Does A Rock Feel Pain?

There was a teacher known for his constant preaching about the need to nurture children with warmth and love. One time he noticed some children who were playing in the freshly laid concrete outside his newly renovated home, their little feet leaving lasting impressions. He became irritated and started chastising the children.

A congregant asked, "How can you, a person who devoted his entire life to teaching warmth to children, speak this way?" To which the rabbi replied: "You must understand. I love children in the abstract, not the concrete."  

At last, the moment had arrived. For 40 years they had wandered together in a wilderness. Most of the older generation had already passed on. By now, the young nation of Israel was finally ready to enter the Promised Land, under the leadership of Moses. However, an incident occurred that would transform the nation's destiny.

"The congregation had no water," the weekly Torah portion Chukat relates, the people quarreled with Moses, saying, 'If only we had died with the death of our brothers before the Lord. Why have you taken us out of Egypt to bring us to this bad place; it is not a place for seeds or fig trees, grapevines, or pomegranate trees, and there is no water to drink…'

"G-d spoke to Moses, 'Take the staff and assemble the congregation, and speak to the rock in their presence so that it will give forth its water. You shall bring forth water for them from the rock,  and give the congregation and their livestock to drink.'

"Moses took the staff from before the Lord and had assembled the congregation in front of the rock, and he said to them, 'Now listen, you rebels, can we draw water for you from this rock?' 

"Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice when an abundance of water gushed forth, and the congregation and their livestock drank.

"G-d said to Moses, 'Since you did not have faith in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly to the Land which I have given them.'"

What exactly was Moses' sin? What did he do wrong? G-d instructed them to produce water from a rock and quench the thirst of the people. This they did. Why were they penalized?

G-d told Moses to speak to the rock. Instead, Moses struck the rock.  This error of Moses prevented him from entering the Holy Land. Yet, this explanation leaves us with many questions. Here are a few of them.

1) What compelled Moses to make the change? Why did he strike it if G-d instructed him to speak to the rock? 

2) Why did Moses need to strike the rock twice before it would emit abundant water? If G-d did not allow the water to come out after the first blow because it was contrary to His will, why did He allow it to flow after the second blow?

Forty years earlier, shortly after the Egyptian exodus, a similar incident occurred. But in that instance, G-d told Moses to strike the rock.

Why did G-d indeed change His position? What is the reason that in the first incident, G-d instructed Moses to strike the rock, while in the second incident, He insisted on verbal communication? And the difference must have been so colossal -- as to jeopardize Moses'

"I am a rock," goes the famous ballad. "A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries." How do you open a sealed heart? Do you smite it or do you speak to it? Do you impact the rock by force, or do you negotiate with it verbally, attempting to explain, persuade, and enlighten? 

When the Jewish people departed from Egypt after decades of physical and psychological oppression, they were slaves. Recall Moses' cry to G-d shortly after the Exodus "What shall I do for this people? Just a little longer and they will stone me!'"

There is a critical difference between slaves and free human beings. Slaves respond to orders. Free people do not. They must be educated, informed, instructed, and inspired – if not, they will not internalize the message and will never make it their own. Slave masters compel obedience through the stick, either literally or figuratively.

Free human beings must not be struck. They respond, not to power but to persuasion. They need to be spoken to. The difference between G-d’s command then and now ("strike the rock" vs. "speak to the rock") represented the souls of two different generations: Jews who grew up in slavery and Jews who grew up in freedom. You strike a slave but speak to a free person.

The generation that departed Egypt possessed extraordinarily lofty souls, never to be repeated in our history. They are the founders of Jewish nationhood, the only generation to experience G-d face-to-face and enjoy His miracles for forty years. Their inner light was infinite, but the outer "rock" had to be cracked. The "hard skin" they developed over 210 years in slavery, needed to be penetrated before its inner vibrant and fresh waters could be discovered. That is why, immediately after the Exodus, G-d instructed Moses to strike the rock. At this point in Jewish history, smiting the "rock" was appropriate, indeed critical. 

We all have moments in our lives when our hearts are in jail when we are so emotionally numb that we need a tough wake-up call, to break through the dense husks we created to protect ourselves from pain, love, and truth. 

Forty years later, their children and grandchildren, born and raised in liberty and a highly spiritual environment, developed a sense of self quite different from their parents and grandparents. Forty years in the wilderness, in the presence of Moses, Aaron, and divine miracles, the nation had spiritually matured.

But suddenly, they, too, began to lament and kvetch about a lack of water. This new generation of Jews asks only for water, not for meat or other delicacies. They do not express their craving to return to Egypt. Nor do they wish to stone Moses. They are terrified of the prospect of death by thirst. G-d was sensitive to the nuanced distinctions. He commanded Moses to speak to the rock, rather than strike it. "Now you must speak to it, teach it a chapter of Torah and it will produce water." The Jews have come a long way.

The model of smiting must be replaced with the model of teaching and inspiring. At that critical juncture, Moses was unable to metamorphose himself. Moses, who came to identify so deeply with the generation he painstakingly liberated from Egyptian genocide and slavery and worked incessantly for their development as a free and holy people, could not assume a new model of leadership. Moses, calling the people "rebels," struck the rock. He continued to employ the former method. And he struck it twice because when you attempt to change things through pressure, rather than persuasion, you must always do it more than once.

Because of Moses' profound love and attachment to that generation — about whom he told G-d, that should He not forgive them, He could erase Moses' name from the Torah Moses did not abandon his connection to them even now.

That is why G-d told Moses, "You did not have faith in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel." Instead of trusting G-d's assessment of the new generation, and exposing their elevated spiritual status, instead of trusting G-d who trusted the people, believing in their potential to get it on their own, Moses diminished their consciousness. Moses' place, it turned out, was in the desert with his beloved people, these heroic souls who began the march from slavery to freedom.

The fact that Moses was not destined to enter the promised land was not a punishment, but the result of the truth that he belonged to the generation that left Egypt.

Leaders, parents, and educators must always understand and feel of their generation. There is a time when you strike the rock, and there is a time when you must talk to the rock. 

To be sure, discipline is vital. It fosters self-confidence and responsibility, but only when it follows genuine love, safety, and attachment. If my child and student do not feel understood, celebrated, cherished, and safe, all forms of emotional striking might cause the rock to retreat behind heavier layers of rockness. You defeat your objective. 

When the opportunity is ripe for love and respect, when you see that you can change reality through empathy, enlightenment, and seeing the infinite light stored inside the rock, you must employ this path with the same vigor and passion. Only then can you mold a generation ready to change the world and enter their Promised Land. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky