THE DAY THE BNEI YISROEL CROSSED THE JORDAN

Moshe Rabbenu passed away on 7th Adar 2488, at the end of the 40th year after the Bnei Yisroel left Egypt. The Bnei Yisroel mourned him for 30 days and then Yehoshua commenced the arrangements for the whole of the Bnei Yisroel to cross over the Jordan into our Holy Land. This took place on 10th day of Nissan. That day was the 41st anniversary of the carrying out of the first mitzvah that the Bnei Yisroel had received as a people, namely, the setting aside of the korban Pesach on 10th Nissan in the year they left Egypt.

The Gemora in Sotah (from page 32 onwards) speaks at length about the various happenings that day and the ניסים, the miracles, which took place. On page 36a, the Gemora states as follows Let us enumerate how many ניסים took place on that date. The Jews went over the Jordan. They went from there to Har Gerizim and Har Aivol, (near Shechem) more than 60 Mil (approximately 40 miles) nobody could stand in their way to stop them and the Gemora continues, They took stones (which they had taken out of the Jordan) and built an altar, מזבח, coated it with plaster and wrote the whole of the Torah on it, in 70 languages. They brought offerings, ate, drank and rejoiced and then carried out that which they were enjoined in the Torah by Moshe Rabbenu, ברכות וקללות (see next paragraphs for details). They then took the stones with them and finally rested at another place called Gilgal approximately 20 miles south east of Har Aivol and Har Gerizim, all in the one day, 10th Nissan. By returning to Gilgal they came back towards where they crossed over the Jordan.

Moshe Rabbenu told the Bnei Yisroel at the beginning of Parshas ראה
והיה כי יביאך ה' אלקיך אל הארץ אשר אתה בא שמה לרשתה ונתתה את הברכה על הר גרזים ואת הקללה על הר עיבל. הלא המה בעבר הירדן אחרי דרך מבוא השמש בארץ הכנעני הישב בערבה מול הגלגל אצל אלוני מרה.

And it shall be when Hashem, your G-d, brings you to the Land which you are coming to, to possess it, you should pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Aivol. Behold, they are on the other side of the Jordan, far away, in the direction of the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain, far from Gilgal, near Alonei Moreh.

Later on, in כי תבוא , the Torah tells us in chapter 27 in detail, that on the day that the Jews were to go over the Jordan, they should take large stones and coat them with plaster, write on them all the Torah, and erect them on Har Aivol. They should build an altar there with those stones and bring sacrifices and rejoice and finally it says that they should write on the stones the whole of the Torah באר היטב. The Gemora in Sotah 36 explains that this means in 70 languages.

The Torah then continues instructions as to how six of the tribes stood on the top of Har Gerizim, namely, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Yissochar, Yosef and Binyomin and the six others stood at the top of Har Aivol, that is Reuvain, Gad, Osher, Zevulun, Don, and Naftali. Meanwhile, in the valley stood the Kohanim and the rest of the Levi’im who had served in the Mishkon, namely from 30 to 50 years of age. They proclaimed in a loud voice twelve proclamations in loshen hakoshen, commencing with.

ארור האיש אשר יעשה פסל ומסכה תועבת ה' מעשה ידי חרש ושם בסתר וענו כל העם ואמרו אמן.

Cursed is the man who will make a graven or molten image which is an abomination of Hashem, a craftsman’s work and emplaced in secret, and all the people shall say Omain. There are eleven such curses and the final one is
ארור אשר לא יקים את דברי התורה הזאת לעשות אותם ואמר כל העם אמן.

Cursed is the person who will not uphold the words of this Torah, to perform them and everybody shall say Omain.

In fact, the Gemora tells us in Sotah that before the curses, the Levi’im who were calling this out across the valley up towards the mountains turned to the six tribes on the Mount Gerizim, and said, Blessed is the person who does not make molten images etc. and everybody answered Omain and the same for all the other ones which start off in Torah with a curse, there was in fact a brocho, a blessing for the ones who would not do these things, followed by the curses. This is the ברכו וקללו mentioned earlier on.

I have just given you the bare outlines of what happened in that day but I want to consider this in much greater detail based on the Gemora in Sotah and the Seder Olam Chapter 11 (with the commentary of Rabbi Moshe Yoir Weinstock).

