Bar-Ilan University s1

Bar-Ilan University

Parashat Hukat 5772/June 30, 2012

Parashat Hashavua Study Center

Lectures on the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. A project of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies Center, and the Office of the Campus Rabbi. Published on the Internet under the sponsorship of Bar-Ilan University's International Center for Jewish Identity. Prepared for Internet Publication by the Computer Center Staff at Bar-Ilan University.

Michael Zvi Nehorai1

The Waters of Merivah—Testing a Leader

How did Moses and Aaron sin? The exegete Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno discusses this in his commentary on this week's reading (Num. 20:8)

Many views have been expressed about the sin committed at the waters of Merivah, with much uncertainty as to how Moses and Aaron sinned, it having been said of them: you did not trust Me, you broke faith with Me, and you disobeyed Me. If the intention of the Lord, blessed be He, had been that they only talk to the rock, then why take his rod, and if the sin was that Moses hit the rock without G-d having commanded him, wherein had Aaron sinned?

For the purpose of our discussion we present four different views. Maimonides asserts (The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics, Trans. Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Columbia University Press, 1912, p. 67):

…the sin of Moses lay in that he departed from the moral mean of patience to the extreme of wrath in so far as he exclaimed, "Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this G-d found fault with him that such a man as he should show

1 Prof. Nehorai is Professor emeritus of Philosophy at Hebrew University.

1 anger in the presence of the entire community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming. This was a profanation of G-d's name…

Nahmanides, by contrast (in his commentary on the Torah), vehemently rejects Maimonides' view and considers it "vanity of vanities" (how extreme!). He writes:

He was not punished for his wrath…nor does Scripture does tell us that he was angry…Moreover, how could the Lord not have been greatly angered by them when they said, "Why did you make us leave Egypt?"…What could have been a greater crime than this?

Rabbenu Hananel (cited by Nahmanides) identifies the sin with the proclamation, "Shall we get water for you out of this rock," which appears to attribute getting the water to the strength of Moses and Aaron.

The Netziv of Volozhin (in his commentary on the Torah) views the sin as Moses' and Aaron's failure to encourage the Israelite community to open their mouths in prayer.

As we said, the possibilities for identifying the sin appear to be endless, yet one more avenue can be pursued: namely, to seek an answer to the question: to what end was the story of the waters of Merivah included in the Torah? After all, as we have said, the sin we are investigating is obscure, and, as we know, only that prophecy which was needed for all time was written down.2 This being so, what is our generation to learn from this reading?

Immediately we note that Maimonides long ago posed a question along these lines with respect to Parashat Shemot, and there is no obvious reason why it cannot be raised also with respect to the Waters of Merivah. It is well known that Maimonides believed that in observing the commandments we should also try to comprehend their underlying reason. 3 Less well-known is his view that the same holds for the narrative material included in Scripture. Let us give a brief illustration. On the basis of the verse, "Yet I know that the king of Egypt will let you go only because of a greater might" (Ex. 3:19), Maimonides raised the question: the verse cited foretells that Pharaoh will not agree to let the people go; that being so, what was the purpose of Moses' mission? Maimonides' answer is:

To make known to all the inhabitants of the world that when the Holy One, blessed be He, withholds repentance from a sinner, he cannot repent, but he will die in the wickedness that he initially committed willfully.4

2 Megillah 14a.

3 Guide for the Perplexed 3.31.

4 Hilkhot Teshuvah 6.3.

2 In other words, the Torah's story about Moses' mission was not actually intended in order to bring about the release of the Israelites from Egypt, but to let the human race know that the word of the Lord stands forever. Also, a person (in this case, Pharaoh) cannot possibly act contrary to G-d's expectation; ultimately he must let the people go.5

Now let us turn to several of Maimonides' remarks that can provide direct or indirect answers regarding the didactic message of the story of the waters of Merivah: to what end was it written, and what can be learned from it for future generations? In order to answer this question we must first examine the story's components.

From the complaints that were voiced, we see that the national spirit was severely pessimistic. This is evidenced in the unbearably harsh insults hurled at Moses and Aaron, such as: you are only impersonating having been sent by the Lord, but actually you are incapable of providing for the needs of the people and bringing them to the Promised Land; you are treating the "Lord's people" disrespectfully, deceiving them and endangering their physical survival. In their fury, the complaining people expressed regret that they had not had the "good fortune" to die in the plague from the hand of G-d that had killed the scouts —"If only we had perished when our brothers perished at the instance of the Lord" (Num. 20:3).

