Chukat-Balak: Grief and Anger

Rabbi Shai Held, "When Everything Looks the Same: Moshe's Failure," https://www.hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/when-everything-looks-same-moshes-failure

An appropriate response in one situation may be totally unacceptable in another. Emotional wisdom and maturity depend on the capacity to distinguish between two experiences that may seem similar on the surface but are in fact quite different.

What exactly underlies Moses’ and Aaron’s failure?

When patterns of behavior emerge, it is extremely easy to fall into a trap: We assume that what is happening now is just another instance of what has already happened countless times before. We too quickly conclude that the people we are dealing with are behaving “as they always do,” and as a result, we stop taking them seriously. [...] When we become jaded and impatient, we lose the ability (or willingness) to see the uniqueness of the situation before us. When we assume that everything is familiar, we forfeit the capacity to respond appropriately, in a way that God and the moment call for. “The accumulated anger and frustration of forty years bear down on Moses” and he simply cannot see or hear the people anymore. He is so incensed, and so emotionally frayed, that, the Torah subtly indicates, he cannot really hear God anymore either.

And so, tragic as the situation is, God realizes that God must find someone else—because when all is said and done, you cannot lead people you disdain, and you cannot guide people you can no longer even really see. According to Numbers, what God still has, but Moses has lost, is the ability to respond empathically even to this stiffnecked people. When anger crowds out the possibility of empathy, it is time for a new leader.

Rabbi Marianne Novak, "Parshat Chukat-Balak," https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/335368.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

In the summer of 1989, after graduating from Barnard College in New York City, I moved to St. Louis to attend law school at Washington University. I rented an apartment and bought a car. On a particularly hot summer day, I went to get my new car registered. At the time, the registration process was quite cumbersome and involved going back and forth to two different offices to get certifications. Being the ever so savvy ex-New Yorker, I thought this system was completely ridiculous and I let one particular clerk know exactly how I felt—basically screaming at her. It was a mode of behavior that I had employed, sadly, many times when I lived in New York. I would yell at a clerk, the clerk would yell back, and then we would come to some sort of resolution. But, in the middle of my rant, this particular clerk at the St. Louis DMV didn’t yell back but kindly said instead, “Honey, are you having a bad day?”

I was immediately embarrassed and apologized. And even though in truth the car registration system was ridiculous, my anger didn’t solve the problem but only revealed something about me— I was indeed having a bad day - I was in a new city, trying to manage red tape, nervous about law school, and it was just.so.hot.

Similarly, when we find Moshe and B’nai Yisrael in Parshat Chukat, coming to the end of their journey in the seemingly very hot desert, they are indeed having a really bad day. Miriam has just died, and the people are now clamoring for water.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards, "The Gift of Grief," https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/gift-grief

Here in the wilderness, after the death of Miriam, “the people quarreled with Moses, saying, ‘If only we had perished when our brothers perished at the instance of the Eternal!’ ” (20:3). Maybe the absence of “water” after Miriam’s death is the absence of

tears. For here in the wilderness, after the death of Miriam, I hear in the angry words of the Israelites what I often hear from grieving mourners: “I wish I were dead too,” or “I wish I had died first and not had to feel this pain.”

[A] stage of grief is anger. Could it be grief over the loss of Miriam (her music, her leadership, her longtime presence in their midst) that causes the Israelites to turn on Moses and Aaron? Could it be grief that causes Moses and Aaron to turn on them? Some have noted that the difference between the Hebrew words Miryam (Miriam) and mayim (water) is one extra letter. How poignant it is to read 20:2 not as “the community was without water (mayim),” but rather “the community was without Miriam.”

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, "Lean On Me: Moshe and Joshua, striking the rock, and change," https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2015/06/lean-on-me-moshe-and-joshua-striking-the-rock-and-change.html

Moshe snaps at the people and hits the rock and God thinks: ahh -- I see that you're approaching the end of your rope. So God gives notice to Moshe: you've done amazing things, and I can see that you're getting weary, and it's okay -- you've led the people so very far -- you don't have to lead them all the way. You can place your hands on Joshua and give him some of your spirit. Lean on him (that's what smicha means), transmit your Torah to him, and then let go. Trust the next chapters of your people's story to his hands and his heart.

Before the end of his story, Moshe will have the opportunity to stand before the people and remind them of everything they've experienced thus far. That's the book of D'varim / Deuteronomy -- the Hebrew name means "Words," and the Greek name means "Second telling." Moshe gets to give over his wisdom one final time before he dies, and when he dies, Torah tells us, God buries him.

When I imagine myself in Moshe's shoes at the end of his life, I imagine gratitude at the opportunity to pause before the end and retell my own story. Moshe stands before the Israelites and speaks the poem of his life, the poem of their lives, giving meaning to everything they have experienced. He has the opportunity to meet death gently, at an advanced age, after having told his story and done the inner work of letting go. We should all be so lucky.