B"H
Wednesday, Tammuz 9, 5780 / July 1, 2020
As mentioned yesterday, the Torah reading this Shabbat in Israel is Parshat Balak. In the Diaspora, we will read Parshat Chukat and Balak combined.
In Parshat Chukat we read about the passing of Moshe’s sister, Miriam and Moshe’s brother, Aaron. This took place at the end of the forty years which the Jewish people travelled the desert, as a result of their sin of refusing to go into Israel 38 years earlier. Miriam, passed away in the month of Nissan, about three and a half months before her brother, Aaron, who passed away in Av.
Moshe passed away 11 months after Miriam. His passing is recorded at the end of the Torah. Miriam was 125 years old when she passed away. Aaron was 123 years old and Moshe was 120.
Throughout the forty years which the Jewish people traveled the Sinai desert, well-water flowed miraculously from a rock and supplied them with all the water they needed. The rock traveled with them. Now that Miriam passed away, the water stopped since it was in her merit.
This caused the Jewish people to complain and argue with Moshe, that they had no water. G-d told Moshe to take his staff and speak to the rock and it would then give water.
Moshe was upset and angry at the people for constantly arguing against G-d. In anger, Moshe called out, “Hear now you rebels…” Then instead of speaking to the rock, as G-d told him, Moshe hit the rock twice with his staff. The rock gave lots of water, but Moshe and Aaron were punished for not speaking to the rock. G-d told them that as a result, they would not merit entering the Promised Land.
Every story in the Torah is a lesson for all generations. From this story we learn the negative results which can come as a result of anger. The extent of the prohibition to being angry is expressed in the following saying of our sages, “A person who becomes angry is like he is worshipping idols.”
Q.Why does the Torah tell us that Moshe struck the rock twice?
A.The following explains it: Rabbi Israel of Rushin once saw one of his children become angry at someone. When the Rebbe’s son saw that his father didn’t reprimand him, he again expressed his anger against that person. But now his father reprimanded him for being angry.
His father then said to him, “We find that only after Moshe hit the rock twice did G-d react negatively to him. Why didn’t G-d react to him after he struck the rock the first time? The answer is that a person is not an angel. A person is only human and perhaps Moshe couldn’t help himself on the spur of the moment from becoming angry. But when Moshe hit the stone in anger a second time, then it was his fault and G-d reprimanded him.
HAVE A VERY GOOD, HAPPY, HEALTHY AND SUCCESSFUL DAY