Parashat Chukat: What Was So Bad About Hitting the Rock?

Moshe was perhaps the holiest of all men and yet, one mistake of hitting the rock took away his lifelong dream of going to Eretz Yisrael. What was so bad about hitting the rock? This is further complicated by the fact that in Parashat Beshalach Hashem told Moshe to hit the rock. What changed?

My Rabbi, Rabbi Moshe Weinberger in his sefer Sparks from the Fire has an amazing approach to help us understand what went wrong for Moshe. To start with, the Torah itself does not really explain what was bad about hitting the rock. We need the commentaries to help glean an inside look. There is a dispute between the Rambam and Rashi, with Rambam suggesting that it wasn’t the hitting of the rock that was so bad, but rather it was Moshe had excessive anger. This is expressed when he says, “Listen you rebels” (20:12). Rashi, however, says that Moshe hitting the rock was a clear act of disobeying Hashem after being instructed to speak to the rock.

The Maharal, however, suggests that the Rambam and Rashi actually do not disagree at all, but each was speaking about a different stage in the process. The process began with Moshe getting angry and that led to him hitting the rock.

Rabbi Weinberger says an amazing thing to tie this together all based on the premise that Hashem speaks to every generation through the Torah as if it were given to us today.  In Parashat Beshalach, the setting is a Jewish people who were thirsty and began to complain to Moshe. Moshe was afraid they would kill him and so Hashem said to hit the rock. Water came out and everything was in order. So what changed in Parashat Chukat? This was a new generation. The previous generation had left Mitzrayim who had grown up as slaves, people familiar with force and harshness. In kind, Moshe used force to get to the water. But our Parasha is 40 years later with a generation of people who have grown up in the desert with all of their needs provided for by Hashem They were a softer generation, one who didn’t understand force, but rather, understood speech and dialogue. This is why Moshe was told to speak to the rock and not to hit it.

There is an important lesson for us in parenting, in how we speak and direct our children. Our parents and grandparents grew up in a different world than the one our children are growing up in. Our parents lived through war, depression and hardship. That generation also educated the children with a sense of harshness and discipline. But that heavy-handed approach does not work in our children’s generation, who have grown up a softer, less intense world. If we were to educate them with old tactics, it would not work at best, and at worst it would shatter them.

Perhaps now we can understand Moshe’s mistake. Moshe hit the rock the same as he had done 40 years earlier. On his very lofty level he did not appreciate that the new generation had to be treated differently. He didn’t realize that this generation needed a gentle approach, one of speech and communication, not of force and hitting. Rabbi Weinberger explains that Moshe not getting into Eretz Yisrael was not a punishment, but more of a natural consequence of him not being able to understand and lead the next generation into Israel successfully.