Friday, July 28, 2017

Why did Elazar interrupt Moses?

DR. RABBI ZEV FARBER: Elazar Speaks Once in the Torah: Why Does He Interrupt Moses? (TheTorah.com).
Moses tells the soldiers returning from the Midianite war that they must purify themselves from corpse impurity. Elazar then jumps in with a unique law in Moses’ name about the need to purify metal in fire. Critical and traditional scholars alike—including the scribes of the Samaritan Pentateuch—were troubled by why Elazar and not Moses teaches this law.

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