Parashat Chukat-Balak 5769--Standing at the rock

My mother-in-law, who lives in Israel, recently spent a month visiting Tali and me here in Los Angeles. Yael is a successful immigration lawyer and her job requires long hours and hard work. A familiar story. The time she spent with us here was focused on renewal. And so, almost spontaneously, she decided to fill her hours by writing her life story.

For almost four weeks, Yael was chained to her computer. One night, during dinner, she let us know that she had put the life story down in pursuit of a simpler goal. She would write a 140 character story. A microstory.

The idea of the microstory comes from twitter, which forces users to limit their messages to 140 characters. An impossible task? Yael told us that the great author, Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story, which he called his best story, in only six words, “For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”

The idea of the microstory came to my mind as I read this week’s double Torah portion Chukat Balak.

In this week’s parashah, the Israelites are complaining of thirst. God commands Moses to assemble the people Israel. God tells Moses to hold up his staff and “speak to a stone.” From this stone, God promises, water will flow out and quench the thirst of the stiff necked people. God says, speak to the stone. And inexplicably, Moses doesn’t. Or he can’t. Or he won’t.

In any event, Moses disobeys, he smashes the stone twice with his staff.

Water comes forth. The Israelites drink.

And God tells Moses he will not enter the Promised Land because of it.

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A few years ago, I spent a summer teaching at a Jewish preschool. During my first day on the job, I learned the sentence that every early childhood educator must know: “Use your words.” A child approaches crying, inconsolable and the teacher responds, “Jacob, use your words.” A child grabs a toy from another student, and the teacher responds, “Erin, use your words.” A child stamps her foot in frustration and the teacher cooes, “Naomi, use your words.”

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Use your words. Hemingway did it in six. A microstory develops in 140. And Moses, our great teacher and leader, fails to utter even one.

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As a young man, Moses witnessed deep injustice. We know this story. He saw an Egyptian taskmaster strike an Israelite slave. He looked left and right and mirrored the violent act, striking and killing the Egyptian taskmaster. No words. Action.

The next day, Moses witnessed a second injustice, two Hebrew slaves fighting. He approached them and asked “Why do you strike your fellow.” The Israelite responded, “Who made you chief over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened. He realized that his secret was out and he fled. No words. Action.

Moses fled to Midian and there God approached him in a burning bush. God told Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.”

Moses replied, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…Please, Adonai, I have never been a man of words.” Moses knew himself. He was not a person of words.

But God was insistent. God said, “Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, Adonai? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.” God believed that he could change Moses. That he could make him a man of words.

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I wonder if Moses reflected on this exchange as he stood by the beaten rock, the flowing water, his brother, his people. Moses struck the rock, water flowed out, and God said, “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.”

Did God get it right? Was this really about mistrust? Or a negation of sanctity? Or was this about something much more fundamental. Moses’ inability to change. And God’s inability to teach him.

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What might Moses have said to the rock if he would have spoken?

140 characters? Six words?

140 characters: I am tired. The people won’t stop moaning. My sister is dead. They’ve risen against me twice. Give me water. Give me silence. Promised Land.

Six words: Stark desert. Desperate people. Water, please.

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“Use your words.”

God gets it wrong this time. There is no divine cure for Moses. God can tell Moses, use your words. But the command is where it ends. The speech—the growth, the change, the evolution—was up to Moses.

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Ecclesiastes tells us, “a time for silence and a time for speaking.”

But, in the end, this week’s parashah is not only about speech and silence. It is about Moses facing the rock. And rising above his own limitations. Or not. It is about realizing full potential, or missing the moment.

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And so it is for us, each one of us here. We too have found ourselves, or find ourselves, or will find ourselves in the desert. Wandering. This is the nature of existence.

We too have limitations. Limitations that repeat themselves. Again and again, aspects of ourselves that hold us back. That we seek to change.

And we too will be called upon again and again to stand before our own rock. We will have our own opportunities to rise above our limitations. Or not. For us, the Promised Land is still so very much a possibility.

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And so my prayer for us this Shabbat is simple. “Still yet, sweet water…will flow.” Six words. Shabbat Shalom.