But what exactly is the problem with his behavior at that water-giving rock? I find myself coming back again and again to this arresting and perplexing piece of the narrative, and an excursus in Jacob Milgrom’s magnificent The JPS Commentary: Numbers makes it clear that a long line of readers have done so before me. “Down through the ages, the sin of Moses, as described in , has been regarded as one of the Gordian knots of the Bible: The punishment is clear, but what is the crime?” (448). Milgrom orders 10 major interpretations given over the centuries for why Moses is punished into three categories: Moses strikes the rock rather than speaking to it; he exhibits character traits in doing so that are unworthy of his office; the nature of the words that he uttered is unbecoming. I believe he is punished for all three offenses. Moses’s crime is deviating publicly from God’s command; letting frustration get the better of his speech; and, in so doing, showing himself to be “human, all too human” rather than the exemplar of virtue God needs him to be at that moment, as at every moment. God’s punishment is harsh, but it was also fitting. Moses no longer has what it takes to lead his extremely human people in extremely trying circumstances. Someone else will do the job.

Consider these facts of the narrative. The Israelites, having just buried Miriam, “joined against Moses and Aaron” yet again. They have apparently not learned much from the dire consequences of previous rebellions, or they are beyond caring about those consequences. They have not given up the habit of wishing they had died in Egypt rather than in the wilderness. No grain, no figs, no vines, or pomegranates. “There is not even water to drink!” (20:2–5). Moses’s people are stuck in a servile pattern that began the minute they left Egypt: encounter a problem, complain to Moses, have Moses bring the problem to God, wait for God to solve it—until the next time, when the pattern repeats.

Moses and Aaron know this, but even after the awful events of the Korah rebellion they seem powerless to do anything about it. So does God. This time, when the people complain and Moses and Aaron fall on their faces before God, they are told as before to take the rod with which divine wonders have been performed since the plagues, assemble the community to witness yet another miracle, and “speak to [or at] the rock” that it may yield the needed water. The two brothers take the rod as they are told, and assemble the congregation as they are told—but then Moses strays from his orders in two fascinating (and utterly human) ways.

First, he says to the people tauntingly, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (The unusual Hebrew word used for rebels, morim, is spelled with exactly the same letters as the name of Moses’s sister, Miryam.) Second, Moses does not merely speak to [or at] the rock, but strikes it, not once but twice. God is not pleased. “Because you did not trust Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Children of Israel, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.” The next verse states that God “affirmed His sanctity” or “was sanctified” at/through/in these “Waters of Quarreling”—though precisely how, we are not told.

Shouldn’t Moses know better? One notes in his defense that at an earlier point in the Israelites’ journey (), God responded to a similar uprising occasioned by lack of water with an order to get water from a rock by striking it with the rod. What is the point of Moses bringing the rod this time, too, if not to use it as he did before? That is precisely the point, I believe. The Creator of Heaven and Earth is not bound by precedent. This is not magic but miracle: no formulaic actions or utterances are allowed. (Milgrom makes this clear in his commentary.) What is more, God’s commands, when they are as specific as this one, do not allow for anything less than specific obedience from those closest to God. Moses strikes the rock without having been commanded to do so. The gesture at that moment is utterly natural—that is to say, human. The man’s sister has just died, he is frustrated beyond measure by Israelite whining, and he was told the last time this situation occurred to use the rod in his hand for striking. So he does. But humanity is not a valid excuse.

The words Moses utters betray a similar straying from God’s intention. God says, “You shall draw (vehotzeta) water from the rock for them,” with the verb in second-person singular. It is only natural that Moses should say to the people, “shall we draw (notzi) water?” Some commentators believe that, in doing so, he takes credit for the miracle himself rather than awarding it to God. But Moses can surely be forgiven for his phrasing, being human. He merely follows God’s own grammar, in fact adjusting it to include Aaron (“we”) rather than speaking only of himself. But the commentators are onto something in their criticism. His sarcasm seems to place performance of the miracle in doubt, and Moses does omit any mention of God. Perhaps he feels that by this point in events, after God has fed the people with manna, found them water more than once, and sent more quail than they can eat—not to mention causing the ground to open miraculously and swallow up the leaders of Korah’s rebellion, and—oh yes—the minor matter of splitting the Red Sea and drowning Pharaoh’s army—after all that, perhaps it might not be necessary to explain that God is saving Israel yet again and that he is only the intermediary.