I mentioned that there were miracles but if one goes into the detail of the story as told in Chapters 3 and 4 of Yehoshua and elaborated on in the Gemora Sotah and the Seder Olam, one finds ten major miracles which occurred on that very day.

1) The ארון , the Ark, was taken by the Kohanim towards the Jordan. As soon as the feet of the Kohanim touched the water, the river stopped flowing. Remember that this was in Nissan after all the winter rains and there was a very strong flow of water.

2) The Bnei Yisroel, 2 or 3 million people, crossed over the dry water bed down stream from where the Kohanim were standing. This happened quickly, nobody was injured or even became wet.

3) Meanwhile, the waters of the river piled up very high (300 mil, Sotah 34) so that it was visible as a tower of water for tens of miles, maybe even hundreds of miles around. Miraculously, the water did not overflow its banks or flood the surrounding area.

4) As commanded by Hashem, Yehoshua them took twelve large stones out of the Jordan and replaced them with others from around the countryside. The stones he removed weighed 40 סאה (approximately 280 kilos, about 40 stone) each and one person from each tribe carried a stone from the crossing all the way to Har Gerizim and Har Aivol, namely to Shechem, 40 miles away!!

5) Only after the Bnei Yisroel had safely moved away from the river into Eretz Yisroel proper did the waters come crashing down and raced away into the Dead Sea, nobody was hurt by it, and it did not flood the surrounding area.

6) Once the Bnei Yisroel had crossed into Eretz Yisroel, the Kohanim and the Aron went back to the other side of the Jordan and then miraculously they took off and flew over the river which, by then, was coursing down as normal. ארון נושא את נושאיו.

7) The whole of the Bnei Yisroel, 2 to 3 million people, travelled (by air lift?) to Shechem nearly 40 miles on that day.

8) They build the מזבח, the altar, covered it with plaster and brought sacrifices, ate, drank and rejoiced and wrote the whole of Torah on those stones.

9) They then wrote the Torah in seventy languages on the stones, miraculous indeed. (They had, by now heard the ברכות and קללות mentioned in detail above.)

10) They then took the stones with them and travelled another 15 to 20 miles (another air lift?) to Gilgal.

ALL THIS TOOK PLACE ON 10TH NISSAN, IN ONE DAY.

I think you will agree with me that it was an extraordinary day in the history of the Jewish people.

To put it in context, we have to remember that the Bnei Yisroel who had been travelling around the desert for 40 years, had grown used to Moshe Rabbenu as their leader. He, of course, had performed and been intimately involved in so many ניסים that they were used to their leader having this great quality. Do I have to enumerate them, the Ten plagues, the splitting of the Yam Suf, the מן, Mannah, ענני הכבוד and the special Well that travelled round with the Bnei Yisroel during the 40 years in the wilderness etc. When Moshe died, they, no doubt, felt that they had not just lost a great leader but a person in whose merit miracles took place regularly.

Yehoshua took over and after the 30 days of mourning for Moshe Rabbenu, just three days later on 10th Nissan, he was given this great boost as it says in Yehoshua This day I will bring miracles and make you great and famous. But this was also with the merit of keeping the Torah, symbolised by the Aron, the Ark, with the Luchos, the tablets, in them.

Therefore, one can understand the first miracle whereby the Aron and the Kohanim just stepped into the River Jordan and the waters stopped. Not only that, but millions of Jews crossed over miraculously in a short time. The waters then piled very high which showed all the nations around that the miracles which had taken place previously under Moshe Rabbenu were going to continue under Yehoshua. The waters then crashed down and went on as previously and finally the ארון which was still on the other side of the Jordan flew miraculously with the Kohanim into Eretz Yisroel and this was, no doubt, sufficient to convince the whole of Bnei Yisroel that Yehoshua was great and Hashem was with him. The miracle at the river Jordan was akin to the splitting of the ים סוף, the Red Sea.

Dare I suggest that the ten miracles that took place on that day are an echo of the first major miracles carried out by Moshe, namely the Ten plagues. Furthermore, remember that all this took place on 10th day of Nissan, the anniversary of the setting aside of the korban Pesach which was the mitzvah which the Bnei Yisroel carried out, of course, in Mitzraim and are, therefore, themselves mirrored by the mitzvos carried out on the first day that the Bnei Yisroel entered the Holy Land.

