Thoughts on Chukkat: Moses and the Rock

The Torah portion of Chukkat contains several significant historical events, and one of the most perplexing is that of Moses striking the rock (Numbers 20:2-11). In a similar episode shortly after the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 17:1-7), the Israelites thirsted for water in the desert, and God commanded Moses to bring forth water by striking a rock in front of the elders of Israel. Now, in Chukkat, about 38 or 39 years later, again there is no water. But this time, God tells Moses to take up his staff and, together with Aaron, to assemble the people and bring forth water by speaking to a rock in front of the entire nation. Instead, Moses again strikes the rock, following which God declares that, in consequence of Moses and Aaron’s failure to consecrate God before the entire nation, neither of them will be allowed to enter the Promised Land (verses 12-14). Aaron dies soon after (verses 22-29), while Moses continues to lead his people until just before they enter the land of Israel.

The Torah makes it very clear that Moses and Aaron sinned, but what exactly was the nature of their sin? The Torah does not clarify this point. Was it that they didn’t speak to rock? (See Rashi and Yalkut Shimoni.) But an alternative interpretation of God’s command of vedibbartem el hasela could be that they should speak to the subject of the rock, i.e. address the people and tell them how they will extract water from the rock; and thus they did speak.

Perhaps, then, their sin was the act of striking the rock? But it was Moses and not Aaron who struck the rock, so why is Aaron also charged with a sin? (See Abravnel.) Moreover, if Moses was not supposed to strike the rock, then why did God tell him to take up his staff? What was he supposed to do with the staff? (See Nachmanides on Numbers 20:1.) And finally, specifically how did Moses and Aaron fail to sanctify God? They did, after all, perform a miracle. And if they did not perform the miracle in exactly the way they had been directed to do, why did God consider that to be such a grievous sin as to merit such harsh punishment?

Maimonides (Rambam), in chapter 4 of Shemona Perakim, explains that calling the people rebels and striking the rock were manifestations of anger. But it was only Moses who was angry; there is no indication that God was incensed against the people of Israel at that time, so Moses’s display of anger was inappropriate. The people would mistakenly interpret his anger to be an indication of that God was angry.

Nachmanides (Ramban), however, in addition to disputing the thesis that hitting the rock was a manifestation of anger, also objects that such an explanation could not apply to Aaron, since Nachmanides cites a verse to show that Aaron never got angry in his life. Furthermore, the Torah attributes the sin of Moses and Aaron to lack of faith (see verse 12) and not to anger. Nachmanides proposes that the most likely explanation of the sin is that of Rabbeinu Chananel, who said that Moses and Aaron’s sin consisted in not attributing the miracle to God but implying that it was they who produced the miracle through their own power, saying “From this rock shall we extract for you water?” (Numbers 20:10.)

Abravnel is not satisfied with any of the above explanations, and he offers yet another solution. According to Abravnel, the actions of Moses and Aaron in Chukkat were manifestations of something deeper: a flaw in their character as leaders. The flaw had also manifested itself previously. In the case of Aaron, it was in the episode of the Golden Calf, when the Torah tells us (in the portion of Ki Tissa) that Aaron gave in to the people’s demands and built an idol for them. In the case of Moses, it was in the episode of the spies (in the portion of Shelach) that Moses instructs the spies to explore the Promised Land and report whether it is a good land or a bad one, whether the inhabitants are strong or weak. Indeed, God had directed Moses to send spies, but He had not told Moses to give those instructions. Moses should have stated emphatically that this was the land that God had promised, and the sole mission of the spies was to gather strategic information to enable the leaders to formulate a battle plan. In Abravnel’s view, then, the episode of the rock was merely the inciting incident but not the sole explanation for the punishment of Moses and Aaron. In fact, because of the Golden Calf, Abravnel sees Aaron’s sin as the greater, and that is why Aaron did not even attempt to ask God to mitigate his punishment, whereas Moses did ask that for himself (Deuteronomy 3:23-25).

