Parshat Chukat  9 Tammuz 5761, 30 June 2001

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - And the Lord spoke to Moses saying:

"Take the staff and gather the Congregation...you shall speak to the rock before their eyes and it will give the waters...". (Numbers 20 verses 7 & 8)

Rabbeinu Tzadok of Lublin known as the Pri Zadik suggests an interpretation which is extremely relevant to every leader of the Jewish people. In almost Freudian terms of dream interpretations, this great chasidic sage attaches symbolic meaning to the divine command. The rock (sela) represents the nation of Israel, a people already described by the Bible numerous times as a "hard necked nation" (am k'shei oref), hard as a rock. This description is both positive and negative; hard- neckedness results in stubbornness as well as in stick-to-itivenesss. The goal of the leader of Israel is to extract the Torah from this very unique nation, the Torah which is its birthright and ultimate mission-and water symbolizes Torah. Water is called by the bible "life giving waters" and Torah is our eternal tree of life; moreover, our Sages teach us that just as we cannot live without water for three days, so it is that the Jewish nation cannot live without Torah for three days. It is for this reason that we have a public reading of the Torah at least three times a week, Mondays, Thursdays and Sabbaths.

After Rabbeinu Tzadok has set down his symbolism, the message of the Divine command becomes very clear. G-d is telling Moses to use his staff of leadership and kingship in order to speak to his hard-necked nation, to speak to them and not strike them, to persuade them and not to overpower them. This is an especially poignant message for Moses after the sin of scouts, when he failed to convince his people concerning the importance of the land of Israel and to prepare them for the necessity of conquest.

But the Almighty is not only speaking to Moses; He is speaking to every future leader of Israel. The Hebrew word for leader is Dabar, which is built from the verb dbr which means to speak. The Hebrew word midbar, translated as desert, is actually the "place of the word", the locus from whence the speech of G-d - the Bible - was communicated to Israel. G-d himself spoke to us with words, providing a model of verbal influence rather than physical power.

The Pri-Zadik goes even one step further. Speech is the medium of the Oral Law the Torah b'shel b'aal peh (the Torah of the mouth) as contrasted with the Written Law the Torah shel b'ktav. The Sacred Zohar, the mystical interpretation of the Bible, calls the Oral Law the law of softness and compassion (Dina d'rafia), whereas the written Law is the Law of exactitude and harshness (dina d'takfa). Hence, although the Written Law often provides the death penalty as the proper punishment for a manifold crime, the Oral Law insists that no circumstantial evidence ever be accepted in capital cases: two witnesses must not only see the crime itself, but must also warn the would be criminal about the severity of the act he is about to commit. This leads the Mishna (Oral Law) to exclaim that any Israeli court which put a criminal to death once in 70 years was called a murderous court, with Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon both maintaining that they would never give anyone the death penalty. (Babylonian Talmud Makot 7A). In a similar vain although the Written Law states "an eye for an eye" the Oral Law provides for monetary compensation. From this perspective, G-d's command to Moses that he speak and not strike, is a divine dictate that the Jewish leader engage his people with the love of the Oral Law rather than enforce the strictness of the Written Law.

There is one final element characteristic of the Law of the Word or the Oral Law. The Written Law was given by G-d; it is the divine mandate emanating from above. The Oral Law may be divinely rooted, but it includes the human commentary, interpretations and enactments of the religio legal leaders of every generation. It represents a partnership between the divine and human, the involvement of the committed Jewish people within the process of the development of our juris prudence. The Almighty is telling Moses that he must use the speech of the Oral Law to involve the people themselves in forging those laws, rituals and customs which comprise our unique Jewish lifestyle and eternal Jewish values. As every good parent and teacher knows, only when the students as well as the representatives of the next generation are themselves involved in deciding, as well as in completing the ideology and the program which is to be followed that they take "ownership" and become truly committed. When Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to the rock, he sadly demonstrated that he could no longer lead his people into the next stage of their necessary development: a partnership with G-d in creating a Torah of life which would bring redemption to Israel and the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

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