I heard this tremendous vort from Rabbi Tugenthaft. The Torah says that the mountain that Aharaon dies upon was called ‘hor hahar,’ which Chazal tell us means that there was one mountain on top of another mountain. What is the significance of this?
Chazal tell us that HaShem flattened all the mountains in the dessert as Bnei Yisrael passed so we would have an easy walk. There are 3 mountains that were left alone though; har sinai, hor hahar, and har nevo (where moshe dies). The idea is that these correspond to 3 crowns. The mishnah in Avos 4;17 cites that R Shimon says that there are 3 crowns – the crown of torah, the crown of kehunah, and the crown of malchus (kingship), and the crown of a good name rests upon all of them (‘olah al kabeihen’).
Har Sinai matches the crown of torah for obvious reasons, Har nevo is the crown of malchus – for this is where Moshe dies – and he had the halachic status of a melech (Rambam beis habechira 6;11). Now ‘hor hahar’ corresponds to the crown of kehunah (aharon was kohen gadol), and has a double-mountain, for Aharon also had the ‘shem tov’ which rises above all the other crowns, for he went out of his way to make peace between members of Bnei Yisrael.
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