But God’s standards are exacting. God does not specifically order Moses and Aaron to sanctify Him one more time by means of one more miracle, but that is in their job descriptions as prophet and priest. Had Moses spoken to the rock and the rock yielded water, Rashi writes (20:12), the people might have said: This rock does not speak or hear, yet it obeys God; we should too! Instead, God is sanctified despite Moses and Aaron, indeed through the very fact of their punishment.

That punishment links Moses and Aaron powerfully to their sister and their people. They too, however exalted, are mortal. They too make fatal mistakes. Aaron dies at the end of the chapter in which the story of the rock is recounted, and at the start of the next chapter the people are once again complaining—no bread, no water, “miserable food” (presumably the manna). God sends serpents to bite them, the people beg Moses to intercede, God provides a magic cure for the snakebites—and they go on. Moses is probably wondering how these people—so very human in their frailty, as even he is human, despite his strength—will possibly manage to conquer enemies on the way to the Promised Land, let alone conquer those that await them across the Jordan. We certainly wonder this, as readers. That may be why, in answer to Moses’s doubt and ours, the Torah immediately tells of battles that the Israelites win. We hear of a “Book of the Wars of the Lord,” and are given snatches from collected poetry of triumph—as if to assure Moses, tired and resigned after decades in the wilderness, that the promise of the Promised Land stands. His people will get there without him.

Moses understands that he is not the leader to take them there. He is more than ready to hand over responsibility to someone else. This is the last—and perhaps the greatest—of the many lessons he teaches us about being human and trying one’s best as a human being to do the will of God.

This commentary was originally published in 2012.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (��”l) Hassenfeld.

Moses has many wonderful attributes that qualify him to lead the Israelites. He fights against injustice () and overcomes his own limitations and fears to challenge authority (). He is persistent, facing Pharaoh ten times to demand Israel’s liberation. He is also a careful arbiter for his people (). And he is humble (). 

But Moses also has shortcomings. His initial reluctance when God first approaches him to become Israel’s liberator could indicate cowardice, or worse, a lack of faith (). Moses also has a temper. He gets angry at the people () and at God (). 

His anger gets the better of him in this week’s parashah when, frustrated yet again by the complaining people, Moses strikes a rock twice instead of commanding it to produce water as God directed him, and yells at his recalcitrant people (). 

Given the great things Moses accomplishes and the intimate relationship he has with God, one expects God to forgive him this tantrum. Instead, God punishes Moses along with his brother Aaron and denies them entrance into the land of Israel. 

Generations of readers question how the punishment fits the crime and search for more serious wrongdoing. After all, a moment of anger should not cancel a life’s work. Moses must be guilty of more. 

Rashi suggests that by striking the rock, Moses showcased his own power; he failed to sanctify God before the people by not demonstrating how an inanimate rock would respond to God’s command. Similarly, Ramban suggests that Moses expressed doubt in God’s power by asking the Israelites: “Shall we get water for you out of this rock?”  Moses should have stated affirmatively “We will get water for you,” or better yet, “God will get water for you.”

Like these rabbis, I believe that Moses is held accountable for more than his anger and his ego. In my reading, God holds Moses accountable for not instilling the people with faith, as God states explicitly in verse 12: “You did not make them believe in me” [לא האמנתם בי]. This is a serious wrong—enough to prevent Israel’s great liberator from entering the land.

At this point in the Torah’s story, it has been a long time since Israel stood at the banks of the Reed Sea and declared their faith in God and Moses (). Since then, Israel’s faith has faltered time and again. Wandering through the desert, the people expressed their preference for slavery over starvation (; ) and Egypt over Israel (). They worshipped a cow made from earrings () and rebelled against God’s and Moses’s authority ().   

Certainly, God holds Israel accountable for its lack of faith [אינכם מאמינם] () and condemns this first generation to death in the desert outside of the land of Israel (). I suggest that God also holds Moses accountable for Israel’s faithlessness and condemns him to a similar fate. In my view, Israel’s persistent doubt and denial is a failure of Moses’s leadership.   

For many, holding Moses accountable for Israel’s failures seems unfair. It certainly is sad, if not tragic. But it also offers a profound lesson in leadership, particularly religious leadership. 