At the same time, these miraculous happenings, especially the drying up of the Jordan and piling up of the waters high into the sky were giving forewarning to all the nations around that the Bnei Yisroel had arrived and they would take over Eretz Yisroel.

I find it, however, difficult to understand why certain of the miracles that took place were necessary. Why was it so important that all the happenings mentioned above, with the ten miracles, should all take place on the same day, the very day that Bnei Yisroel crossed over into Eretz Yisroel?

Why was it so important that the ברכות and קללות, the blessings and the curses, should be carried out on Har Gerizim and Har Aivol? We can see how important the location was because going back to the verse I quoted, at the beginning of Parshas ראה, no less than six indications of the location are made there. “You should pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Aivol and then behold they are on (1)the other side of the Jordan, (2) far away, (3) in the direction of the sunset, (4) in the lands of Canaanites who dwell in the plain, (5) far from Gilgal, (6) near Alonei Moreh”.) What was so important about that location?

Thirdly, what was the necessity of taking the stones out of the Jordan, carrying them all the way to Shechem, making an altar out of them and plastering them and writing on them, not only the Torah in loshen hakodesh but also in 70 languages? Remember all in one day.

Why could not the ceremony of the ברכות and קללות and all other things on Har Gerizim and Har Aivol not have taken place just over the Jordan, on the side that is in the Land of Israel. What was the necessity to take so many people 40 miles away. If there was an importance to do this at a special site, why could this not have been Yerushalayim, that is much nearer, only approximately 15 to 20 miles away inland. Alternatively, why not Chevron, where the Ovos are buried. Why did it have to be near Shechem at a precise location mentioned there?

Finally, why could they not have slept near Shechem overnight, what was the point of going on another journey (another air lift?) to Gilgal for the night? Remember we are taking about millions of people being moved around.


I would venture to suggest a way of understanding this series of events as follows.

The Bnei Yisroel had travelled around for 40 years in the wilderness and become a homogenous nation based around the Mishkon and the holiest part, ארון, the Ark, with the ענני הכבוד, pillars of glory surrounding them and protecting them. They were physically and spiritually moulded into one Nation. In parshas Pinchas, Moshe Rabbenu was enjoined to split the land of Israel into various portions, one for each tribe and smaller plots for each individual family. This, of course, did not take place until after they were in the Land of Israel, but nevertheless, the Bnei Yisroel knew when they crossed over the river Jordan that this was the aim. They would no longer be a nation living in close proximity, together.

The last day when the Bnei Yisroel were physically and psychologically an Am Echod, one unified people, was the day that they crossed over the Jordan. The day after that although they may have been physically all together in Gilgal they were individually thinking already about occupying their own patch of land once they had conquered it. There was not the same unity as there had been over the previous 40 years. It was, therefore, necessary to carry out all the matters ordained in Re’eh and Ki Sovo without any delay whatsoever. This would, therefore, have the maximum impact.

The point of extracting these very large stones from the river bed of the Jordan was to remind everybody of the great miracles that had taken place in that they all passed over a river which had become dry, whilst the water was piling up, a short distance away. Those stones were then utilised as an altar and subsequently had written on them the whole of Torah. This was to show the centrality and importance of bringing sacrifices for Hashem after having physically lugged these stones a long distance followed by using the same stones to engrave the Torah thereon. That being the raison d’être of the Children of Israel, namely to keep the Torah and serve as an example to the rest of the world.

In order to reinforce this, there were the blessings and curses, ברכות and קללות pronounced in a most extraordinary manner by the Levi’im in the valley between the two mountains as mentioned above. (Incidentally, having visited that area, I can confirm that on Har Gerizim, towards which the brochos were given, there is vegetation on top whereas Har Aivol is virtually barren on top.)

The importance of these utterances were to impress on all present the necessity at all times to keep the Torah and not be influenced by the current inhabitants of the land of Canaan, who were idolaters and worse. Please read through the eleven individual oral curses, ארורים (mentioned below on page 13/14) and you will see the thrust of this in detail.

One begins to understand why these major events had to all take place on that very day.