Another way to look at the episode is not to view God’s pronouncement as a punishment in the usual sense, although undoubtedly Moses considered it to be such. In the view of Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (also known as The Netziv, 1816-1893), the book of Numbers, and especially the sidra of Chukkat, is a tale of transition: the transition of the Israelites from slaves to free people, from a group of unruly tribes to a nation, from dependence – first on the Egyptians and then on God’s miraculous aid – to independence and self-determination. Moses, the great leader who brought his people out of slavery in Egypt and presided over the initial stages of the transformation, still regarded the people of Israel as he had when they first came out of Egypt – a difficult, stiff-necked people. And, as Rabbeinu Zadok of Lublin (1823-1900) points out, the striking of the rock is symbolic of that view. But the Israelites had changed. And yet, Moses still used the same approach and the same methods that he had used with the previous generation of his people. He, and presumably Aaron also, had failed to adapt to a new reality, and therefore new leadership was necessary.

More than three millennia have passed since the events described in the portion of Chukkat, and over the centuries commentators have advanced many different explanations of Moses and Aaron’s sin. Each explanation has a kernel of truth, but none seems completely adequate. And so, we continue to search the text of the Torah for clues. Indeed, perhaps that is the very purpose of not spelling out the sin of Moses and Aaron. God wants us to probe the characters of our greatest leaders and to identify their flaws. Even Moses, whose divine reach exceeded that of any other prophet of Israel (see Deuteronomy 34:10), nevertheless was only human, and we must never idolize him or make him superhuman in our eyes. It is the very vagueness of the Torah in identifying the sin of Moses in the portion of Chukkat that has spurred our exploration of his failure and has helped prevent us from attributing to him any measure of divinity.


© Copyright 2011 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on Shelach: The Narrative Thread

The link that connects the Torah portion of Shelach to its Haftarah appears to be the act of sending spies. At the beginning of Shelach, Moses sends spies into the land of Canaan; and similarly, in the Haftarah, Joshua sends spies to the Canaanite city of Jericho. But the linkage between the portion of Shelach and its Haftarah goes deeper than the act of sending spies. Two other matters bind the sidra to its Haftarah: the importance of faith, and the significance of a colored thread.

In the Torah story, the spies stray from the divine path. They relinquish their faith in God’s guidance and protection, and when faced with the apparent Canaanite might, they are beguiled by the vision of their eyes and succumb to the dictates of their heart. They report to Moses that it would be impossible for the Israelites to conquer the Promised Land. Shortly after, God tells Moses to instruct the people of Israel to place threads (tzitzit) on the fringes of their garments, including one blue thread to remind them of heaven, so that they will not go astray by following the dictates of their hearts and their eyes, thereby “prostituting” themselves (as the Torah puts it – see Numbers 15:39) through their trust in false beliefs.

In contrast to the lack of faith that the spies in the portion of Shelach display, Joshua’s spies enter Jericho and encounter a woman named Rahab, a prostitute who wants to change her life. She has heard of the miracles that God performed for Israel. She knows in her heart that God will enable the Israelites to conquer Jericho, and indeed all of Canaan; and she wants to join the nation of Israel. She hides Joshua’s spies and helps them escape, lowering them from her window by a crimson cord. In return for her help, she asks that she and her family be spared. The spies tell her to leave the crimson cord hanging from her window, so that the soldiers will know which house to spare. In the ensuing battle, Joshua’s army conquers Jericho. Rahab and her family are spared, and Rahab joins the nation of Israel.

The Haftarah, then, in many ways is the antithesis of the sidra. Whereas in the Torah portion, the spies abandon their trust in God’s power and guardianship over Israel, thus figuratively “prostituting” themselves, in the Haftarah an actual prostitute rejects her former life and places her trust in God and in the oath of Joshua’s spies that the Israelite army will spare her and her family. In the Torah, God commands the Israelites to wear a blue thread on the fringes of their garments to remind them of heaven and figuratively to bind them to their faith in God, lest they be led astray by the dictates of their hearts and their eyes. It is a token of trust between man and God. In the Haftarah a colored rope marks Rahab’s house for the Israelite soldiers, but it is also a mark of Rahab’s faith in the honor of men and their commitment to their word. As the blue thread of the tzitzit is a token of man’s faith in God, Rahab’s crimson cord is a token of trust between man and man.


© Copyright 2011 by Ben Roshgolin. All rights reserved.


References:

For the supernal associations of the blue thread in the tzitzit, see Chullin 89a (top), Menachot 43b (bottom), and Zohar II:139a (top).