Leaders cannot stand apart from their communities. Communities choose leaders that reflect who they are and the values they hold. Leaders are best able to guide and transform communities they are aligned with and are a part of. Leaders shape their communities, but communities also shape their leaders.    

Given the symbiotic relationship between leaders and their communities, it makes sense that leaders be measured by their impact on their communities. Religious leaders in particular should be measured by their ability to create holy communities that are bound by shared values that transcend human experience. Religious leaders should inspire their communities to look beyond themselves to have faith in a greater power and a stronger moral force. 

Moses certainly had faith in God, but he could not translate that faith to the desert generation. He could not make this generation believe that God would lead the people from slavery to freedom, from the desert to the promised land. Moses failed to transform Israel’s first generation into a holy nation [גוי קדוש]. Instead, as Moses declares before striking the rock in anger, frustration, and resignation, they remained a community of rebels [מרים].       

Heroes are people we admire. Humans are people to whom we can relate and from whom we can learn. Moses successfully lays the groundwork for a holy community defined by transcendent values that continues to flourish. For this, he becomes the hero of the Jewish people. But Moses also was very human, and his humanness is as profound and as powerful as his heroism.

This commentary was originally published in 2021.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).    

Rav Hisda said:
“A dream that is not interpreted
is like a letter that is never read.”
()

The story of the heathen prophet Balaam—hired by Moabite king Balak ben Tzippor to curse the people Israel—is altogether strange. It concerns events happening outside the Israelite camp and seemingly unknown to them, characters we’ve not yet met, and a talking donkey. Its tone ranges from burlesquely funny to surreal.

One way to read it is as a comedic yet sharp cautionary tale about the seductions—but ultimate impotence—of selfish and shallow leadership. Though Balaam is much-sought-after and well-paid, skilled at glib oration, he is but a mercenary seeking money and fame. When he’s shown up by his own donkey, he is revealed as a buffoonish parody of the humble and service-focused Moses.

But here’s another possibility: perhaps the story is instead a dream Moses dreams. One hint of this is that Balaam comes from Petor (), a word used for dream interpretation (e.g., in the Joseph narrative). Indeed, both the narrative context and several details (too numerous to list here) strongly suggest this is dreamwork, incorporating and transforming elements of Moses’s experiences, anxieties, doubts, and fears.

For example, Moses long resisted the prophetic role because of his difficulty speaking and his fears that his words would be ineffective. Most recently at this point, he’s been experiencing frustration and disappointment in moving forward: literal roadblocks in the form of foreign kings refusing to let the Israelites pass, and the ultimate roadblock—God has said he will not enter the Promised Land (). His mortality is front and center, highlighted by the recent death of his siblings and leadership partners, Aaron and Miriam, and by the encampment now on the steppes of Moab, opposite Jericho, near Beit Peor, the place where he will die (also see , 25, and ). And he has grown distant from the people, with whom he once so strongly identified but from whom he will soon part ways. This is a new generation; they don’t share his past in Egypt, and he won’t share their future in the Land. He’s been increasingly impatient and even angry with them, and less effective in reaching them.

It is not a stretch to imagine Moses plagued with doubts about his legacy, his authenticity, and his character: “What have I really achieved? Will the people be able to sustain the vision without me? Has my service been true and my motivation pure, or have I used my spiritual gifts for my own gain? What does my anger and frustration with the people say of me? Have I loved the Israelites enough and genuinely served them?” In short: “Am I a true prophet and servant of God, following in Abraham’s footsteps, or merely an unworthy parody?”

One need not be a student of Freud to connect such doubts to a dream about a “heathen” prophet, who

• sees the Israelites only from afar, and whose name (Balaam) suggests belo am—“one without a people” (see );
• is told by God to go forward and is then stymied by impassable roadblocks;
• is revealed as a buffoon when he is bested by a talking donkey; and
• repeatedly offers words which fail to “take.”

Perhaps most challengingly, the dream may reflect uncomfortable questions and feelings about God. Recently, Moses has twice tried to follow God’s instructions, but to disastrous effect: sending spies to the Land (), and taking a rod to draw water from a rock (). Both incidents resulted in divine wrath, and a decree forbidding first the people, and then Moses himself, to enter the Land. So here, God seems inconsistent in dealing with Balaam, telling him to go forward, then being angry when he does.

