THEN MOSES LIFTED HIS HAND AND HIT THE ROCK WITH HIS STAFF TWICE, AND MUCH WATER CAME OUT AND THE COMMUNITY AND THEIR LIVESTOCK WERE GIVEN DRINK.

(Bamidbar 20:11)

 

"When our Rabbi Moses became angry, he also erred"

And Elazar the priest told the men who had taken part in the fighting: This is the law of the Torah - Because Moses became angry, he also erred. R. Elazar ben Azariah says: Moses became angry three times and he erred three times. One example is where it says, he was angry at Elazar and Itamar, Aaron's remaining sons, saying... What did he say? Why did you not eat the sin offering, etc. (Vayikra 10:17). Another example is where it says, and he told them, "Listen, you rebels, shall I extract water from this rock for you?" - What does it say further? Then Moses lifted his hand and hit the rock with his staff twice (Bamidbar 20:11). Here too, it says: Moses became angry with the commanders of the army, the officers of thousands and officers of hundreds, who had come back from the military campaign. What does it say? And Elazar the priest told the men who had taken part in the fighting: This is the law of the Torah that the Lord commanded Moses. When our Rabbi Moses became angry, he also erred.

(Sifrei Bamidbar 157)

 

And you shall speak to the rock - ...the intention of this command was not that he should speak but not hit, otherwise - why did he take the staff in his hand?... Rather, Moses and Aaron were punished for something else... his words left room for Israel to believe that Moses and Aaron extracted water for them through their own powers and that it was not God's action... the Name of Heaven was thus desecrated by Moses' words in the eyes of the people. That is why he was given the punishment that he would not be allowed to enter the land, and his sin consisted entirely of anger, upon becoming angry, he erred...

Twice - the plain meaning of the text suggests that one hit would have sufficed to bring forth the water, but in his anger he struck it twice, as an enraged man who does not act in proper measure, but who rather repeats himself for no purpose.

(Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio Bamidbar 20: 10-11)

 

 

"There are people who find the offering of a reason for a commandment to be difficult" (RaMBaM)

Aviad Stolman

Every year parashat Hukat raises afresh the question of reasons for the commandments [ta'amei ha'mitzvot]. Explaining the words this is the law of the Torah, Rashi made his famous statement: "Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel, saying, ‘What is this commandment and what is the reason for it?' That is why regarding it, it is written hukah - it is a decree of Mine and you have no permission to question it!" This statement appears to be based upon a Tannaitic dictum quoted in braita which appears in Yoma 67b, where various apparently incomprehensible commandments are cited, including the prohibition upon wearing sha'atnez [mixed wool and linen]. The nations of the world taunt Israel and wonder "What reason is there for these commandments!?" Not only do the nations of the world question these commandments; so does Satan, i.e., the personal evil inclination, who wonders if there is any advantage to observing them.

There is an interesting source-text that deals with the red heifer. It presents two different approaches to this commandment, one popular, the other elitist:

A certain idolater asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakai: "These things that you do look like a kind of magic! You take a cow, burn it, pulverize it, and take its ashes. Then you sprinkle two or three drops on one of you who has been defiled by a corpse, and you tell him that he has been purified!"

He told him: "Have you ever seen someone possessed by an evil spirit?

He said: "Yes."

He said to him: "And what do you do to it?"

He said to him: "We take roots, smoke them, throw water on them, and it [the evil spirit] flees.

He said to him: Let you ears hear what your mouth is saying! This spirit is a spirit of defilement... we sprinkle the special water upon it and it flees."

After he [the idolater] left, his students said to him: "Our Rabbi, you pushed that one off with a straw [a weak explanation], but what do you say to us?"

He told them: "By your lives! The corpse does not defile, and the water does not purify, rather the Holy One blessed be He says, ‘I have made a law, I have decreed a decree, you are not permitted to transgress my decrees, for it is written this is the law of the Torah.'" (Bamidbar Rabbah 19)

R. Yohanan ben Zakai gave the idolater an answer that seemed rational in terms of the idolater's own conceptual framework. However, he offered his own more sophisticated students a different answer: "By your lives! The corpse does not defile, and the water does not purify, rather the Holy One blessed be He says, ‘I have made a law, I have decreed a decree." According to R. Yohanan, some commandments (perhaps all of them?) lack a rational explanation. Another well-known rabbinic dictum states: "What does the Holy One blessed be He care whether slaughter is done from the throat or from the back of the neck? Rather, [one should] say it [the law of slaughter] is meant to purify people [i.e., to pose a purifying spiritual challenge to them] (Bereishit Rabbah 44, Theodore-Albek edition pp. 424-5). Concerning this dictum, The RaMBaM wrote in his Guide of the Perplexed (3:26), "These are very strange words." He held that the dictum does not reflect the mainstream view of the Sages. In that chapter, which is devoted to the question of the rationale of the commandments, RaMBaM wrote forcefully that there are reasons for the commandments: "There are some of them whose utility is clear to us, such as the prohibition of murder and theft, and some of them whose utility has not become clear to us, such as the prohibition of orlah and kelai ha'kerem... "