The reader will doubtless recall that in the time of Korah and his following such complaints were widespread among the people. For example, Dathan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, claimed (Num. 16:13-14):

Is it not enough that you brought us from a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, that you would also lord it over us? Even if you had brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and given us possession of fields and vineyards, should you gouge out those men's eyes?

Nevertheless, one can discern a fundamental difference between the nature of Moses' response there and here. There it says, "Moses was much aggrieved" (Num. 16:15), meaning hostile, energetic wrath such as he showed when he broke the tablets. There he responded fiercely and furiously to defend the Lord's honor, his own honor, and his status, saying: "By this you shall know that it was the Lord who sent me to do all these things; that they are not of my own devising" (Num. 16:28).

5 Cf. Isaiah 40:8.

3 Such was not the case after 40 years of wandering, in the episode of the waters of Merivah, in which the people's assault on Moses had a paralyzing impact. Their complaints, it appears, left Moses and Aaron in a speechless state of shock, as evinced by the irrational actions and shortcomings that ensued:

1) Without any confrontation, Moses and Aaron fled6 to the Tent of Meeting—evidence of their despair and inability to continue functioning: "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" (Num. 20:6).

2) In the Tent of Meeting Moses and Aaron were commanded to do several things which, had they carried out their instructions to the letter, would have restored their position in the eyes of the congregation and would have removed from the Israelites any doubt about there being "the Lord present among us or not" (Ex. 17:7):

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" (Num. 20:8).

1) Moses was not commanded to use his rod, but only to take it with him, perhaps to emphasize the point that the Lord was capable of providing them water without it, as well.

2) They were commanded to assemble the community, i.e. the elders, the Sanhedrin (in parallel to the event described in Ex. 17:1), who by their very presence would have confirmed the validity of Moses' and Aaron's leadership.

3) They were also commanded to instruct an unseen rock to give forth its water before the eyes of the people.

What in actual fact did Moses and Aaron do?

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.

(Num. 20:10-11)

6 See Ibn Ezra's commentary, loc. cit.

4 The Torah attests that in fact the only instruction that Moses carried out was to take his rod, apparently in order to use it. He did not follow the rest of the instructions, intended to rehabilitate relations between the community and their spiritual leadership: they did not gather the congregation, as they had been commanded, rather the masses, possibly in order to taunt them—"Listen, you rebels"; they physically assembled the community before the rock and struck the rock itself, without speaking at all. Evidently Moses' and Aaron's failure to fulfill the Lord's command as given resulted in a failure to rehabilitate their own position as well as failure to enhance the people's level of metaphysical faith.

Now we return to what Maimonides has to say, clarifying what he believes we are to learn from this episode (Eight Chapters, Ch. 4):

Thou knowest, also, that G-d said to our teacher Moses, the master of former and later ages, "Because ye have not confided in me, to sanctify me" [Num. 20:12], "because ye rebelled against my order at the waters of Merivah" [Num. 20:24], "because ye did not sanctify me" [Deut. 32:51]. All this (G-d said) although the sin of Moses consisted merely in…the extreme of wrath in so far as he exclaimed, "Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this G-d found fault with him that such a man as he should show anger in the presence of the entire community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming. This was a profanation of G-d's name…

This is unequivocal proof of the truth of the verse, "For no man is so righteous upon earth that he should do always good, and never sin" (Eccles. 7:20). Even the man of whom it was said, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth" (Num. 12:3), and with whom G-d spoke "face to face" (Ex. 33:11), and who died by the kiss of death (Bava Batra 17a), and all sorts of other praises said of him in the Torah and the writings of Maimonides—even he could not rise completely above human weakness; even he was not immune to being seized by paralyzing anger, in the wake of which comes a loss of rational control.7

7 Note that in Hilkhot De`ot 2.3, Maimonides states: "The early Sages said: Anyone who becomes angry is like one who worships idols. They also said: Whenever one becomes angry, if he is a wise man, his wisdom leaves him; if he is a prophet, his prophecy leaves him. The life of the irate is not true life. Therefore, they have directed that one distance himself from anger and accustom himself

5 Translated by Rachel Rowen

not to feel any reaction, even to things which provoke anger. This is the good path." It follows from what he says here, and elsewhere, that anger disrupts clear-headed thought and that the angry person is then censured for his shortcomings and unwise behavior. Cf. Maimonides, Eight Chapters, 4; Saadia Gaon, Emunot ve-De`ot 5.2; and Sefer ha-Middot 7.1.