Parashat Chukat contains one of the most famous and puzzling narratives in the Torah – the story of Mei Meriva, Moshe’s hitting the rock to produce water for the people. God reacted angrily to Moshe and Aharon’s handling of this situation, and announced that they would die in the wilderness, but the commentators struggle to identify the precise nature of their wrongdoing.
The most common understanding, as Rashi (20:12) explains, is that Moshe sinned by hitting the rock instead of speaking to the rock, as God had instructed (“and you shall speak to the rock in their presence, that it shall give forth its water” – 20:8). However, already the Ramban noted that God explicitly commanded Moshe to bring his staff to the rock, and this was, in fact, God’s first instruction to Moshe after the people demanded water (“Kach et ha-mateh” – 20:8). For what purpose would God have wanted Moshe to bring his staff, if not to hit the rock – precisely as he had done many years earlier, at the similar incident of Masa U-meriva (Shemot 17:1-7)? And, even if God did not want Moshe to hit the rock, could Moshe be blamed for assuming that he should, given the command to bring his staff?
Chizkuni (see also Rashbam) explains that this was, in fact, part of Moshe’s mistake. God meant that Moshe should bring Aharon’s staff, which, as we read in Parashat Korach (17:16-24), had miraculously “blossomed” after Korach’s revolt and was kept as proof of Moshe and Aharon’s divinely-assigned authority. Moshe, however, erred and assumed that God wanted him to take his own staff, and he thus reasoned that he should hit the rock.
But this explanation gives rise to the question of why Moshe should be punished so severely for the innocent mistake of thinking that God wanted him to take his own staff.
We might suggest that God had instructed Moshe to bring his staff with him precisely to demonstrate that he would not be using it. The Rambam (Shemoneh Perakim, chapter 4) famously claims that Moshe sinned by growing angry at Benei Yisrael, which led them to believe that God was angry at them, when in fact this was not the case. Perhaps, then, God wanted Moshe to have his staff in hand specifically to show the people that he would be speaking, and not hitting. The presence of the unused staff would indicate that this was not a time of anger, that God understood the people’s plight and did not wish to punish or criticize them, despite their disrespectful remarks to Moshe and Aharon (20:3-5). God specifically told Moshe, “Bring the staff – but don’t use it”; He wanted to show Benei Yisrael that this was not a time for anger. As the Rambam explained, Moshe sinned by displaying anger instead of patience. Rather than leave the staff to the side and speak to the rock calmly, he took the staff and hit the rock.
If so, then the story of Mei Meriva perhaps teaches that even if we have a “staff,” this doesn’t mean we should use it. In many situations, we have good reason to react angrily to things that happen around us or to us, and we are in a position to express our anger and frustration. But we must carefully determine in every such situation whether or not the “staff” should be used. More often than not, we are best advised to leave the staff to the side and respond with patience and tolerance, rather than allow our anger to control ourselves and the situation.
Courtesy of Yeshivat Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il