Elsewhere in the Guide (3:31), the RaMBaM attacks those people "who find the offering of a reason for a commandment to be difficult," and calls them "weak-minded" for thinking that God "commands us to do that which is of no benefit to us, and prohibits us from doing that which does no harm to us." The RaMBaM fought those who, for theological reasons, thought that no rational should be given for the commandments. They believed that Divine commands cannot be given rational explanations because only people act and command for rational reasons. In the twentieth century, Yeshayahu Leibowitz passionately rejected - for theological reasons - the formulation of explanations for the commandments. In contrast, The RaMBaN did not only believe that commandments were purposeful and not arbitrary; he also believed that it was possible for human beings to understand those purposes.

The RaMBaN, one of the Jewish People's great men of spirit, was very alert to the connection between reasons and action. In several places, the RaMBaN points to the Torah's general commandments. For example, he understood the commandment to do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord to be a general commandment requiring that we behave honestly and decently even in circumstances where the law does not delineate precise rules. If we adopt a purely positivist attitude towards the halakhah, we will indeed know how to behave in certain specific situations to which the Torah relates explicitly, but we will not know how to behave honestly and decently in situations that are not explicitly dealt with by the law. It seems that clarification of the rationale standing behind the commandments is necessary for us to be able to act "in the spirit of the law."

The RaMBaN does not only write in this vein in relation to ethical commandments. Consider his famous interpretation of the verse be holy (Vayikra 19:2):

The point is that while the Torah prohibited illicit sexual relationships and banned certain foods, it also permits intercourse between man and wife and the consumption of meat and wine. Thus, a voracious person can find room to be awash in sensuality with his wife or many wives, to be drunk with wine and stuffed with meat, and will speak as he wishes about all disgusting things, for there is no prohibition of this in the Torah. And so he shall be a scoundrel with the Torah's permission. That is why after delineating the absolute prohibitions Scripture came and commanded the general principle that we should limit ourselves regarding that which is permitted to us.

Only one who is involved with the rationale of commandments and identifies with it can behave "in the spirit of the law" and can avoid being "a scoundrel with the Torah's permission." For instance, it is possible to allow someone to perform heavy labor on Shabbat and the festivals, to allow them to lift heavy objects, since it is not included in the thirty-nine categories of work prohibited on Shabbat. True to his line of thought, the RaMBaN (on Vayikra 23:24) states: "We have been commanded by the Torah to rest on the festivals - even from activities that are not work [in the formal halakhic sense], i.e., not to labor all day measuring grain, weighing fruits and portions, and filing wine barrels, moving artifacts and stones from house to house and from place to place." Thus we find that according to the RaMBAN, a halakhic authority must pay attention to the spirit, as well as to the fine-print, of the law. Understanding of the "spirit of the law" depends, of course, on understanding the purpose of the law; it is this which allows the authority to correctly interpret the law.

Frequently, an explicit rationale is nowhere to be found, making the "spirit of the law" unclear as well. What is one to do when you do not know the way of the wind [ruah, also "spirit'] (Kohelet 11:5)? Such cases call for deep thought and great effort in order to try and determine the rationale and the "spirit of the law." Even after all honest efforts are exhausted, it may be that no man can control the spirit to capture the spirit (Kohelet 8:8), and the authority can never be sure that he understood correctly. Who can be certain that he has discerned the "spirit of the Lord" rather than the "spirit of falsehood"? This seems to be the source of the great debate over whether and to what extent we should "explicate the rationale of Scripture" (see Encyclopedia Talmudit on Ta'ama de'Kra). Nevertheless, there is no escaping hard decisions, as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein z"l wrote in the introduction to his collection of responsa, Igrot Moshe: "The Holy One blessed be He gave the Torah to Israel in order that they act in accordance with their understanding of the text and of that which was transmitted orally from Sinai as they understand it... even if it may not be God's own understanding."

Inspection of any Talmudic discussion will demonstrate that formulation of halakhic rulings is based upon an understanding of the rationale of the law; if the rationale changes - so does the ruling. The Beraita (Sotah 22a) refers to those who rule from the set laws of the Mishnah rather than from in-depth investigation are called "wearers-down" or "destroyers." There are some halakhic authorities who are aware of the rationale of the commandments - of the foundations of the law - but who not rise up to the higher plane of the meta-halakhah. Their decisions are not based upon the principles which guide the halakhah, both in its generalities, as well as in its particulars. In contrast to the many authorities of our day who have adopted a positivistic approach to halakhah and who ignore the "spirit of the law," the RaMBaN and the RaMBaM seem to have believed that the authority must take meta-halakhic concerns into account when formulating a decision.