Or perhaps Moses identifies even more closely with the donkey, a mute creature made to speak by God, whose complaint of being mistreated reads perfectly as a fantasy dialogue between Moses and God after Moses has struck the rock:

In other words, if the story of Balaam and Balak is actually Moses’s dream, it is a dream emerging from a crisis of faith: faith in himself, in the people, in God and God’s ways, and in the ability of human beings to connect, understand, and serve. It emerges from a fundamental anxiety: Not am I blessed or cursed, but am I bringing blessing or curse? Are my life and effort for the good? And reading it thus not only explains the bizarreness of the story, but opens important teachings for us.

First, by revealing the full humanity of Moses, with all of his doubts, fears, mixed motives, and anxieties, the Torah simultaneously offers comfort and conveys responsibility. We need not judge ourselves harshly for our own self-doubts and anxieties, but neither can we use them to excuse a failure to move forward. Such concerns and anxieties don’t disqualify us from leadership or service. On the contrary, self-doubt and introspection are hallmarks of authentic service; we should worry, instead, if we ourselves (or our putative leaders) lack such doubts.

Second, our parashah is no longer a story about a wicked man whose evil designs are thwarted by an interventionist God. Instead, it portrays righteousness as the courage to struggle with one’s dark side, to face one’s fears and doubts. If it is true that every character in a dream represents the dreamer, then God here is not a supernatural being but an aspect of Moses himself—the divine spark in him, able to illuminate his own inner challenges and impurities and to transform them.

At times we all are—or fear we are—Balaam. We have mixed motives, we get full of ourselves, or we are seduced by money and power. We push in the wrong directions, grasp at the wrong things, and sometimes fail to see what even an ass can see. We may doubt our ability to make a difference, doubt that good will ever triumph. But somehow—through our own efforts in confronting and managing the worst within ourselves, in combination with opening ourselves to being transformed in ways we can’t quite understand—somewhat mysteriously and in spite of ourselves, we may turn even our curses to blessings.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (��”l) Hassenfeld.

In chapter 20 of the book of Numbers, the Israelites have just reached the wilderness of Zin. Miriam dies, and the people find themselves without any water. They then “quarrel” with Moses, bitterly complaining that he brought them out of Egypt just to die in the wilderness (Num. 20:2–5).

Moses and Aaron then turn to God, who tells them to take up the rod, speak to a rock, and order it to provide water. Moses takes the rod and, together with Aaron, assembles the people and says, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Num. 20:10). After Moses hits the rock twice, water gushes forth. But God is unhappy with Moses and Aaron both, and says, “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them” (Num. 20:12).

What has confused and troubled readers here is God’s vague explanation for what Moses and Aaron did wrong. In what ways did Moses and Aaron not trust God? What would it have meant to affirm God’s sanctity in front of the people?

The most direct answer is that in hitting the rock, Moses and Aaron disobeyed God’s instruction to speak to it. This makes sense and can teach us a lot about the importance of using our words to effect change rather than physical force. But several details complicate this otherwise important explanation.

First, although Moses seems to stray from God’s exact instructions, the incorrect action still works. Water comes forth in abundance. Couldn’t God have shown Moses and Aaron (by association) the error of their ways by not bringing forth water? Second, God tells Moses to pick up his rod before speaking to the rock. This is the same rod that Moses took up in the book of Exodus, and with which God brought about supernatural “signs and wonders” in Egypt. Why would Moses need the rod now if he were just supposed to be speaking? Third, and most perplexing, is that there is an almost word-for-word parallel story in Exodus, where God explicitly orders Moses to strike a rock in order to get water for a complaining people (Exod. 17:1–7). Why wouldn’t God instruct Moses and Aaron to do the same again?

I’m going to focus on what I see as the most complicated point, the double-telling of how Moses hits a rock for water.

