Parashat Hukkat: The pitfalls of leadership

Parshat Chukat includes a number of inexplicable things, including the hok par excellence—the Law of the Red Heifer, a mysterious ritual that cleanses a person of the impurity of being in the presence of the dead. On a simplistic level, a hok is a decree enacted by a higher authority, in contrast to a mishpat which is an ordinance that is in accordance with human values. The ritual of the Red Heifer is not rational, and yet, its observance is defined in great detail. It has been held up by many as the example of the supra-rational observance.

But there is something else in our parashah that seems to defy explanation, at least at first glance. We read that the wandering tribes reached a place where there was no food nor water. And something extraordinary takes place.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the Israelites had faced such a situation. And, as in previous cases. God tells Moshe to take up his staff of office—the same staff that he used at the very outset of his role—and “go fix it”:

A happy ending, no? As on previous occasions, the people clamored for help in a crisis, and God brought about a miracle for them. And yet, this time was different.

And to drive the point home…

But what did Moshe do wrong? And why so harsh a punishment? Hadn’t he been told to take the staff along and “bring forth water from the rock”?

Where did Moshe go wrong?

Commentators have been at pains to explain just what Moshe’s sin was. Rashi says that it was that he struck the stone instead of only speaking to it, as God had instructed. But of course, this doesn’t really answer the question of why striking the rock was the wrong thing to do.

In many places in the Torah, we find that a particular episode dialogs with a similar story told elsewhere in the text. This incident too, speaks to a parallel narrative told earlier, in Sh’mot (17:5-7). In that instance, Moshe struck the rock to bring forth water, and nothing was said about this being the wrong thing to do.

Here, God explicitly tells Moshe to strike the rock in front of the people’s representatives.  What’s more, here it is the people who are depicted as not believing that God was in their midst. So what is different in our parashah?

The Rambam (Maimonides) gives another explanation: Moshe lost his temper, and said, “Listen now, you rebels.” But Moshe had said worse things to, and about, the people elsewhere.

Of course, one could argue that Moshe simply failed to follow instructions; he was told to speak to the rock, and instead, he struck it. But was that error enough to condemn Moshe (and Aharon, who had nothing to do with it!) to death in the wilderness?

The Ramban (Nahmanides) points out these weaknesses of the previous explanations: God told Moshe to take along his staff, implying that he was supposed to strike the stone (as in the parallel story in Exodus). And of course, there are other occasions where Moshe is portrayed in a fit of temper (cf. BaMidbar 31:14), and we don’t find that he was punished for it. In addition, our parashah explicitly states that Moshe was punished for a lack of trust—not disobedience or anger. Nachmanides explains that the problem here is that Moshe said, “Shall we get you water out of this rock?” when he should have attributed the miracle solely to God.

Only one problem: God explicitly said to Moshe that he (Moshe) is to bring forth water from the rock: “You shall bring forth water from the rock”. So where exactly did Moshe go wrong?

Kiddush Hashem and the public good

A midrash provides a hint of the answer:

This then is the heart of the matter. In the parallel story, Moshe struck the rock in front of the chosen representatives of the people. It was a private matter, for their eyes only. They could be trusted to understand that Moshe was not himself working a miracle, but that God was doing the heavy lifting.

But in our parashah, the entire assembly is watching. Had Moshe merely spoken to the rock, as he’d been told, only those closest to him would have heard him. To those standing further off, it would simple seem as if when Moshe approached the rock, water came out of it. Because he was their representative, it would look like the rock was giving water for them. The people—all of them, not just the elders—would see that neither Moshe, nor his staff, is performing magic, and would attribute the miracle to God alone.

But Moshe loses patience and hits the rock with the staff, thereby teaching exactly the opposite lesson. Even those farther away see water spurt out of the rock, seemingly as a result of Moshe’s forceful action. By setting up a situation where his people see him as a magician, Moshe has set himself up to be worshiped. The elders may understand what really happened, but there will inevitably be superstitious types who want only to find a miracle-worker to follow.

And so, Moshe’s punishment is that he will die in the desert, and not enter the land of Israel. He will have no marked grave that could become a shrine and the center of a cult. The punishment fits the crime, and mitigates the impact of Moshe’s mistake.

Leadership lessons

Some important lessons come from the dialog of this story with the parallel one in Exodus:

• Leaders are judged by their actions, and must be aware not only of what they do, but also what people will take away from their example. They must act in such a way that their actions lift people up, rather than giving them excuses for base behavior. Actions matter!
• A good leader knows how to play to the people in the back rows. What looks like a miracle to those in the front row, looks like magic to those in the back rows. Perspective matters!
• And, of course, a leader is to be held accountable for his or her actions, and the greater the leader, the more harshly he will be held to account. The more people look to you as their leader, the more you can influence people for good or evil. Reputation matters!

In the end, Moshe did not teach the lesson that he was called upon to teach in that moment. Instead, God stepped in and provided the lesson more directly. And there’s surely a lesson in that!