Rashi states: “Although he heard that his death depended on the matter, he did it joyfully, without delay.”
The Magid Rav Yaakov Galinsky zt”l would relate the following incredible story in the name of the Brisker Rov zt”l that relates to this pasuk:
The Shaagas Aryeh zt”l once accepted upon himself to go into golus, traveling from place to place. During his travels, he once came to a certain village, where he stayed for two months. He was careful not to eat “chodosh”, and a local widow who had “kemach yoshon” would bake three challos for him for each Shabbos. Before he let the city, he gave her a bracha for wealth. He blessed her to be able to three batei medrash, each one as reward for one of the challos she made for him. He said that two of them would be in Chutz La’aretz and one would be in Eretz Yisroel.
The blessing was fulfilled and she became very wealthy. One day, she came to Rav Chaim of Volozhin zt”l and told him the story. She said that she had already built two shuls – one in Vilna and one in a different city (the Brisker Rov testified that he had prayed in that shul). She was now getting on in age, so she wanted to finish the bracha by sponsoring a shul in Yerushalaim. However, since she didn’t know anyone there, she asked Rav Chaim if he knew someone who could arrange it.
Rav Chaim told her, “Why are you in a rush to build it? You have a guarantee to live until the bais medrash in Yerushalaim is completed. You should push it off for as long as you can so that you will be assured a very long life.”
From this story, we can see the greatness of Moshe Rabenu. Hashem promised him that he would live until he took revenge against Midyan. He told him that he would first wage this war and then be “gathered in”. He could have delayed the war as long as possible to ensure that he had a long life.
But he did not do that. Since he had an important mitzvah to do, he did it right away, even though it meant that he would die sooner. Moshe Rabenu certainly valued every moment of life, but his first concern was to avenge Hashem’s honor and to follow His command as quickly as possible.