For some commentators, the parallel stories are understood as separate chronological events, the differences of which are explained through the passage of time. According to Rashi, forty years have passed between the rock episodes of Exodus and Numbers. By the time we get to Numbers, Moses and Aaron are dealing with the next generation of Israelites (see Rashi on Numbers 20:1). The intervention that was necessary for their parents was detrimental to this new generation who needed to be shown a different way to achieve their goals. On this, Aviva Zornberg writes, “What was once an effective teaching tool is now to be replaced by the use of language . . . [W]hat God wants is to educate the people to their new post-wilderness lives in the Land, and to the practices that will enable them to live organically in a new place and time.”^[1]

Perhaps Moses and Aaron weren’t the right leaders to bring the people into the land because they couldn’t understand how to meet the needs of a new generation, a challenge I myself face as a rabbi serving millennials and, very soon, Gen Z. Maybe in failing to change their ways, they failed to sanctify God.

This explanation, however, still requires us to guess what God means by “trust” and “sanctify,” and can still make us wonder if Moses’s action was such an egregious transgression as to merit retirement by death.

Long before there were source critical readings of the Torah (which often explain multiple versions of the same episode as a result of several human authors and/or redactors), medieval commentator Bekhor Shor (Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor, France, 12th century) suggested that the two rock-hitting episodes are one and the same. Given that he saw redundancies in the text as purposeful rather than accidental, he suggested that the story actually takes place in Numbers but is mentioned earlier in Exodus to anticipate the reader’s questions about how the Israelites were able to find water in the desert.^[2]

The daring implication of the two stories being different versions of the same event is that Moses (and Aaron) aren’t really punished for hitting the rock because God had actually told them to do so! Moses was always supposed to hit the rock!

Instead, they are punished for not acknowledging the Divine as the true source of water. Commenting on Deuteronomy, which recounts God’s explanation for punishing Moses and Aaron, Bekhor Shor writes, “ ‘For you broke faith with Me’ (Deut. 32:51)—for you did not explain to the Israelites that I was giving them the water, but instead you said ‘shall we get water for you (out of) this rock?’” (Num. 20:10). Where the two leaders strayed, then, was in the words they spoke as they hit the rock, not in the act of hitting itself.

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.

Read more about Rabbi Ilana Zietman .��

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

^[1] Aviva Zornberg, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, p.226-227

^[2] Jonathan Jacobs, “Moses Strikes the Rock in Exodus and Numbers: One Story or Two?” thetorah.com

Moses has many wonderful attributes that qualify him to lead the Israelites. He fights against injustice () and overcomes his own limitations and fears to challenge authority (). He is persistent, facing Pharaoh ten times to demand Israel’s liberation. He is also a careful arbiter for his people (). And he is humble (). 

But Moses also has shortcomings. His initial reluctance when God first approaches him to become Israel’s liberator could indicate cowardice, or worse, a lack of faith (). Moses also has a temper. He gets angry at the people () and at God (). 

His anger gets the better of him in this week’s parashah when, frustrated yet again by the complaining people, Moses strikes a rock twice instead of commanding it to produce water as God directed him, and yells at his recalcitrant people().��

Given the great things Moses accomplishes and the intimate relationship he has with God, one expects God to forgive him this tantrum. Instead, God punishes Moses along with his brother Aaron and denies them entrance into the land of Israel. 

Generations of readers question how the punishment fits the crime and search for more serious wrongdoing. After all, a moment of anger should not cancel a life’s work. Moses must be guilty of more. 

Rashi suggests that by striking the rock, Moses showcased his own power; he failed to sanctify God before the people by not demonstrating how an inanimate rock would respond to God’s command. Similarly, Ramban suggests that Moses expressed doubt in God’s power by asking the Israelites: “Shall we get water for you out of this rock?”  Moses should have stated affirmatively “We will get water for you,” or better yet, “God will get water for you.”

Like these rabbis, I believe that Moses is held accountable for more than his anger and his ego. In my reading, God holds Moses accountable for not instilling the people with faith, as God states explicitly in verse 12: “You did not make them believe in me” [לא האמנתם בי]. This is a serious wrong—enough to prevent Israel’s great liberator from entering the land.

At this point in the Torah’s story, it has been a long time since Israel stood at the banks of the Reed Sea and declared their faith in God and Moses (). Since then, Israel’s faith has faltered time and again. Wandering through the desert, the people expressed their preference for slavery over starvation (; ) and Egypt over Israel (). They worshipped a cow made from earrings () and rebelled against God’s and Moses’s authority ().   