Turning to the location chosen, I have discovered that Shechem (and Har Gerizim and Har Aivol) are virtually at the centre point of the whole of the land of Israel as delineated to the Bnei Yisroel by Moshe Rabbenu in פרשת מסעי. Both east and west, that is from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, Shechem stands at a midpoint. Furthermore, from north to south, based on the map in Stones Tenach page 2048 and other contemporary maps (see אלה מסעי page 14), Shechem stands right in the middle!!

In order to understand the significance of this, perhaps a משל, a parable, would assist. Let us assume that a person living in say, London, (England), had a major spiritual awakening at a Seed seminar arranged in, say, Glasgow, (Scotland). Whenever he would visit Glasgow or anywhere near the venue in which the seminar was held, this would bring back strong memories. The further he was from this venue, the less the memory would be there.

Hashem wanted the impressive ceremony of Har Gerizim and Har Aivol to leave as lasting an impression as possible on the people who were present. If the whole ceremony would have taken place at, for example, Yerushalayim or, say, Chevron, these cities are to the south of Eretz Yisroel. Therefore, they would be further away in distance from the tribes who occupied the far north, such as Osher, Don, Zevulun etc. Likewise, if the place chosen would, perhaps have been the hills of Zfas, the tribes in the south, Yehuda, Binyomin and Shimon, would have been very far away. Shechem is the central point which would, therefore, be as near as possible to everybody, so that this would have the maximum effect as mentioned above in the parable and illustration.

Regarding later generations, who lived in the Holy Land, they could recall the happenings Yisroel to their ancestors on the first day in Eretz and in particular the ברכות and קללות on Har Gerizim and Har Aivol.

However, Hashem knew that there would be changes in circumstances, both in Eretz Yisroel over the next few hundred years and that the Bnei Yisroel would then go into Golus for 70 years in Bovel, come back again for a further 420 years and once again go into Golus. This could be the reason why there was a final journey from Shechem to a town called Gilgal. This name has an affinity with gilgulim, changed circumstances and change of places as well. Furthermore, that would be a very good reason as to why the Torah was written on the stones in 70 languages. This would ensure that wherever Jewish people would disperse to and whichever language they spoke, they could still have an affinity with our Holy Torah and Mitzvos and study it in the vernacular.

Gilgal may also refer to the neshomos who would come back in future generations and could complete their rectification through the study of Torah and keeping the mitzvos.



I believe that there may be an additional reason why the ברכות and קללות were given in the vicinity of Shechem.

It is interesting to note that in כי תבוא just after Chamishi, the tribes who were to stand on Har Gerizim are mentioned as follows, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Issochar, Yosef, Binyomin. The ones on Har Aivol were Reuvain, God, Osher, Zevulun, Don, Naftali. Nevertheless, the Levi’im stood in the valley and proclaimed in the loud voice the ברכות and קללות. The commentators discuss exactly the role of the Levi’im and which Levi’im stood on Mount Gerizim and which ones stood in the valley. Normally, we find that Yosef’s tribe was split into two, Ephraim and Manasheh but here it is just referred to as Yosef including both Ephraim and Manasheh. Because of this, Levi therefore makes up one of the twelve tribes and only some members of the tribe who actually proclaimed the ברכות and קללות remained in the valley, with the Kohanim.

I would suggest that the reason for the inclusive name Yosef was to do with the incident that took place over 270 years prior to the Bnei Yisroel entering Eretz Yisroel. You will no doubt recall that Yaakov instructed Yosef to go and look for his brothers who had gone to Shechem with the sheep. We all know that when Yosef got there and finally found them nearby at a place called Doson, they threw him into a pit and nearly killed him but had second thoughts. Instead they sold him and he eventually ended up in Egypt and this was, of course, the beginning of the Golus to Mitzraim from which the return to Eretz Yisroel by the Bnei Yisroel was the culmination.

Let us examine the pesukim in detail.
ארור האיש אשר יעשה פסל ומסכה תועבת ה' מעשה ידי חרש ושם בסתר וענו כל העם ואמרו אמן
Accursed is the man who will make a graven or molten image, an abomination of Hashem, a craftsman’s handiwork, and emplace it in secret. And the entire people shall speak up and say Amen.

