Chukat 5784

By Marlene BenSimon Lerner

Perrashat Hukat marks a transition, a transition from the wilderness to the Promised Land. Some 38 years have elapsed since the exit from Egypt, of which the Torah only relates the first year of the exodus and then the last year in Kadesh, in the desert of Tsin. This Perrasha contains a cryptic account in Chap 20 of the transgression of Moshe & Aharon for which both of them are denied entry into the Promised Land.

So, what happens in Chap 20?

The people of Israel had arrived in Kadesh in the desert of Tsin where Miriam dies. The plain account of her death is followed by the people’s complaint: They are in the desert, there is no water and they are thirsty.

Moshe then has a conversation with G, G-d orders Moshe to take his rod, and to speak to the rock for water to gush out for the people and the cattle. But Moshe loses patience with the people, he loses control of himself and before acting on the rock, addresses the people angrily and says:

“Listen to me you rebels. Shall we bring forth water for you from this rock?”

Moshe then strikes the rock instead of speaking to it as G had commanded him.

G-d rebukes Moshe very harshly: “You did not have enough faith in me to sanctify me in the presence of the Israelites! Therefore, you shall not bring this assembly to the land that I have given you”

This episode is reminiscent of an earlier episode which happened in Shemot, chapter 17 in Perrashat Beshallach: soon after the exit from Egypt, a similar situation occurred: the people complained because the lack of water; G-d then asked Moshe to hit the rock with his staff.

The second episode which happens some 40 years later bears dramatic consequences for Moshe.

The commentators have been exercised by the harshness of the punishment:

• For Rashi, Moshe was punished because he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Had he spoken to the Rock, G would have been sanctified because if a rock which is inanimate and lifeless, obeys G’s command, all the more so, would people have followed G’s commands.
• For Rambam (Maimonides) [12^thC], Moshe’s sin lay with his anger towards the people. According to Rambam, at the time of the incident, G was not angry with the people complaining. However, by being angry, Moshe was misrepresenting G. He failed to convince the people of G’s love for them. For Rambam, such unjustified anger constitutes “Hillul Hashem” i.e desecration of the name of G.
• For Ramban (Nachmanides)[13^thC]: Moshe sinned through his omnipotence. He used words like “Shall WE bring forth water”, referring to himself rather than G-d.
• I found Abarbanel [15^thC] commentary interesting as he has shied away from finding Moshe and Aharon guilty. For him, Moshe’s and Aharon’s punishment was on account of previous transgressions which were inadvertent:
• Aharon was punished for his participation in the Golden Calf. Just as those who transgressed in this incident were punished by death for idol worship so too Aaron, as their leader, was punished by being prevented from entering the Promised Land. He was punished according to the principle of “measure for measure”;
• Moshe was punished for the sin of the spies: If you remember, Moshe asked detailed questions about the Land; yet, G-d had asked a simple question: “Send men for yourself, to explore the land of Canaan that I am about to give to the Israelites.” The Israelites were punished for doubting G-d’s ability to deliver the land to them. Moshe, as their leader, was punished under the same principle of Measure for Measure: The nation no longer merited the Land of Israel so too M was denied entry;

Abarbanel seems to dampen down the notion of guilt and argues that both Moshe & Aharon had good intentions:

• A’s participation in the Golden Calf was a delaying tactic. He had not anticipated that the people would worship the calf;
• M’s intention, by asking detailed questions was to impress upon the people G-d’s ability to overcome any adversary.

I am now going to skip some 5 centuries and get to Rabbi Sacks commentary on Chapter 20 of bemidbar. His commentary is compelling:

• Rabbi Sacks based his commentary on a tractate from the Talmud:

“This is the book of the generation of Adam” Sages wondered about this assertion and commented that

In essence G-d showed Adam in advance “Each generation and its interpreters, each generation and its sages, each generation and its leaders”

This suggests that each age has produced its own leaders: Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Judges, Kings, Prophets and Priests and each with their own generation.

It follows that each leader is a function of his/her generation. Rabbi Sacks, thinking of Moshe compares the 2 episodes at the rock:

When the people came out of Egypt, Moshe hit the rock to get water:   He was then confronting a people who had just come out of Egypt: All they had known was servitude for generations. They had a one-dimensional existence, unable to process and express their reality. Their experience was being hit and struck in order to force their obedience. They needed visual affirmation of G, hence the need for the miracles which Moshe produced with the help of his rod.

40 years later, Moshe hit the rock again, instead of speaking to it. But argues R Sacks, he was faced with a different generation: This was a generation born free in the desert, which evolved from survival to meaning. The rod which was used for the first generation to perform miracles, needed to retrieve its place, that is to say a mere shepherd’s rod, the one that Moshe had in his early days as a shepherd. Which is why G asked him to speak. Perhaps Moshe had not understood that we moved from a generation which needed visual affirmation to a generation intent on hearing. Their needs and aspirations were different from the previous generation. The power must be seen to emanate from words rather than through an external miraculous object.

While it was necessary to display power to impose obedience to the slave generation, the new generation needed the power of words. Rabbi Sachs therefore underscored the difference in the generations between the 2 episodes:

“The symbolism in each case was calibrated to the mentalities of 2 different generations. You strike a slave but you speak to a free person”

So, For Rabbi Sacks, Moshe did not fail nor did he sin. He led the first generation through the desert, but the skill to lead a new nomadic generation, born free, to the conquest of the land, required different capacities. In other words, the leadership relevant to one generation became obsolete for the next. This is, says Rabbi Sacks an inescapable consequence of being mortal. And perhaps Moshe understood this when he had the perspicacity and the humility to ask G to name a successor.

To sum up Rabbi Sacks argument, the fact that M did not lead the people to the promised land was not a punishment but an inevitability, a condition of his and our mortality. The leadership must be of its time, the leadership is a function of time.

As a conclusion, I would like to quote a poignant passage from Rabbi Sacks which is a foresight of his own condition: “For each of us, there is a Jordan we will not cross, however long we live, however far we travel. But this is not inherently tragic. What we begin, others complete—if we have taught them how”

Rabbi Sacks has not crossed the Jordan either. He has left us but has also bequeathed us an invaluable and scintillating legacy through his writings and his teachings, which are spread and taught today throughout the world by an impressive cohort of thinkers.