What Really Happened at Mei Meriva?

It is one of the most mysterious and enigmatic stories in the Torah. We know the outcome: Moshe is barred from entering the Land of Israel. We know the technical chronology of events: The people are thirsty. Hashem tells Moshe to bring forth water from a rock by speaking to it. Instead, Moshe hits the rock and water flows forth. Then Hashem tells Moshe (and Aharon) that they missed an opportunity to sanctify God’s Name, and therefore they would not be allowed to enter the Land of Israel. But the question on everyone’s mind is: How could this happen? And why did this happen? There are hundreds (if not more) answers to this question and a similar number of approaches to this episode. Rashi suggests that while bringing forth water by hitting a rock is also a big miracle, Hashem wanted the miracle to occur specifically through speech to teach Bnei Yisrael the lesson that if even a rock listens to Hashem and His messengers, how much more so should each of us similarly listen to Hashem and Moshe. While it may seem like a minor deviation from the Divine plan, it was considered to be a major infraction for righteous individuals such as Moshe and Aharon. When I was a child this idea was explained to me by way of a parable about dirty shirts. If you’re wearing a red shirt and get a ketchup stain on it you may be able to continue your day without going home to change, because the stain can blend in with the color of the shirt. This is not the case if your white short gets stained. While for most people hitting the rock would be like getting ketchup on our red shirt, for Moshe and Aharon it was more severe: like getting a stain on a white shirt.

Another approach to the Mei Meriva episode is offered by the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893), the last head of the Volozhin Yeshiva. The Netziv begins by noting that this episode took place after the Jews had been in the Midbar already for 39 years. During their time in the desert, Bnei Yisrael lived a life supported by overt miracles: protective clouds, a pillar of fire GPS system, manna from heaven, and a miraculous well that accompanied their journey in the merit of Miriam. Upon entry to Israel, the Jews would have to learn how to survive without these obvious miracles. Israel does not have a river upon which to rely for water, like Egypt has the Nile. If you need water in Israel you have to hope for rain; or more precisely, you have to pray for rain. In order to help wean the people off of overt miracles, Hashem told Moshe to speak to the rock, but what He really wanted Moshe to teach the people was the importance of speaking to The Rock ie praying to Hashem for our needs. For whatever reason Moshe felt that the people were not ready to appreciate the power of prayer to bring about hidden miracles. So when the moment arrived, Moshe utilized his staff to bring forth water. As we know from Sefer Shemot, Moshe’s staff was the vehicle through which big, supernatural miracles happen. In so doing, Moshe missed out on an opportunity to teach the people an important lesson about prayer, a lesson that remains important for us today. The power of prayer is part of the natural order. Prayer is not something that we should consider miraculous. Rather, we should view tefilah as one of the ways in which we put in our effort, our hishtadlut, with the hopes that these efforts, both physical and spiritual, will be blessed by Hashem and met with success.