Dear Friends:
This week's D'var Torah is presented by our congregant Elaine Rosenstein. All of us are grateful for her insights!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jonathan Blake
This week’s Torah portion is Chukkat, which is a multifaceted and complicated amalgamation of a few story lines and descriptions of rituals. In this portion, we learn of the ritual of purification via the ashes of a red heifer, healing of snake bites by looking at a copper serpent idol, the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, a battle between the Israelites and the Amorites, and the famous story of Moses angrily striking a rock to produce water for the people and getting punished by God for his actions. That’s a lot of stuff going on about a lot of difficult subjects! Needless to say, I had to think long and hard about the lessons this portion gives.
Many laws, rituals and stories in the Torah just don’t easily resonate with us, especially at WRT, in this day and age. I decided to take a pass on the red heifer ashes and the copper serpent and focus on a more contemporary element of Chukkat - the story of Moses’s striking a rock to get water and reaping a pretty tough punishment for the act. As the narrative goes, Miriam dies, there is no water to be found, and the Israelites begin to complain to Moses and Aaron that they and their animals are thirsty and hungry. They wonder aloud why they left Egypt when now, their basic needs cannot even be met. God tells Moses and Aaron to gather the people near a rock and order the rock to produce water for the complaining people. But instead of calmly speaking to the rock, as directed, Moses angrily says, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” He then strikes the rock two times with his rod, and the rock produces enough water for the people and animals to drink. God is unhappy with how Moses has used the miracle God provided. He says to Aaron and Moses, “Because you did not trust Me enough to show My holiness to the Israelites, therefore you shall not lead this community into the land that I have given them.” Moses will never see the Land of Israel and the privilege of leading his people to Israel is taken away from him.
God’s decree that Moses be punished for his momentary, angry outburst seems disproportionately unjust. The punishment does not seem, at first glance, to fit the offense. After faithfully following all of God’s directives and leading the Israelites out of bondage, out of Egypt, wandering with his community for 40 years in the desert, it seems a pretty steep price to pay to not be able to accompany the group to the final destination and well-deserved fruits of his effort, all because he lost his temper in a moment of frustration. We can all relate to Moses’s lapse in judgement. Haven’t we all been driven to the point of insanity by our children, our employers or employees, other humans? Don’t we all know how hard it is to control our anger in the face of extreme frustration or disappointment? Yes, we all do, so why is God so harsh with Moses here?
After all, the Torah tells of quite a few instances of Moses’s acting in anger. He killed an Egyptian soldier out of anger when he saw the soldier beating a Hebrew slave. He smashed the tablets of the Ten Commandments when the Israelites doubted God. What was the difference this time? When is aggression acceptable or even appropriate and when is it destructive? When Moses showed anger because of injustice or lack of faith on the part of his people, his actions, even though rash, served a purpose, to exact just revenge or to make a strong point to his wayward people. The Torah isn’t suggesting that we all be passive or unemotional. Sometimes anger is necessary, but by striking the rock in anger, Moses violated at least two ideals.
First, he failed to recognize the situation he was in and acted out of frustration, not righteous indignation or anger for a purpose. A sensitive leader must be able to differentiate between situations and know when compassion and patience are the better course. By losing his sensitivity and acting with rash anger, Moses was showing that he might not have the right emotional mindset to be the best leader for the Israelites going forward.
I’ll try to put it in a modern context. A few weeks ago, I was proceeding through the Five Corners, and I hesitated because I couldn’t remember, for a split second, if I was turning left or right. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the woman in the car behind me furiously gesturing and screaming at me as though I had committed the greatest offense on earth. I was shaken by her extreme behavior. Was her angry outburst meant to cause me shame or fear? Did it help her get where she was going any faster? Did it really make her feel better? Probably not, nor was the behavior productive, rational or understanding in a humanly, neighborly way. My mistake did not deserve such a reaction, much the same as the Israelite’s doubts about their water supply did not deserve such an angry rebuke from Moses. It is always better to take a breath, analyze the facts, and respond in a calm fashion, whether in dealing with whining kids, confused drivers or any other anger-producing situation. And it is ever more necessary that a leader exemplify those values of patience and control.
