The command was not to speak to the rock, but rather to speak to the people alongside the rock. This was intended to prepare them for the public gatherings that would be required in situations of drought and other crises once the people cross into Eretz Yisrael.
We read in Parashat Chukat of the perplexing incident of Mei Meriva, where God instructed Moshe and Aharon to produce water from a rock in the wilderness in response to the people’s complaints about the lack of water. Moshe indeed hits the rock with his staff and produces water, but God responds angrily, announcing that Moshe and Aharon would die in the wilderness and not cross the Jordan River into Eretz Yisrael, because they disobeyed His command. Numerous attempts have been made to identify where precisely Moshe and Aharon erred in this incident, to find the distinction between what they were supposed to do and what they did.
The Netziv, in his Ha’amek Davar (20:8), famously explains that God had instructed Moshe to prepare Benei Yisrael for their transition to “natural life” across the river. Throughout the forty years of travel in the wilderness, God sustained the people through supernatural means, whereas after the nation’s entry into Eretz Yisrael, their existence would follow the familiar laws of nature. The drying of the miraculous well in the wilderness provided the opportunity for Moshe to demonstrate the proper procedure to be followed in situations of drought in Eretz Yisrael. God wanted Moshe to assemble the people and speak to them, to conduct a special session of learning and prayer to become deserving of water. The command was not to speak to the rock, but rather to speak to the people alongside the rock. This was intended to prepare them for the public gatherings that would be required in situations of drought and other crises once the people cross into Eretz Yisrael. God would then respond to the nation’s prayer and efforts to repent by providing them with water. Moshe, however, assembled the people and hit the rock, just as he had done many years earlier, shortly after the Exodus (Shemot 17:6). He failed to prepare the people for their transition to a “normal” existence, and instead continued the miraculous existence that the nation had lived for the last forty years.
One of the great challenges of leadership is overseeing change and transition. Tradition requires consistency, doing the same thing regardless of changing circumstances, and leaders thus bear the responsibility of demonstrating the eternal relevance and application of our Torah tradition in an ever-changing world. At the same time, the precise manner of application of the Torah’s laws and values often depends upon circumstances. In Moshe’s case, the belief that God provides our material needs is eternal and unchanging, but the manifestation of this provision underwent a drastic change once Benei Yisrael crossed the Jordan River. Moshe was to prepare the people for this change by showing them how to ask for rain in Eretz Yisrael. If the people were not taught this lesson, they ran the risk of believing in God’s control over water in the wilderness, but not in the context of the natural agricultural cycle in Eretz Yisrael. The incident of Mei Meriva thus reminds us that although the Torah itself never changes, the means of preserving and promoting its laws and precepts must take into account changing realities. The educational approach taken at Chorev shortly after the Exodus was not the appropriate method as Benei Yisrael prepared to cross the Jordan after forty years of supernatural existence in the wilderness. Different circumstances require different techniques, and what works in one reality might not be appropriate in others.
Courtesy of Yeshivat Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il