimes reverses the order to teach us that they were Shkulin, of equal weight.  This is impossible.  Moshe was unparalleled.  Obviously, there were some aspects in which they were equal, but that is irrelevant to us.  We are interested in Moshe and Aharon in their roles as teachers and leaders of Klal Yisrael and as intermediaries between the Ribono shel Olam and His people, and in those respects, Moshe was greater.  So we have to find an interpretation of what Rashi is telling us.


I heard this morning something very nice from the Chozeh of Lublin.  He says that it was only because Aharon brought peace to the Jewish People that Moshe was able to experience the level of Ruach Hakodesh that he did.  (See note.)  Moshe alone would not have been Moshe.  In that sense, they were shkulim.


Similarly: R’ Aharon Soloveichikin in “The Warmth and the Light” brings the Rambam in PH that Moshe was the greatest man in history in nevu’ah, in Chochmoh, and in Middos.  So it is impossible that he and Aharon were shkulim. He explains on the basis of a Medrash Shmos 4:27 that brings the possuk in Tehillim 85:11 “Chesed v’emes nifgoshu, tzedek v’sholom noshoku,” that Emes and Tzedek refers to Moshe, and Chesed and Sholom refers to Aharon.  He says that Moshe represents one side of Torah, while Aharon represents the other.  See there for a discussion of why Aharon was chosen to speak to the Jews, while Moshe was to speak to Pharaoh, and the difference between Tzedek and Emes.

When I said this at the table, my just-married-off son Moshe said that this could be pshat in the Gemara (Brachos 32) that reads the passuk in Tehillim 99 to mean that Shmuel was "Shakul" with Moshe and Aharon.  Again, that is not possible.  It might be that while Moshe and Aharon divided the responsibilities of leadership into pastoral and royal, Shmuel's leadership comprised both elements.

Note:
See, e.g., Shemos 19:2 and Rashi, כאיש אחד, בלב אחד, and Sotah 17a, שלום ביניהם שכינה שרויה ביניהם.


Notice:
Now that I've married off my youngest child, Baruch Hashem, things are going to change around here.  I will be moving the divrei Torah to another blog, perhaps another website, this time with my real name.