Hukkat 5772

Rabbi Joshua Kullock 

Comunidad Hebrea de Guadalajara.

We all know that the Torah ends with Moses’ death and with the description of the most scandalous failure of the entire biblical text:  the ancient leader, who led the people for forty years, will die without reaching the promised land.  After devoting his life to the redemption and consolidation of the people of Israel, Moses will stay on the other side of the Jordan, with no trace of his final resting place.

We still have months to go before we read the last parashah of the Torah.  Nevertheless, what happened to Moses at the river bed started to brew in this week’s portion.  The painful decree that sealed the fate of Amram’s son appears in Parashat Hukkat and revolves around a stone.  Moses’ desire to enter Israel was cut short for his inability to grapple with a pebble.

It is written in the Torah:

The people quarreled with Moses, saying, "If only we had perished when our brothers perished at the instance of the Lord!  Why have you brought the Lord's congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there?  Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!"  Moses and Aaron came away from the congregation to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. The Presence of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "You and your brother Aaron take the rod and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water.  Thus you shall produce water for them from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their beasts."

Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as He had commanded him.  Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation in front of the rock; and he said to them, "Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?"  And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod.  Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them."  (Num. 20:3-12)

In the end, Moses’ (and Aaron’s) punishment would seem to have been pretty excessive, given their reasons.  However, the story as a whole can offer us some clues that could help us reflect on the reasons for such a decree.

One of the interpretations concerning this event relates to Moses’ inability to obey the divine suggestion.  Whereas God asked him to speak to the rock, Moses chose to strike it, and not just once but twice.  And even though our leader could argue that the result was the same, and that water flowed in abundance, to God the method used by Moses was vain.  Not because he ignored the divine order, but because he exercised the paradigm of his childhood, the model proposed by the Egyptian Pharaoh.  From this perspective, Moses is punished because, instead of speaking with the rock he decided to hit it; instead of suggesting, he decided to force.  In the use of force as a method to achieve a purpose, Moses returned to his childhood, when in the king’s household it was not necessary to have good manners to ask for something, but the leader’s orders had to be obeyed immediately and to the letter.  And thus, when God realized that Moses could not relinquish the master and slave paradigm, He decided to deny his entering into the promised land, which had to be grounded on a radically different model.

Other scholars turn to intertextuality to explain Moses’ error.  Because in truth, Moses was already experienced regarding rocks and pebbles.  Almost forty years before, when the people had just left Egypt, there had been a thirst crisis as well, and it was also necessary to make water flow from stones.  Thus it is written in that context:  “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pass before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take along the rod with which you struck the Nile, and set out.  I will be standing there before you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.” (Ex. 17:5-6).

So, Moses already knew that by hitting the stone, water would flow.  That is why, in our parashah’s story, the leader decided to try the recipe he knew, choosing to ignore the new formula proposed by God.  In conclusion, and under this perspective, Moses was punished for choosing not to innovate, keeping himself trapped within solutions from the past.  His inability to adapt to new contexts or his failure to try out new forms to face the challenges, accounted for the difficulties that would have emerged if the people had entered the promised land under the leadership of someone who found it hard to change the manner in which they had always lived.

Finally, a third group of scholars have proposed that the divine decree was a direct consequence of Moses’ anger.  When the elderly leader confronted the people – even knowing what he had to do and knowing that the water would flow – he spoke to them with much anger, calling them rebels and expressing his frustration over the event.  In his inability to contain his anger, Moses served as witness to prove that a cycle had to come to an end.  Even if it was just a moment of weakness, it was unwise for him to lead the people into the land of Israel, due to the accumulated exhaustion, disputes and rancor.

In short: his unwillingness to dialogue, his inability to innovate, and his uncontained wrath were some of the reasons given by our scholars for Moses’ punishment.  Nevertheless, the multiplicity of interpretations clearly shows that our sages did not feel comfortable with the tragic ending of the story.  It is unlikely that we will ever know the true reasons that led God to decree such a strong penalty.  But what we can do, and should do, is to rescue the ideas of the scholars concerning the reflection upon ourselves, acknowledging that dialogue, innovation and a good nature are features worth cultivating, so that we may live our lives with joy, meaning and transcendence.

Shabbat Shalom u’Meborah!