Time, and a Plan, Make All the Difference

Parshat Chukat

by Rabbi Avi Billet

It’s incredible what time can do to a person’s maturation process, in how a person deals with adversity. O – and how having a strategy can also help a person cope with the curveballs of life.

Of course, not having a strategy is what separates the proverbial “men from the boys” in seeing how people deal with life-challenges “in the moment," when a plan can’t be put into effect because no plan exists.

In Bamidbar 20, we see a situation that we’ve seen before: the people complain because they have no water to drink. In the past, we’ve seen Moshe’s response to this kind of complaining has spanned from crying out to God (Shmot 15:25) to getting into a fight with the people (Shmot 17:2) to thinking he was going to be killed (Shmot 17:4). And after the infamous rock incident in this chapter (20), we’ll see Moshe ignore the people completely in 21:5-6 when they complain about lack of water again.

So what is the strategy that is so helpful to Moshe in Bamidbar 20? The strategy is what we saw in two places in last week’s Torah portion. The first was in 17:3-5 when Elazar was instructed to hammer out the copper fire pans and attach them to the altar “as a sign and remembrance” to people who are not Kohanim not to encroach into places they do not belong. The second was Aharon’s blossomed staff that was "to be placed near the Ark to serve as a testimony to those who rebel." (17:25-26)

We do not see challenges to Aharon’s role in the Torah, nor do we see challenges to Moshe’s role, on par with Korach’s rebellion. But we do see similar affronts to Moshe’s leadership when there is no water. And here, unlike at the last episode in Shmot 17, we watch as the water dispute does not lead to a fight between Moshe and the people.

Instead of taking the complaint personally, as he did in the past, Moshe knows all he needs to do is produce Aharon’s blossomed staff, the symbol that is meant to put down insurrection and stop rebellion, and the people will remember what happened with Korach, and they will back down.

And that’s exactly what happened. God tells Moshe to take out the staff, which turns out to be the one that was “before God as God had commanded him” (20:9)

And the strategy would have worked, had Moshe not felt the need to say what he said in 20:10. Because all that was needed was the sign/symbol and the people would have looked, seen the staff, and remembered to back down. This should have been the result of Moshe's having grown on the job, having had the experience of time lead him in the direction of non-confrontation, as well as God's plan to rule the day.

So what went wrong here?

Moshe followed God’s instruction, but he let his emotions get the better of him. Even the best-laid strategies can’t cover for every contingency plan.

One major difference here is that while the people fought with Moshe in Shmot, it is clear here that they are fighting with God (20:13) (this may help us understand why the complaint in Chapter 21 goes in the direction it goes, with the snakes unleashing God’s wrath against complainers).

There is no question that had Moshe followed the plan of bringing the staff out and showing it, waiting for the people to process what they were to glean from seeing it, this story would have panned out differently. But when Moshe chastised the people as well, with all the implications his words included, his fate was somehow sealed.

We need to have plans for the challenges life will present, hopefully with the ability to anticipate the twists of any circumstance. People who have aging parents, or parents with declining health need to have a plan. While it is not easy to decide where a person wants to be buried, making such decisions (and paying for them in advance) eases a tremendous burden off of loved ones. What happens in the case of an unanticipated accident – where do the children go? How are they to be raised? Who will take responsibility?

Can each spouse manage alone – because inevitably one person will be widowed? Is there a plan for how to cope, how to deal with the loneliness? Will children be involved in keeping the widowed parent occupied and looked after when that time comes?

Part of the problem Moshe and Aharon faced in this story is that they seemed unprepared for the death of their sister. Remember that she died immediately before this story, and Alshikh notes the devastation they were dealing with at the time that the people came to complain about lack of water. 

Even the most exceptional human beings have weak spots. Moshe’s planning did not anticipate his weak points – the loneliness that came from the loss of his sister, the inability to let God’s strategy of showing the staff work itself out, and the inability to restrain himself from giving a rebuke at the same time as he was giving water to the people.

May our lot be to create strategies for challenging times and to implement them in the most effective ways.