Towards the end of Parshat Mishpatim, God informs the children of Israel that He has assigned an angel to lead them on their future sojourn:
“Look, I am about to send a messenger before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready.” (Exodus 23:20)
Both the earlier promises of direct divine guidance and the placement of this passage well after the revelation at Sinai have generated debate over the nature of this “messenger” and the timetable to which this promise refers.
Rashi understood God’s words as a prophetic warning of future punishment for the sin of the Golden Calf, when God would no longer lead the people directly. According to Rashi, this verse anticipates God’s later declaration signaling the withdrawal of the Divine Presence (Shekhinah) and its replacement by an angelic intermediary:
Here they were informed that they were destined in the future to sin, and that the Shekhinah would say to them, “But I will not go up in your midst” (Exodus 33:3).
Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman (Ramban) rejected Rashi’s assessment, noting that Moshe ensured that, for the duration of his lifetime, God would personally continue to guide the people in the desert. Only after Moshe’s death, when the people were led by Yehoshua (Joshua) into the land, would the task of guiding Israel be taken over by an angel (see Tanhuma Mishpatim 18).
Another midrashic interpretation takes an entirely different tack, locating the source of divine protection not in punishment or succession, but in the fulfillment of God’s will itself:
“Behold, I send an angel before you” (Exodus 23:20). Scripture says with reference to this verse: “For His messengers He charges for you, to guard you in all your ways” (Psalm 91:11). When a person performs one precept (mitzvah), one angel is assigned to guard him; when he performs two precepts, two angels are given to him; when he performs all the precepts, many angels are assigned to him… (Tanhuma Mishpatim 19).
The Sfat Emet, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, the second Gerer Rebbe, expands this idea even further:
For all the working days… you shall do labor, and nevertheless [know that] there is a genuine holiness hidden within one’s actions, which may be associated with angels and agency. For all things possess a living essence from the blessed God within them, such that there are mitzvot embedded in all of the deeds of a person… (Sfat Emet, Mishpatim 5631, Or Etzion ed., p. 218).
This midrashic transformation conveys a quintessentially Jewish message. Divine guidance can be found in the ongoing effort to carry out God’s will on earth through the observance of mitzvot and through the sanctification of everyday labor. The angels, in this telling, are very real and they are there to be found. All it takes is a little Jewish effort on our part. |