The second ideal Moses violates is humility. By hitting the rock, Moses was making God’s miracle into his own feat of prowess. Rather than say, “Look what God produces,” he angrily says, ”Look what WE will do for you.” Although the result is the same - water is provided - the message is entirely wrong. Rather than show compassion to his frustrated people, Moses vents his anger to highlight his own power. You could say the message God intended when he spoke to Moses was for the Israelites to have faith in the principles of Judaism or the Ten Commandments, and that the false message Moses conveyed by lashing out in anger was for the Israelites to have faith in him. It’s a big difference.
So is Moses’s punishment of not being able to lead his people into Israel harsh? It is. But the lesson is still a good one. We learn, through this story, that poor choices in behavior can result in harsh consequences. We often act aggressively or hastily when we should be kind, gentle, understanding or at the very least, rational. Anger, and even violence is all right where it is righteous and purposeful. There’s lots of violence in the Torah that God condones and even approves of. But acting out of anger because of meanness, self-centeredness or even frustration has consequences, and sometimes those consequences may be disproportionate or very severe. It is best to avoid violent or angry confrontation unless absolutely necessary. Those behaviors are almost always regrettable or unproductive.
I hope that these thoughts will help you to have a calm, stressless and anger-free summer, or at least Shabbat.
To compare Moses's "anger" to losing one's temper under frustration, as we common folk are apt to do, is much like getting answers for Torah questions by searching the New York Times for answers. Invoking reasons from our day-to-day lives does Torah a severe injustice. We have our sages and oral Torah, and other Torah commentaries, to rely on. The difference between the latter and our own imaginative minds is as great a difference as between infinity and one.
ReplyDeleteA more compelling reason Moses struck the rock, rather than speak to it, and one that makes sense according to Judaic creed, is - because Moses was a faithful sheperd of his flock. Most of his flock had expired during the 40 years in the desert, following the sin of the spies. He knew, were he to enter the Holy Land, he would become Moshiach, thereby actualizing the Messianic era, and bringing utopia to the world and Jewish people that existed then. But he could not do this because he will have then abandoned those souls who lost their lives during their desert sojourn. He preferred to sacrifice his life for now, and later, when the Messianic era actually takes place, and all Jews will be reincarnated, he will return to the Land of Israel together with his flock.
We, today, every Jew of this generation, constitutes that generation back then, the way I understand the sages and the many recent Torah scholars. And, when very soon, we enter the Era of Redemption, all Jews shall have Moses back again to sheperd us in this new utopia. I understand Moshiach is not a concept bandied about in Reform circles, as would, in contradistinction, homosexual rights and abortion, but such in the nature of our heritage and religion. For those who may be surprised by this, simply look up the 13 principles that a Jew beilieves in, by Maimonides.
As for comments such as "Moses violates his humility" - well that is in direct contradiction to what the Torah tells us - that he was, literally, the most humble human on earth. Only those who doubt the veracity of Torah in ALL its aspects, would or could say Moses violated his humility. But then, if some aspect of Torah, can be beheld as incorret, then, whatever conclusion one draws from Torah is simply an arbitrary one, based one one's own system of picking and choosing convenient truths - but not Torah's. (It's also akin to picking a couple of Maimonidic principles to believe in, and trashing the rest.)
When assessing the "sins" of our great leaders of the past, those mentioned in Tanach, we ought to take heed because these people were much higher than we can today even imagine. Take the story of Tzelafchad. The one (the only one) ever to be stoned for violating the Sabbath in the desert. The rabbis, explain that his violation came - not because he just "felt like" violating it (besides, no one under Jewish law can be killed for a violation unless he was clearly warned of the consequences), but because he wanted Jews to visualize the truth of Torah in practice. The penalty for violation of the Sabbath had been for these Jews a theoretical concept. Tzelafchad wanted to inject in them a true fear for Torah, beyond a conceptual fear. To this extent, that of self-sacrifice, he LOVED Torah.
The same can be said of the "sins" of King David, Korach, the spies and that of Zimri, the head of the tribe of Shimon.
But armchair reckoning, without referenced Torah commentaries, will never approach the real underlying reasons. They may make for good speeches and lessons to teach, but Torah has much more to offer.
Wishing you all a most joyous 3 weeks (leading up to the 9th of Av).