Moshe’s Tent By Ari Bialik
And Moshe would take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far from the camp, and he called it Tent of Meeting; and it would be that whoever would seek HaShem would go out to the Tent of Meeting that was outside the camp (33:7).
Rashi (33:11) says that Moshe moved his tent outside of the camp because he felt that since HaShem, the master, distanced Himself from B’nei Yisrael -- He promised to only send a malach rather than his Sh’chinah (32:34, 33:3) -- then so should he, the student. According to Rashi (quoting the Midrash Tanchuma), this separation from B’nei Yisrael’s camp was only maintained from Yom Kippur (tenth of Tishrei) until the Mishkan was completed on the first of Nissan and HaShem returned his Sh’chinah to B’nei Yisrael’s camp.
Moshe came down from Har Sinai on the seventeenth of Tammuz, spent the next day cleaning up from the Eigel, and returned to Har Sinai on the nineteenth of Tammuz for two consecutive forty-day periods, the last one ending on Yom Kippur. Therefore, Moshe had no time to move his tent until Yom Kippur.
The Ramban wonders why the Torah would recount this occurrence in between Moshe’s first descent from Har Sinai and his entreaty on behalf of B’nei Yisrael if, according to Rashi, Moshe moved his tent months later upon his final descent from Har Sinai. Granted, the Torah doesn’t necessarily follow chronological order, but it would not retell a narrative completely out of order for no apparent reason. Additionally, if HaShem forgave B’nei Yisrael after the second set of forty days on Har Sinai (on the twenty-ninth of Av) and even more so on Yom Kippur, why did Moshe feel that B’nei Yisrael were banished from HaShem? Due to these questions, the Ramban rejects Rashi and instead explains that Moshe removed his tent from the camp on the eighteenth of Tammuz, between his first two stays on Har Sinai, at a time when HaShem was angry at B’nei Yisrael. This explanation fits well with the Torah’s chronology.
Following his preferred explanation of these p’sukim, the Ramban presents the opinion found in the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer that, unlike the opinion of the M’chilta, Moshe was on Har Sinai only twice, from Mattan Torah until the seventeenth of Tammuz and from Rosh Chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur. Therefore, Moshe communicated with HaShem from his tent placed outside the camp in the period between his time on Har Sinai.
However, the Ramban finds the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer difficult to understand because Moshe says (D’varim 9:18-19) that he spent forty days imploring HaShem to forgive B’nei Yisrael. Yet, sometime after the Eigel, HaShem told Moshe to carve new Luchos and ascend Har Sinai, a sign that He had forgiven B’nei Yisrael. According to the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer, Moshe was on Har Sinai for only one more fortday period after the Eigel. It is not possible to say that Moshe begged for B’nei Yisrael’s forgiveness in the same period as he carved the Luchos. The Ri K’ra answers that Moshe’s t’fillos took place in his tent, not on Har Sinai.
The biggest problem with the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer, however, is that the pasuk explicitly says, “And it was on the next day [after the sinners were punished], Moshe said to the people, ‘[...] And now I shall ascend to HaShem’” (Sh’mos 32:30). How can the Pirkei D’rabbi Eliezer possibly say that Moshe didn’t ascend to Har Sinai immediately after the Cheit Ha’eigel? The N’tziv finds this question so pressing that he quotes the Rash at the end of Rosh Hashanah who says that this entire portion of the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer was a mistake of the copyists. Hak’sav V’hakabbalah reconciles the midrash and pasuk by saying that during the forty middle days that the M’chilta says Moshe was on Har Sinai, according to the Pirkei d'Rebbi Eliezer, Moshe stayed in his tent and went to Har Sinai each day and returned that night.
The Ibn Ezra says that some say this entire episode occurred from the first of Nissan, when the Mishkan was inaugurated, until the twentieth of Iyar, when B’nei Yisrael traveled in formation for the first time. According to the Ibn Ezra, B’nei Yisrael did not camp in formation with the Mishkan in the center of the camp (as described in Bamidbar 2) until their first travel which was on the twentieth of Iyar (Bamidbar 10:11). He is not at all bothered by the p’sukim being completely out of order for no apparent reason because he understands the dictum of ein mukdam u’miuchar batorah to mean that chronological order isn’t considered when determining p’shat in a pasuk. The Tz’ror Hamor rejects this opinion because the pasuk (33:7) says that Moshe called the tent Ohel Mo’eid. If the tent was really the Mishkan, then it would not be called Ohel Mo’eid because Moshe named it so. HaShem already named the Mishkan the Ohel Mo’eid, as is evident by the fact that HaShem already used the phrase Ohel Mo’eid multiple times when commanding Moshe to build the Mishkan. Targum Onkelos holds that this tent was not the Mishkan, as is evident from the fact that here he translates Ohel Mo’eid as “mashkan ulfana” rather than “mashkan zimna” which he uses when Ohel Mo’eid refers to the Mishkan.
