In this week's Torah reading, Parshat Hukat, the Israelites find themselves at a crossroads. For the past several parshiot, we have read of the frustration and disappointment the people expressed in their freedom and in their leaders, Moses and Aaron. Numerous times, they have wondered whether they would have been better off remaining as slaves in Egypt. Here they are, wandering in the desert, not exactly sure where they have been or to where they are going. Behind them lies a vast desert. In front of them awaits hostile peoples who have no interest in helping the reach the promised land. Moreover, they have already been told that their generation will not be granted passage into the land. And, if that was enough, there's a shortage of food and water. At the same time, they are just on the edge of a major metamorphosis from which their legacy of nationhood will be formed. And so, they find themselves literally and figuratively caught between a rock and a hard place. They are stuck. They can't go back to where they once were, nor can they envision their path forward. Moreover, they risk dying of thirst because they have no water.
As the Torah describes, Moses' sister, Miriam, dies and the people can no longer find water. (Numbers 20:1-2) The midrash describes that the lack of water is the direct result of Miriam's death. Rabbi Yosi, the son of Rabbi Yehuda, explains that as long as Miriam lived, God graced Israel with a well (a mystical spring) that accompanied them throughout the desert. It is this transportable well that quenched the Israelites' thirst through their wanderings in the desert. As long as Miriam was alive, Israel did not thirst physically or spiritually. After Miriam's death, the people experienced an intense physical thirst and an even more intense spiritual thirst. In Miriam's death is reflected their hopelessness and a disbelief in God. How can hope emerge from despair?
Only verses later, the situation becomes even more grave. Since leaving the persecution of Egypt, the Israelites have grown accustomed to Moses, Aaron and Miriam leading them through the desert. Aaron transfers his priestly role to his son Eleazar and then dies. (Numbers 20:22-29) Moreover, acting on their behalf, Moses has been the intercessor and intermediator between the people and God. In a very controversial and disturbing way, Moses, too, loses his grounding, apparently abandoning both the people and God at Meriba (in Hebrew, Meriba means a "quarrel" or a "dispute") when he fails to follow God's instructions by choosing to hit the rock instead of speaking to it to draw water for the people. Despite Moses' defiance toward God, water still flowed out of the rock. The Israelites drank the water and as the Torah describes, both God and the people were sanctified.
By choice or by force these very troubling experiences seem to transform the Israelite people and open the doors to a new connection with God. It is not by chance that the name of the place where Israel stayed was called Kadesh, which means "to make holy." Kadesh is the place where the transformation of Israel begins--Miriam dies, the well dries up, the nation thirsts, and the new generation starts the process of acquiring independence.
For the first time since leaving Egypt, the new generation was provided for directly from God and not from Miriam, Aaron, or Moses. At that moment the new generation understood that God had a direct relationship with them and that water/spirituality was not transmitted via spiritual leaders alone. In this parshah we learn that the older generation must allow their children to create their own relationship with God. In every generation God must renew the covenant directly with the Jewish people. Likewise, every Jew must create his or her own covenant with God. Moreover, it can often be in the most unlikely places that we undergo our own spiritual transformations.
Allow me to share a personal experience of one of my first 'rabbinic moments' which occurred several years ago in a summer internship I did in Texas. I met an incredible woman whose confrontation with such a "hard place" which bore what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles, experienced the hope and light of God's miraculous presence. Over a period of a few brief weeks, this woman endured surgery to remove a second bout of cancer, felt the short-lived promise of recovery, and suffered the onset of pneumonia which led to an infection in her lung. When I visited her in the hospital last, I listened as she told me how she was tired of fighting and was not sure she could do so for much longer. Though I hoped she would not give up the fight to live, I cannot say I would have blamed her after all she had been through.
In the next moment, something very profound and heartwarming occurred. She mentioned to me how sad she was that she had not been able to light Shabbat candles for several weeks because of the electronic wires on the patches attached to her body. She spoke of the connection that the light of the Shabbat candles gave her to her family and to God. Being that the next day was Friday, I offered to bring her electronic candles that could be plugged in for Shabbat and over which she could say the blessings and enjoy the light of Shabbat even while in the hospital. This knowledge alone seemed to cause a transformation in her attitude, but unbeknownst to me it would become even more illumined.
I went back to the synagogue and began asking everyone where I could find such a pair (I knew they existed because I had seen them in hospitals in NY). No one knew what I was talking about and some probably even thought I was being a little too sentimental. So, I called LA and had them shipped overnight. By the time, I took them to her on Friday, she had unfortunately had to have her lung removed and she was unconscious and near death. Her daughter and I decided that when Shabbat came, they should go ahead and light the candles so that if her mom did open her eyes she would see them and hopefully find hope and encouragement. She did open her eyes that Shabbat, and she did see thel light of the Shabbat candles and even more miraculously, her health improved and within a short time she was off life support, out of ICU, and in her own room in the hospital - all in less than one week.
The lesson of this story is the same of that of this week's Torah portion. Sometimes, just as we are ready to give up out of frustration, outrage, or disappointment, we can be awakened to the possibility for transformation and transcendence just as water flowed from a rock for our ancestors so many years ago. Ken yehi ratzon - so may it be for each of us and all of us.