At the end of this week’s פרשה, the תורה tells us that משה רבינו came and spoke the words of the whole שירה of פרשת האזינו in the ears of כלל ישראל, along with הושע בן נון. I saw various explanations for why משה רבינו chose to call him הושע here, as opposed to the name that משה רבינו himself had dubbed for יהושע when he went into א"י with the מרגלים.
רש"י says that the reason for this was because משה רבינו wanted to show that יהושע had not grown haughty since his name had been changed. Even though greatness had been thrust upon him, he was as humble as he had been in his youth.
In his very practical and פשט-oriented style, the אבן עזרא comments that יהושע was a name that was only known and used by the leaders of the nation, by the קריאי מועד ואנשי שם. The rest of כלל ישראל only knew him as הושע. Since משה רבינו was addressing the nation as a whole, he used the name that was most well-known to the people.
The אור החיים says that the extra "י" had been given to יהושע by משה רבינו as a way of showing him כבוד and greatness. However, in the circumstance where he was standing next to the person who had given him this honor in the first place, the תורה is showing that it wouldn’t be appropriate to afford him that title.
Lastly but certainly not least, the כלי יקר writes that his name had only been added on to in order to protect him from the evil of the other מרגלים. However, once that whole generation had already died, it was “safe” again so to speak to call him by his original name.
All of these פשטים may be pointing to the idea that יהושע would not be able to rely anymore on the תפילה and the protection of his רבי. Now that יהושע was going to be leading the nation, he would have to take up the mantle of leadership on his own terms, and on his own merits, as הושע, his original essence.
This idea is very poignant for ראש השנה as well. During our תפילות, we are constantly bombarding ה' to remember the זכויות of others, (mostly the אבות.) In fact, a whole section of the מוסף on ראש השנה deals with the idea of begging ה' to remember our past זכויות. However, we are only asking for that in terms of the קהל. When יהושע was considered part of a קהל, he needed an extra leg to stand on, which משה רבינו provided for him with the addition to his name. Once that קהילה was gone, יהושע was reverted back to his old persona. So too, when we are davening for ourselves, we are being judged based on our own merits, as individual people. We must make sure that as we lead our own personal lives, we take up that mantle of leadership and show our own true essences with whatever merits we can in order to be judged favorably.
May we all be זוכה to a כתיבה וחתימה טובה and א גוט, געבענשט יאר, with ברכה, הצלחה, פרנסה, געזונט, מזל, נחת, שמחה, וכל משאלות לבנו יהיה לטובה.
Have a meaningful and wonderful יום טוב and שבת קודש! יהי רצון שה"שמים" יאזין אל דבורינו!
מרדכי שמחה טיפנברון