Certainly, God holds Israel accountable for its lack of faith [אינכם מאמינם] () and condemns this first generation to death in the desert outside of the land of Israel (). I suggest that God also holds Moses accountable for Israel’s faithlessness and condemns him to a similar fate. In my view, Israel’s persistent doubt and denial is a failure of Moses’s leadership.   

For many, holding Moses accountable for Israel’s failures seems unfair. It certainly is sad, if not tragic. But it also offers a profound lesson in leadership, particularly religious leadership. 

Leaders cannot stand apart from their communities. Communities choose leaders that reflect who they are and the values they hold. Leaders are best able to guide and transform communities they are aligned with and are a part of. Leaders shape their communities, but communities also shape their leaders.    

Given the symbiotic relationship between leaders and their communities, it makes sense that leaders be measured by their impact on their communities. Religious leaders in particular should be measured by their ability to create holy communities that are bound by shared values that transcend human experience. Religious leaders should inspire their communities to look beyond themselves to have faith in a greater power and a stronger moral force. 

Moses certainly had faith in God, but he could not translate that faith to the desert generation. He could not make this generation believe that God would lead the people from slavery to freedom, from the desert to the promised land. Moses failed to transform Israel’s first generation into a holy nation [גוי קדוש]. Instead, as Moses declares before striking the rock in anger, frustration, and resignation, they remained a community of rebels [מרים].       

Heroes are people we admire. Humans are people to whom we can relate and from whom we can learn. Moses successfully lays the groundwork for a holy community defined by transcendent values that continues to flourish. For this, he becomes the hero of the Jewish people. But Moses also was very human, and his humanness is as profound and as powerful as his heroism.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).    

Yet in fixating on the split-second impulse of Moses’s lost temper, we miss out on a broader leadership lesson. I would like to shift our focus to Moses’s inability earlier in the narrative to take in stride the relentless complaint of the thousands in his charge. The people were thirsty, tired, scared, and fearful of the big changes that lay ahead; with discomfort and anxiety reaching unbearable heights, they accuse Moses of making their lives worse by taking them from Egypt: “If only we had died with the death of our brothers before the Lord . . . Why have you brought the congregation of the Lord to this desert so that we and our livestock should die there? Why have you taken us out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place . . . ” (3–5). Certainly, Moses must have felt despondent, unappreciated, and furious, as “Moses and Aaron moved away from the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they fell on their faces” (6).

We can craft a leadership timeline that already was doomed to end poorly the moment Moses reacts to these harsh words by falling on his face. Moses’s job as a leader is to know that the People are worried and scared, and then to do what the People cannot do —to take the long view and see the big picture. To say, “I know you are thirsty and scared, and I am finding a solution. I am sorry you are suffering. Hang in there, and I’ll get back to you”—and then to walk away and find that solution, understanding that the people might not ever appreciate his efforts. Moses was challenged to rise above the complaints, but instead he takes them personally, as evident when he calls the congregation together in front of the rock “and he said to them, ‘Now listen, you rebels, can we draw water for you from this rock?’” (10).

Perhaps God punished Moses because despite seeing all of his phenomenal leadership qualities, God did not trust that Moses would be able to take the long view that was needed to transition the People to the state of autonomy and freedom that awaited across the Jordan river. Anyone who has ever led a classroom, a teen tour, a parenting listserv, a board retreat, an organization, or a family meeting can relate to Moses’s tendency to feel overwhelmed, to want to run and hide when the challenge is set at a very high bar. And yet, leaders do not have that luxury; as Brené Brown states in Daring Greatly: “A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance . . . But when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives” (4).

Moses might have had a different reaction, as he stood at the rock, had he held the deep knowledge that dissatisfaction is inevitable, as is the desire to go back to the way things were even if “the way things were” did not favor the collective best interest. He was an extraordinary leader, but in falling on his face and then naming the People as rebels, Moses allowed them to fill the “cheap seats” to which Brown refers and in the process sunk to their level. Perhaps God saw from his reaction to the congregation at their moment of complaint that despite all of his successes, he was not the leader to bring the People home.

