Judgment According to the Inner Dimension

According to what was explained in the Zohar, Moshe Rabbeinu did not want to write the passage of the ben sorer u'moreh, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, would not judge the Jewish people in that way. The Holy One, blessed be He, then asked the Angel of the Torah to explain the passage to him. Yet when we reflect on it, it seems that the angel did not reveal anything new to Moshe Rabbeinu.

The holy Zohar asks: The main sin of the ben sorer u'moreh is gluttony and drunkenness. Yet when we examine the passage, we discover something remarkable: In the description of the son’s sins, the fact that he is a “glutton and drunkard” is not mentioned at all. The verse says only, “If a man has a wayward and rebellious son, who does not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother” (Devarim 21:18). That is all.

Only after the parents bring him to the judges do they tell them, “This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard” (ibid., v. 20).

The holy Zohar asks: Why is the main sin not mentioned in the initial description of his wrongdoing?

There is one answer to both questions:21

At first, Moshe Rabbeinu thought that the Holy One, blessed be He, would judge the Jewish people according to the external surface of their deeds, and this frightened him.

The Angel of the Torah explained to him that the Holy One, blessed be He, judges the Jewish people according to the inner point of their heart. And the inner point of the Jewish heart is holy and pure, exalted and sublime, originating from the first of all believers and those who withstood tests—Avraham Avinu. Therefore, sin does not truly belong to them at all.

The fact that they do sin, is only because they were cast out of their land and thrust into a reality of “gluttony and drunkenness.” They were thrown among the nations, whose culture is immersed in the pursuit of the pleasures of this world.

Therefore, the Jewish people are not inherently at fault. In their essence, they are pure and refined.

This is why the words “a glutton and a drunkard” could not be written at the beginning, in the description of the sin itself, because that reality does not truly belong to the Jewish people. On the contrary, it becomes a defense on their behalf: Whatever sins the Jewish people committed were only because they became mingled among the nations, among those absorbed in gluttony and drunkenness.

It follows that these very words are a cornerstone and foundation for the rectification of the Jewish people.

Thus, when Moshe heard the angel’s explanation, he was appeased and wrote the passage in the Torah.

Wellsprings of Wisdom
21. Shem MiShmuel, Parashat Ki Teitzei, 5677.