ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף משלי 8:26

A comparison between the first time Israel had suffered from a lack of water, at a place called Massa U-merivah, and this latest occasion almost forty years later, shows that the people's complaint was directed at Moses and Aaron. They thought that the latter had acted on their own when they had led the nation out of Egypt, and had now failed them. To disabuse them of that idea, G'd provided water from the rock in full view of the whole nation. The name of the place commemorated the fact that they had addressed themselves to Moses and had entertained doubts about the presence of G'd in their midst. (Exodus chapter 17) Psychologically, the people had been unable to entertain the idea that the all knowing G'd, the essence of Goodness, would allow any difficulties to impede the progress of His people. Hence, they reasoned, the very difficulties they experienced were proof that the entire journey had been engineered by humans, not by G'd. This suspicion surfaced whenever any problem arose during the many years of the Israelites' wanderings. For this reason, Moses had been prompted to say to G'd that the people would kill him if they had any more provocation. They had considered him a false prophet. G'd instructed that the rock be struck in public, so that suspicion of Moses and Aaron would not ever occur again. (1+2) Now, forty years later, there was a repeat performance. All the people who had witnessed the striking of the rock at that time, had died. The young generation, however, had seen Miriam die, the wandering well disappear, and the ground had thus been prepared for the old suspicions to re-surface. This generation was saying that even a horrible death such as that of Korach, would have been preferable, since at least that would have occurred by an act of G'd. Their impending death by thirst at this point however, would merely be the fault of Moses, since he had bee unable to bring their forty year old adventure to a successful conclusion. Their complaint was reinforced by the fact that the place Moses had taken them away from had been infinitely superior to the place where they were about to perish. Not only did this place not produce figs and pomegranates, but it did not even provide the basics for survival, i.e. water. The performance was to take place in front of the entire nation. Since this problem had occurred a second time, and since the revelation the first time had not left behind a permanent impression, and there were still doubts about Moses' having acted only as G'ds agent, the new demonstration would have to include some element that went beyond the lesson taught at Massah U-merivah. It was necessary to show that Moses did not even touch the rock at all, to implant the conviction in the people's mind that G'd alone had provided the water, not in conjunction with Moses, nor Moses by his own devices. The rock therefore had to respond to a command by G'd transmitted by Moses by word of mouth only. G'ds purpose had been threefold. 1) To aggrandize His name by showing that even inert rocks respond to His spoken word, just as humans do. 2) Sanctification of His name by demonstrating that Moses was a true prophet. 3) To show that the rock responded immediately, without any mechanical aids having been interposed. This would prove that G'd could provide immediately and directly all the needs of His people, whenever He felt so inclined. It was hoped that a demonstration like that would once and for all still all doubts any of the people entertained about who had taken them out of Egypt, and that Moses had never acted on his own. These three purposes of the demonstration are hinted at in the text itself in verse twelve, when the Torah mentions: A) You have lacked a display of faith. B) You have failed to sanctify My name, and C) before the eyes of the people. (3) Had the people observed Moses and Aaron address the rock instead of responding to the people's request by chiding them, it would have been the most impressive demonstration of faith. G'ds instruction in verse eight had not included anything about speaking to the people. Moses had only been asked to assemble them. Moses' and Aaron's emotional state may have caused them to misunderstand G'ds precise instructions. They were under stress, after all. The fact remains that they departed from G'ds instructions before approaching the rock already. They compounded their error when they allowed the impression to be formed that it was they themselves that would produce the water. (Shall we produce water for you from this rock? verse ten) Finally, by hitting the rock, they nullified all that G'd had intended to be proved by the whole demonstration. When they hit the rock a second time, the result was that by comparison to the time Moses had struck the rock at Massa U-merivah, they actually diminished the impact of the miracle, since at that time the rock had gushed forth water as soon as Moses' staff had impacted. The onlookers had certainly heard about the miracle that had been performed on that occasion. As a result of all this, the people were even more prepared to credit the production of water to Moses rather than to G'd. It would reinforce their belief that it had been due to an inadequacy on the part of Moses that the solution to their problem had been so long in coming. Moses would be reduced in their eyes to the level of the water diviner, of whom there must have been quite a few in that arid region. His only advantage over other such water diviners would be that whereas other diviners had to try many times before achieving success, Moses had achieved success already at his second attempt. We find the people's mistaken concept of what they had witnessed expressed in the very song of praise they sang. (Chapter 21, 17-18) In that song they describe their source of water as being due to their leaders, "a well dug by princes, delved by the nobles of the people, with their scepters and their staffs." They might even have attributed the production of the water to the proximity of the river Arnon, described in verse fourteen. We read there that they proceeded to the well of which G'd said to Moses to assemble the people so He could give them water. The distorted view that this spot had been a well, was only possible through Moses' and Aaron's error in not carrying out G'ds instructions precisely. The real facts were that water had been available already at Refidim, due to Miriam's merit. (Exodus 17, 1-3) With the death of Miriam, the source of that water dried up, causing the problems in the desert of Tzin. We observe therefore how Moses and Aaron thwarted G'ds entire purpose by their fateful error.