We can learn leadership lessons from our parashah that will help us prevail in times of crisis of COVID and beyond, get ahead of short-term thinking, and always keep an eye on the big picture. The long view is not always understood or appreciated. As we saw from the People of Israel, it is often unwelcomed and outright rejected. Despite this, leaders need to hold steady and “stay in the arena,” as this steadiness can carry an anxious people through.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Commentators have offered a number of reasons for Moses’s behavior and his ensuing punishment. What was Moses’s wrongdoing? What was so egregious, and was Moses’s punishment warranted? While Rashi’s explanation—that Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it—is often cited, others suggest alternative readings. Rambam suggests that it wasn’t Moses’s actions, but rather his anger that led to God’s rebuke. After Moses and Aaron assembled the kahal, the congregation, in front of the rock, Moses said, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (v. 10). His name-calling of the Israelites—“you rebels”—does not befit a leader of Moses’s stature. It was for this reason that he was punished (Shemonah Perakim, Ch. 4).

Rambam, here, not only notes the power of language to uplift or destroy, but also the significance of the intention and feeling underlying our words. And yet, there is something unsettling about Rambam’s explanation. Haven’t we all “been there?” Certainly, there have been times when we have misspoken in a moment of frustration. We knew better, and yet, like Moses, we missed the mark. Understanding that “this happens” doesn’t justify the action, but surely it humanizes the Biblical story and relays a more relatable portrait of our greatest leader. God’s reaction, though, is unequivocal: yes, we can feel anger, and we can get frustrated, but acting in anger and frustration is never okay.

Psychologist Dr. Laura Markham speaks directly to these issues as they relate to parenting, but her insights extend to all human interactions: “When we’re swept with anger, we’re physically ready to fight. It’s impossible to stay calm at those points,” she explains. “You’ll feel an urgent need to act . . . but that’s your anger talking. It thinks it’s an emergency. It almost never is, though. You can teach your child later, and it will be the lesson you actually want to teach . . . Your child will certainly see you angry from time to time, and how you handle those situations teaches children a lot.” We can model that “anger is part of being human, and that learning to manage anger is part of becoming mature.” Markham acknowledges that this is tough work and that it’s constant. “Anger, like other feelings, is as much a given as our arms and legs,” she explains. Still, she contends, “what we’re responsible for is what we choose to do with it” (“,” Psychology Today website).

More than just learning to take responsibility for our reactions, Markham goes further. She suggests that anger can also be instructive. It “often has a valuable lesson for us,” she argues. “The constructive way to handle anger is to limit our expression of it, and when we calm down, to use it diagnostically: What is so wrong in our life that we feel furious, and what do we need to do to change the situation?” There is a lot of potential for self-discovery when we can step back and assess a situation from a less-charged, more objective place.

An additional point: Nothing productive can result when individuals’ basic needs are not being met. As any parent of young children can attest, it is impossible to make headway with a hungry or tired child. No matter how calm or understanding or patient you are, if your child needs a snack, is overtired, or missed their nap, all bets, more or less, are off. The same is true if a child feels ignored, unappreciated, or overlooked. Unless our base physical and emotional needs are attended to and acknowledged, there is little chance of success.

Returning to Rambam’s commentary: Markham’s framing can offer additional nuance to our understanding of Moses’s behavior and punishment. Moses acted in anger, and however justified he felt his fury was, nothing positive emerges from behavior that is motivated by anger and frustration. Moses failed to act responsibly, and in his position, he had an obligation to rise above and model a more mature response.

Furthermore, while directed at the Israelites, Moses’s anger may reveal something different and deeper. Moses’s sister, Miriam, died in the verse immediately preceding our scene. Perhaps he was grieving, incapable of both managing his own loss and successfully and compassionately leading the Israelites in this next stage of their collective journey. Or perhaps his anger was in response to something else entirely. Either way, how might a more Markham-esque perspective have helped Moses in this moment? What could Moses have learned from his emotional response, and how might that insight have better informed his choices? Finally, the Israelites were traveling in the desert, and they were thirsty. They were fair and correct in their request for water. Whiney, perhaps, but they were not unreasonable. Moses was not going to get anywhere with the Israelites until their physical need was met. Until then, there was little possibility of any effective exchange.

So, then, how might we apply these lessons in our own lives? Where are the opportunities? In what ways can our understanding of Moses’s response help us better navigate, manage, and investigate our own emotions?