ארור מקלה אביו ואמו ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who degrades (מזלזל) his father or mother. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור מסיג גבול רעהו ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who moves the boundary of his fellow. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור משגה עור בדרך ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who causes a blind person to go astray on the road. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור מטה משפט גר יתום ואלמנה ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who perverts a judgement of a proselyte, orphan or widow. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור שכב עם אשת אביו כי גלה כנף אביו ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who lives with the wife of his father, for he will have uncovered the robe of his father. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור שכב עם כל בהמה ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who lives with any animal. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור שכב עם אחתו בת אביו או בת אמו ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed us one who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור שכב עם חתנתו ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who lies with his mother-in-law. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור מכה רעהו בסתר ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who strikes his fellow stealthily. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור לקח שחד להכות נפש דם נקי ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who takes a bribe to kill a person of innocent blood. And the entire people shall say Amen.

ארור אשר לא יקים את דברי התורה הזאת לעשות אותם ואמר כל העם אמן
Accursed is one who will not uphold the words of this Torah, to perform them. And the entire people shall say Amen.

If you look carefully at the various curses mentioned, I believe a majority have a bearing on or affinity to what happened to Yosef.

We all know that once Yosef was sold off and his brothers produced “evidence” that he had been killed, Yaakov Avinu refused to be comforted, it took 22 years until they were finally reunited. I believe that ארור מקלה אביו really means that this is what happened, that the children by their actions towards Yosef, were degrading and making a mockery of their father.

Turning to the next one, ארור מסיג גבול רעהו, the commentators tell us that the argument between Yosef and his brothers was a deep one. They felt that he was trying to lord it over them and in fact, if we look at what happened whilst they were all in Egypt, he was in fact, the viceroy and was at a higher level both in a material sense and spiritually than his brothers. They, however, did not want to accept it and this is contained in מסיג גבול רעהו , encroaching on the boundaries of Yosef, in this instance. מידת יסוד , characterised by יוסף, is above מלכות, characterised by יהודה.

ארור משגה עור בדרך. Accursed is one who causes a blind person to go astray on the road. Well, they went further than this, in that they even sold him off.

ארור מטה משפט גר יתום ואלמנה includes perverting justice to a יתום, an orphan, which remember that Yosef was, because he had lost his mother. They refused to listen to his entreaties when they threw him into the pit.

Skipping a few we come to ארור שכב עם חתנתו, his mother-in-law. We all know the story of the wife of Potiphar who tried to seduce Yosef but he refused steadfastly and ended up in prison for ten years for his efforts. When he was eventually released Yosef married the daughter of Potiphar and his wife.

Finally, ארור לקח שחד להכות נפש דם נקי. To kill a person who was innocent. We only have to refer to the statement of two brothers, “and now let us go and kill him” referring to Yosef which fortunately did not take place.

However, as I mentioned, the majority of these statements have a significant connection with the story of Yosef and his brothers and, therefore, it was fitting that the ברכות and קללות should be given at a place that had an affinity with the original request by Yaakov to Yosef to go and visit his brothers who had gone to Shechem.

It is noteworthy that Yosef’s bones were buried in the vicinity of Shechem just adjacent to Har Gerizim and Har Aivol. I had the זכות to visit the site where both Menasheh and Ephraim are also buried.

(One could even go so far as to say that the last of all the statements ארור אשר לא יקים את דברי התורה הזאת לעשות אותם also has an affinity with Yosef and his brothers. The פרשת דרכים states that the argument between Yosef and his brothers regarding various laws and whether they were being kept properly by the brothers depended on whether the children of Yaakov had the דין of Bnei Yisroel or of Bnei Noach. Yosef maintained that they had a din of Bnei Yisroel and, therefore, reported to his father that they had eaten for example, אבר מן החי flesh torn from a live animal. In short what I am driving at is that there may have been room for argument until the Torah was given, but when the Bnei Yisroel stood on these two mountains, there was no shadow of a doubt that they had to all agree that they must uphold the words of the Torah and perform them.)



Bearing in mind all the above, we have gained a greater understanding of the need for all the ניסים and happenings that took place and the journeys to Har Gerizim and Har Aivol and finally to Gilgal, all on the same day, 10th Nissan 2489, the day the Bnei Yisroel crossed the Jordan.


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