Parashat Chukat

Parashat Chukat
Sivan 30, 5771 ~ July 2, 2011
by Barry Waldman

"RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT!"

(Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)

Upon the death of Miriam, the water that flowed in her merit throughout the duration of the desert wanderings ceased. The people quarreled with Moses and Aaron, who fell on their faces. Hashem instructs Moses to speak to the rock, which would then give forth its water. Instead,

Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation in front of the rock, and he said to them, "Now listen, you rebels, are we to draw water for you from this rock?" Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, when an abundance of water gushed forth, and the congregation and their livestock drank.

For this, Moses is prevented from entering the Land of Israel. But the precise nature of his sin is unclear. According to Rashi, it is the simple fact that he disobeyed G-d's command to speak to the rock, and struck it instead. Per Ramban, it was for implying that he and Aaron had the power to bring forth water from the rock ("are we to draw for you water from this rock?") instead of attributing the miracle to G-d. However, it is Maimonides' explanation that I would like to explore in greater depth.

Rambam contends that Moshe sinned by becoming angry. This was compounded by the fact that the people would assume Moshe's emotions reflected those of Hashem's - and there is nothing to indicate that Hashem, Himself, was angry. Now, from the sketchy reading of the text, it appears as if Moshe's wrath was a reaction to the people's quarrel over the water situation. However, the midrash suggests just the opposite - Moshe was the instigator:

Miriam died, and the well was taken away so that Israel would recognize that it was through her merit that they had had the well. Moses and Aaron were weeping inside, and (the Children of) Israel were weeping outside, and for six hours Moses did not know (that the well was gone), until (the Children of) Israel entered and said to him: For how long will you sit and cry? He said to them: Should I not cry for my sister who has died? They said to him: While you are crying for one person, cry for all of us! He said to them: Why? They said to him: We have no water to drink. He got up from the ground and went out and saw the well without a drop of water (in it). He began to argue with them... (Otzar Midrashim)

Moreover, not only was Hashem not angry with the people over their fear of thirst, He rebuked Moshe for failing to properly address it!

And when the well was taken away, they began to gather against Moses and against Aaron, as it is written... Moses and Aaron were sitting and mourning for Miriam. God said to them: Because you are mourners, they should die of thirst? Get up and take your staff and give the community and their cattle something to drink... The Holy One, Blessed Be, said to (Aaron and Moshe)...: Leave here, quickly! My children are dying of thirst, and you are sitting and mourning this old woman? (Yalkut Shimoni)

Here, then, is the question: If Moshe's anger was not prompted by the people's quarrelling, what precipitated it?

Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book "On Death and Dying," proposed five stages of grieving, one of which is anger. Feeling abandoned by the loss of a loved one, this anger is often directed at the person who has died. Indeed, our parsha bears this out through the nuances of Lashon HaKodesh (the Holy Language). Moshe exclaims to the people: "Now listen, you rebels (morim), are we to draw water for you from this rock?" Fascinatingly, as R. David Fohrman observes, the spelling of "morim" - mem, resh, yud, mem - is identical to the spelling of Miriam. Thus, the verse can also be read, "Now listen, Miriam, are we to draw water for you from this rock?" That is, "Miriam - it is you who have provided the people with water these past 40 years as a result of your merit. How could you leave us?! Now it is us - on top of all our other burdens - who have to supply these people with water?!"

But perhaps there is an even deeper source of Moshe's anger. Chazal have explained the difference between two categories of statutes, mishpatim and chukim. Mishpatim are rational laws that make sense to us, ones that humans would likely have instituted even if they had not been ordained by the Torah.

Chukim, on the other hand, are laws beyond the limits of human understanding, but which we nonetheless follow because they have been decreed by Hashem. The parsha is titled, "Chukat," and begins with the bewildering laws of the Red Heifer, whose ashes are used to purify one who has come in contact with the dead. "Zot chukat hatorah" - "this is the chok of the Torah" - i.e. this is the quintessential chok, the chok that symbolizes the incomprehensibility of all chukim. Not even Moshe - the greatest of prophets, the most trusted servant, the only one able to speak with Hashem directly - was able to penetrate the deeper mysteries of what lay beyond the grave.

Thus, perhaps an element of Moshe's anger was directed at the finality and unfathomability of death itself.

The 11th century commentator, Rashi, explains as follows: 'If you (Moses) had spoken to the rock and it had brought forth (water), I would have been sanctified in the eyes of the congregation, and they would have said "If this rock, which does not speak and does not hear, and does not require sustenance, fulfills the word of God, then certainly we should as well." Remembering that over the past several parshiot we have read of the people's complaining and of their questioning of God's plan, Rashi understands the punishment to result from Moses' failure to speak to the rock which would have convinced the people to follow God.

Maimonides, on the other hand, contends that Moses sinned in becoming angry as he admonished the complaining people. The sin of his anger was compounded because the people assumed that whatever Moses said was a reflection of God's will, and if Moses was angry with them, God, too, must be angry with them. Yet, there is no such evidence of God's anger. Therefore, implies Rambam, Moses is culpable for the outcry that would follow.

Nachmanides, known as Ramban whose work was done in the 13th century, understands Moses rhetorical question "shall we get water for you..." to imply that he (Moses) and Aaron had the power to bring forth the water. Moses should have said "Shall God bring forth water..." For him, this explains why God said that Aaron and Moses had not sanctified his name.

So many and so diverse are the attempts at explanation that some have even given up trying to understand. On of the later commentators, Shmuel David Luzato of the 19th century offered: 'Moses sinned one sin, and the commentators loaded thirteen sins and more, for each of them invented a new sin... Therefore, all my days I refrained from deep investigation of this matter, out of fear that I might come up with a new explanation, and I too would find myself adding a new sin to Moses our teacher!' So, rather than assign the wrong understanding to God's decree about Moses and/or to add to the long list of Moses' wrongdoings, Luzzatto stops asking the questions.

from Yalkut Shimoni:

A little further on, the passage suggests slightly different, harsher, words from God:

"The Glory of YHWH was seen by them" -