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Although the first 39 years were by no means uneventful, they were no preparation for a journey that would lead in two opposing directions. The first was momentous and heroic. It entailed acts of warfare, conquest, and diplomacy. Thus, the story of the Exodus suddenly came alive with a wealth of place names, each one marking another battle, or confrontation, worthy of being remembered forever: “Therefore The Book of the Wars of the LORD speaks of ‘. . . Waheb in Suphah, and the wadis; the Arnon, with its tributary wadis stretched along the settled country of Ar’” (Num. 21:14). Some of the places along their victorious route were already famous, like the Amorite city of Heshbon, about which the ancient bards would recite: “Come to Heshbon, it is built firm; / Sihon’s city is well founded” (Num. 21:27). We can almost hear the martial music playing in the background. After all their travails, Israel finally had something new to sing about: cities and monarchs who fell by the sword and inhabited lands that would be added to the borders of Greater Israel. The heroic journey was one-way, strategic, and fiercely territorial.

Not so the traumatic journey, which was depressingly familiar. It rehearsed the same ominous message: nothing was more difficult than to be the first, and now the second, post-Exodus generation. And lest we forgot, in addition to all the heroic place names, Hormah, Heshbon, Be’er on the boundary of Moab, Waheb in Suphah, and so on and so forth, there was yet another place, the infamous Water of Meribah—“meaning that the Israelites quarreled with the Lord” (Num. 20:13). “’Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place,” they complained to Moses, “a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (Num. 20:5). Once again it was their lot to bemoan their liberation. Of what good was their freedom if instead of enjoying the fruits so recently imported from the Promised Land by Joshua and his expeditionary force, they were condemned to a slow death in the desert?

Even Moses had had enough. Losing his self-confidence, he struck the rock with his magic staff not once but twice, an act of insubordination for which he incurred the wrath of God (Num. 20:10-12). Meribah came to signify the place of the broken covenant, not only insofar as “the whole congregation” of Israelites was concerned but more importantly, insofar as God Perself was concerned. Recorded for posterity by the Psalmist, it would even enter our prayers: “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,” we sing in Kabbalat Shabbat, “when your ancestors tested and tried Me though they had seen My deeds” (Psalm 95:8–9). It was at Meribah that the fate of the Generation of the Desert, the first post-Exodus generation, was sealed.

Finding a solution to the water shortage was only one hurdle. Another was negotiating with the local rulers. When Moses’s delegation appeared before the King of Edom to negotiate safe passage, they had only one card to play, and that was their historical experience in Egypt. “Do you have any idea how much we have suffered?” they pleaded. “We cried to the LORD and He heard our plea, and He sent a messenger who freed us from Egypt” (Num. 20:16). But the negotiating tactic fell on deaf ears. What did the King of Edom care that the Israelites were survivors of Egyptian bondage, that they had suffered a prolonged and unprecedented trauma? “Terribly sorry chaps,” he said to the delegation with a sly edge to his voice. “A nasty business that, your Egyptian bondage. But as for crossing my territory—that, I’m afraid is non-negotiable. You’ll have to go the long way.” There was no special dispensation for the ever-dying people. You suffered? You cried to the Lord? God heard your cries? Then work it out among yourselves.

Because of this diplomatic fiasco, the Israelites “set out from Mount Hor by the road of the Sea of Reeds to skirt the land of Edom” (Num. 21:4). They were forced, in other words, to revisit the site of their trauma itself. To retrace their steps along the Sea of Reeds meant to experience everything all over again: the suffering, the enslavement, the mortal fear of Pharaoh’s army; the deprivation, the discontent, and the terrible retribution. There was no antidote for prolonged exile. There was only the return of the repressed: “But the people grew restive on the journey, and the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.’ The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died” (Num. 21:4–5).

The trauma was not yet over. At any moment it could resurface anew. It was as if nothing had changed after 39 years, neither for the Generation of the Exodus nor for the generation about to enter the Promised Land. The “whole congregation” was still suffering the aftereffects of its trauma. Who was there who had not lost a parent, a grandparent, an uncle or aunt, a neighbor, a friend, or even an older sibling, over the course of the traumatic journey? The personal and collective wounds forever would remain open. After forty years, even after millennia, the whole congregation of Israel would have to struggle long and hard to reconcile the heroic and the traumatic paths of its singular journey through history. It was the fate of each generation, and especially of our own, to find its way, with only the Torah to serve as guide.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).