Meta-halakhic arguments are made up of particular and general factors. Particular factors relate to each individual commandment, such as the principle of rest on Shabbat in the laws of Shabbat or of avoiding cruelty to animals in connection with the commandment of proper slaughter and of sending away the mother bird. General factors include: "Its ways are ways of pleasantness", "great is the dignity of human beings," "a scoundrel with the Torah's permission," "do what is upright and good," "the ways of peace." It appears that these two types of factors do not have any real standing as far as the current authorities are concerned. Unfortunately, many authorities prefer to adopt a positivistic approach and serve as a kind of halakhic technician. When these fundamental factors are not studied or taken into account, the Torah becomes a fraud.

Rabbi Dr. Aviad Stollman is the rabbi of the Zemer Ha'Zayit Congregation in Efrat.

 

 

Miriam died there, and she was buried there. Now there was no water for the community - The lack of water was punishment for not having properly eulogized Miriam. There Miriam died and there she was buried. And there was no water for the assembly. Regarding Moses and Aaron it is written and the children of Israel wept over them - here it does not say they wept over her; it says there Miriam died and there she was buried for at the place where she died, she was buried immediately, and forgotten, and her absence was not felt. Therefore, they were deprived of water, so that they would learn - after the fact - that the well existed thanks to Miriam's merit. The Sages taught that the report of her death was placed next to the chapter of the [red] heifer, to teach us that just as sacrifices atone, so the death of the righteous atones. Why was it placed next to the heifer chapter in particular? Because the heifer is not really a sacrifice, even though the Torah terms it a hattat - a sin offering. But the main point is that just as the heifer comes to to clean it's calf's feces, (the heifer atones for the sin of the Golden Calf), so the righeous woman, mother of living, cleansed the filth of her children upon her death.

(Kli Yakar, Bemidbar 20:1-2)

 

The fountain which was hewn from the rock at Horev provided not only the needs of the immediate hour, but it accompanied the Children of Israel throughout the duration of their wilderness trek. That is the reason we hear no more complaints about lack of water. But now, immediately after Miriam's demise, the fountain dries up, and the community which saw itself for the first time as "the assembly of the future" lacks the basic requirement for continued existence: And there was no water for the community. Regarding the juxtaposition of And there Miriam died with And there was no water for the assembly the Talmud (Ta'anit 9a) states "The well - [existed] in Miriam's merit." The well which accompanied them from Horev through the wilderness was given them in Miriam's merit. Miriam's quiet activity on behalf of the nation's moral future now became public knowledge. Her death was a national loss, and this became evident following her death, when the waters of the Horev well ceased to flow.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Bamidbar 20:2)

 

They have built shrines to Baal, to put their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal - which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind.

 (Jeremiah 19:5)

 

R. Shemuel bar Nahmani said in the name of R. Yonatan: Three made improper requests, two received proper responses, and one received a harsh response. They are: Eliezer, servant to Abraham; Saul son of Kish, and Yiftah the Gileadi.

Eliezer, servant to Abraham - for it is written: and the maiden to whom I say ‘Lower your jar, etc." (Bereishit 24). Even if she was crippled or blind? But He responded properly, and brought him Rebecca.

Saul son of Kish - for it is written: The man who kills him [Goliath] will be rewarded by the king with great riches; he will also give him his daughter (I Samuel 17). Even if he is a slave or a bastard? But He responded properly, and sent him David.

Yiftah the Gileadi - for it is written: And whatsoever leaves the door of my house, etc (Judges 11). Even an unclean thing? He answered him harshly, and sent his daughter. This is as the prophet said to Israel Is there no balm in Gilead? Can no physician be found there? (Jeremiah 8). And it is written: Which I did not command, and of which I did not speak, and which did not enter my mind (Jeremiah 19). Which I did not command - that is the son of Misha, King of Moav, for it is said, and he took his firstborn son who was to rule after him, and offered him up as a burnt offering (II Kings 3); and of which I did not speak - that was Yiftah; and which did not enter my mind - that is Abraham's son Isaac.

(Ta'anit 4a)

 

Yiftah is not to be regarded as a national hero. His deed is not to be admired as one of self-sacrifice and greatness prompted by patriotic feeling. It was a cruel and unwarranted deed. We may rely on our Sages who saw him as an ignorant and unlettered person, a boor, empty, and rash. Enthusiasm by itself is no guarantee of the desirability of a cause. Enthusiasm that is not backed by conscience and the self-discipline of Torah is liable to bring disaster. "What caused Yiftah to take the life of his own daughter? His failure to read and understand Torah."

(Studies in Bamidbar by Nehama Leibowitz, tr. A. Newman, p.279.)

 

 

 

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