Or HaChaim on Exodus 32:17/אור החיים על שמות ל״ב:י״ז

1 וישמע יהושע, "Joshua heard, etc." The expression ברעה needs clarification. What precisely was the "sound" that Joshua heard which he interpreted as the sound of war? In order to understand Moses' response to Joshua one has to have prophetic insight.

2All of this may be understood in light of a statement in the Talmud Yerushalmi Taanit 4,5 that the righteous are able to distinguish certain sounds as implying either something positive or something negative. This power of aural perception is something G'd has granted to outstanding individuals. When Joshua heard the sound which indicated something negative happening, ברעה, he interpreted it as the sound of fighting amongst the people. Alternatively, Joshua did not refer to a civil war when he mentioned that he identified the sound as the sound of battle; rather he referred to the struggle between the evil urge and the urge to be good which he perceived as being waged inside the Israelites at that time. Moses answered him that this was not how he perceived what he heard. When Moses said that he did not hear קול ענות גבורה, he meant that he did not perceive the good urge being victorious over the evil urge; when he added that he did not hear the קול ענות חלושה either, he meant that the reason was not merely an inherent weakness amongst the Israelites; what he heard was קול ענות, a sound of affliction, i.e. that he heard the breaking of the staff of glory which used to be theirs and which had now been broken. The meaning of this is that as opposed to violating one or another of the commandments, something that is apt to occur in the life of every Jew from time to time and which weakens a person spiritually, this time they had uprooted all the commandments by becoming guilty of idolatry. This is because according to Chulin 5 the sin of idolatry is equal to violating the entire Torah.

3Perhaps the word אנכי which follows the word ענות here is an allusion to the שכינה; it is reminiscent of Deut. 32,18 צור ילדך תשי, that the commission of a sin such a idolatry "weakens" the שכינה. The word שומע refers back to Joshua who had said that he heard the sound of battle within the camp. Moses told Joshua that what he heard was the mystical dimension of the breaking apart of the שכינה, so to speak. Solomon alludes to something like this in Proverbs 10,1 ובן כסיל תוגת אמו, "a foolish son is his mother's sorrow." Having written this, I have found the following statement in the Zohar second volume page 195: "What is the meaning of the word 'ברעה'? It refers to a voice (sound) from the סיטרא אחרא, the "negative part of the emanations." [This is based on the spelling of ברע with the letter ה at the end. Joshua is perceived as like the "moon" compared to Moses, the latter being like the "sun" in our aggadic literature. The "negative emanations" are similarly perceived by kabbalists as being like the "moon" when compared to the positive emanations which are like the "sun." These negative emanations are perceived as having "stolen" the light of the moon which was equal in strength to that of the sun prior to its having had to diminish itself. Joshua was therefore especially attuned to these negative emanations. This is why he "beheld" this "voice." Moses had not heard this voice as he was attuned primarily to the positive emanations, the ones perceived as akin to the "sun." Ed.] Joshua reported to Moses on what he heard immediately.