Speech Like Water: Holiness and Teshuvah Parshat Haazinu Shabbat Shuvah October 5th, 2024/ 3 Tishrei 5785

Evolution of the People

Sefer Ha-Ikkarim Chapter 4 (22:12)

Moses and Aaron thought that as in Horeb where the waters came out by striking [Exodus 17:6 above], here too they would come out only by striking. [But the two scenarios are not comparative.] On the first occasion the Torah had not yet been given and nature was not yet subject to the Israelites to such an extent. But at the waters of Meribah the Israelites were in the fortieth year in the wilderness making them worthy of having miracles done for them and of having nature submit to them by the mere word of Moses.

Joseph Albo (1380–1444) was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived in Spain during the fifteenth century, known chiefly as the author of Sefer ha-Ikkarim ("Book of Principles"), the classic work on the fundamentals of Judaism.

Compelling Obedience

The remarkable fact about Moses and the rock is the way he observes precedent. Almost forty years earlier, in similar circumstances, God had told him to take his staff and strike the rock. Now too, God told him to take his staff. Evidently Moses inferred that he was being told to act this time as he had before, which is what he does. He strikes the rock. What he failed to understand was that time had changed in one essential detail. He was facing a new generation. The people he confronted the first time were those who had spent much of their lives as slaves in Egypt. Those he now faced were born in freedom in the wilderness.

There is one critical difference between slaves and free human beings. Slaves respond to orders. Free people do not. They must be educated, informed, instructed, taught – for if not, they will not learn to take responsibility. Slaves understand that a stick is used for striking. That is how slave-masters compel obedience. Indeed that was Moses’ first encounter with his people, when he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite. But free human beings must not be struck. They respond, not to power but persuasion. They need to be spoken to. What Moses failed to hear – indeed to understand – was that the difference between God’s command then and now (“strike the rock” and “speak to the rock”) was of the essence. The symbolism in each case was precisely calibrated to the mentalities of two different generations. You strike a slave, but speak to a free person.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/chukat/why-was-moses-not-destined-to-enter-the-land/

“At God’s command, Moses took the staff again in his hand out of the Sanctuary where it had reposed for nearly forty years, and with this badge of his mission coming from God, he assembled the nation. But when, after nearly forty years, he saw himself directed to the people with the staff of God again in his hand, the staff which nearly forty years ago he had required for the people as testimony and credential of his mission (see Exodus 4:1–15), it hurt him grievously to think that in all these forty years, and with all that he had done in those forty years, he had still not won the confidence and trust of his people, and in the bitterness of these feelings he forgot his orders, and spoke, instead of quietly addressing the rock, words of deep reproach to the people (calling them ha-morim, “rebels”), and in passionate agitation struck the rock — whereupon water in abundance gushed forth and satisfied the thirst of the people and their animals.” Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary on Numbers, 368–9

When it comes to considering who should lead the people into the next crucial phase of their journey, God decides that it can no longer be Moses and Aaron. When they failed to remind the people, or worse, themselves, that their power comes from something greater than themselves, they were acting more like pharaohs than God’s prophets. This fascinating telling and retelling of the rock episode can teach us to be wary of even beloved leaders who— intentionally or not—take credit for everything they accomplish while failing to acknowledge the seemingly invisible sources of support to achieve their goals. Every great leader requires guidance, inspiration, and helping hands. In a world where it is acceptable, even highly regarded, to appear to act totally independently, we do a disservice to ourselves and our communities when we fail to trust, uplift, and sanctify the human and Divine sources behind our work. If this were true for great leaders like Moses and Aaron, how much more so should it be for us.

Rabbi Ilana Zeitman

https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/5782-Hukkat-PDF.pdf

God instructed Moshe to speak to the rock and it would bring forth water for the people. Instead, he hit the rock twice.

Maybe he did try speaking, but the speaking didn’t work. The Torah tells us that he gathered the people and, before hitting the rock, he spoke these words: Shimu na Hamorim, “Listen up, you rebels, are we going to get water from this rock?” This is speech. Perhaps this was the speech that Moshe thought would elicit water from the rock.

But it didn’t. It didn’t because only gentle loving speech brings forth water. Moshe’s speech is angry and dripping with sarcasm. He attacks the people at their very essence. He doesn’t just say, “You acted badly and rebelliously,” but you are rebels. These are words of despair and faithlessness in the possibility of change. They do not inspire, but degrade. They make the people feel badly about themselves. We will never be any good. We are, of our very essence, bad people.

Such words cannot bring forth water; they block it from flowing. There is water of life and creativity and spirit in every thing and every person in this world. God created them all through speech and speech is capable of bringing out their essence, their beauty, their power. But not such speech, not angry, hopeless speech.

What it takes is the speech of brachah, blessing. After God created the world with speech, He gave over the power of speech to humans, the power to praise God and recognize the beauty of His world through speech and the power to bless other human beings. This is the speech of song and the speech of love. It is the speech of Yaakov on his death bed who says, “May the angel who rescued me bless these children” and it is the speech song of the people of Israel at the Sea: “Who is like You, O Lord?”

Such speech does have the power to bring forth water. (Indeed, see a bit later in the parsha, where the people sing another water song, connected to a new water well they have dug – 21:17). In its joy and its love, such speech brings forth the hidden well-springs of water in each of us. Angry speech like Moshe’s does not accomplish its purpose and so necessarily leads to blows. The rock – and the people – will not bring forth water that way except by force. With a gentle loving speech that inspires, who knows what kind of water can come forth?

Dr. Rachel Anisfeld, Speech That Draws Water

https://parshathoughtsmore.blogspot.com/2013/06/parashat-hukat-speech-that-draws-water.html