Komentarz do Wyjścia 17:3

TO PUT US AND OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CATTLE TO DEATH WITH THIRST. In their complaint, they mentioned the cattle too, thus telling Moses that they need a lot of water and it is therefore necessary to take counsel on the whole matter. This is why it says at the second time [when the incident at the waters of Meribah is recorded], and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.⁴¹⁴Ibid., 20:11. Now here it is not mentioned but it is self-understood that when the rock was turned into a pool of water, they drank and they watered their flocks (Ramban in Verse 5 further). In the instance of the waters of Meribah at Kadesh, it is mentioned on account of the mishap that resulted from the entire affair, as explained there; see also Ramban here in Verse 5 for another interpretation. And our Rabbis have said:⁴¹⁵Mechilta on the verse here. “They made their cattle equal in importance to themselves. They said: ‘A man’s beast is as his life. If a man travels on the road and his beast is not with him, he suffers.’”
Now the reason they mentioned us and our children and did not say generally: “to put us to death with thirst” or “to put to death this whole assembly,” [an expression] which would have included men, women and the little ones, as they said in other places,⁴¹⁶Such as above, 16:3, to put to death this whole assembly by famine. is that by mentioning the children to him, they emphasized their murmuring against him so that he should make haste in the matter, since the young ones could not suffer thirst at all and they would thus die before the eyes of their parents. This is something like the expression, The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst.⁴¹⁷Lamentations 4:4.

ויצמא שם העם למים, The people thirsted there for water, etc. One cannot help wondering why G'd subjected the people to such a trial that they came close to dying of thirst. Most ordinary people would turn heretics if subjected to this kind of trial. Besides, it is even harder to understand Moses who did not take the initiative and offer prayers on behalf of the people and their suffering instead of crying out to G'd that the people were about to stone him in their frustration? Moses' prayer sounds as if he was insensitive to the people's thirst, concerned only with his own death by stoning!

ויצמא שם העם למים, “The people thirsted for water there.” When their thirst became intolerable, the people ganged up on Moses, wanting to know why, seeing that things were worse for them than in Egypt, he had bothered to take them out of there? Nachmanides describes what happened somewhat differently. As soon as the people arrived at Refidim and found that there were no wells of drinking water there, they immediately started a quarrel with Moses, and this is the reason why the Torah reports that the people quarreled with Moses without giving any specific reason. Their demand for water is self-explanatory. This time, as opposed to previous occasions, they demanded water from him, claiming that it was his responsibility to provide this for them. Moses answered them that they had addressed their complaint to the wrong party, seeing that it had not been he who had led them out of Egypt, but that they were in fact putting G’d to the test, seeing that it was He Who had taken them out of Egypt. He suggested that if they would stop pestering him and instead would pray to the Lord, their needs would soon be taken care of. We know that Moses was correct in accusing them of putting G’d’s ability to provide water for them to the test, as it is written in verse 7 ועל נסותם את ה' לאמור היש ה' בקרבנו אם אין, “because of the people putting G’d to the test, wanting to know if the Lord is among us or not.” When Moses realized how thirsty the people were, he himself brought their prayer to G’d, and he told G’d how the people had quarreled with him and had accused him of being responsible for their sorry condition.

אותי ואת בני, “me and my children.” On this occasion the people did not speak in general terms as previously, saying להמיתנו, “to cause our deaths,” or “to kill the whole community,” but they added their children as additional victims, all in order to make their complaint appear more urgent. When children have to die in the presence of their parents this is a more tragic situation.

It appears that G'd's purpose in subjecting the people to this test was to train them to raise their eyes heavenwards, to pray and to implore G'd in times of need because this is an important principle in matters of faith and attempts to perfect one's personality. You will note that G'd applied this same psychology when He allocated manna to the Israelites on a daily basis instead of giving them a weekly or monthly supply at a time. He also denied them this miraculous bread until they had pleaded with Him for sustenance. As soon as the people pleaded with G'd, He responded positively. In our paragraph we find that the Israelites contented themselves with complaining to Moses; They did not consider that their fate was subject to G'd's personal providence. As a result their situation grew steadily worse so that the Torah describes their thirst as overpowering. The Torah mentions that G'd tested them because they had not seen fit to request help from Him. When they asked if G'd were indeed in their midst or not, they demonstrated that they were not prepared to acknowledge that G'd guided their affairs by special providence. The only way G'd could prove that He was indeed in their midst was to allow the situation to become so critical that the people would learn to turn to Him as a result of the intensity of their thirst. Moses realised all this; this is why he refrained from praying to G'd sooner. When he saw that the situation had become intolerable, he asked G'd: "what shall I do for this people?" He meant "how can I deflect the people's complaint from me personally and have the people turn to You?" Clearly, Moses realised that the solution to the problem did not depend merely on prayer otherwise he would have prayed just as he had done when he faced the Sea of Reeds. He argued further that עוד מעט, if G'd were to allow the situation to deteriorate still further, the natural result of the people's frustration would be that they would stone him. It could well be that eventually and in desperation, the people would finally turn to G'd in prayer but by that time they would have killed him as a leader who had failed them.

את בני ואת מקני, “my children and my herds.” The reason why they mentioned the herds, separately, was to remind Moses that a great deal of water was needed, seeing that the animals consumed a lot of water. This is why the Torah makes a point that after Moses struck the rock lots of water gushed forth, enough for both the people and their herds. (Numbers 20,11)

It was this latter argument which G'd accepted; I have been troubled by the thought that a people who had witnessed so many miracles in Egypt, at the sea, and in the desert did not turn in prayer to the G'd who had performed all these miracles. After all, these people were aware of the efficacy of prayer having seen how G'd sent them their redeemer immediately after they had appealed to G'd in Exodus 2,23. G'd had told Moses specifically that He sent him in response to the people's groaning. Perhaps the people thought that as long as G'd was in their midst there was no need for prayer. What would have been the point of G'd bringing them into the desert if He did not intend to supply their needs? If G'd did not intend to supply their needs they would be lost anyways, so what good would prayer do? They concluded therefore that the only reason they had no water was because G'd was not in their midst.