Parashat Hukat: Turning Rock into Water

The atmosphere in the Israelite camp after Miriam dies is as hard as a rock.  The waters dry up and all that is left is a hard rock -- no flow, no connection, just strife.  The people fight with Moshe and attack him, and then Moshe responds in kind, speaking in a denigrating, sarcastic way to the people -- listen up, you rebels -- and expressing his frustration and anger by striking the rock repeatedly.  Even the waters that then emerge from this rock are not waters of flow and peace, but waters of strife, mei merivah.  

This rock symbolizes the hardness that has settled over the camp since Miriam’s death.  It is the hardness of having a strong feeling and not allowing it, of hardening one’s heart to not feel the pain.  For there is no break after Miriam’s death, no time taken to mourn her, to feel what was surely a devastating loss.  Later, when Aharon dies, the people are said to “cry” over him for thirty days.  Perhaps the lesson was learned-- if you don’t let the tears flow, if you force them to dry up too quickly, then there is no water, no flow in the camp, then hearts turn to stone and you have to work to get the water back.   Grief has to be fully felt and digested.  

And so, here they are, after Miriam’s death, with hardness and strife at the center of the camp, some unexpressed emotion stirring up the people.   This happens to us all the time.  We are suddenly inexplicably irritable or downcast; everything bothers us.  Often, underneath that “inexplicable” outburst is a strong emotion that has been blocked, that has not been fully felt, so that we are left with a rock of hardness in our center, all dried up, a hard spot that gnaws at us, constantly irritating our innards, like a kidney stone.  Or maybe we feel this hardness as tension, as a holding energy inside us, holding tight and hard against feeling some vulnerability, and so, feeling instead the hard knot of tension -- a little rock -- that arises to block the hurt.  

The question is what to do with this rock.   Moshe tries the harsh way, the way of the rock itself perhaps, to be angry and aggressive toward that part in an effort to force it to change, to stop being so dry and “hard” or difficult.   This, too, is familiar.   When we are in a difficult place emotionally, we tend to manhandle the situation, to try to fix the difficulty through sheer force of will, through self aggression, through a critical judgmental stance which is a essentially a way of hitting ourselves, of hitting the rock inside us -- you are a terrible person for acting and feeling this way; this anger you feel is unreasonable; you have no right to be irritable or sad or anxious; you have so much to be grateful for; stop wallowing and just pull it together!  What an idiot!

This harsh aggressive stance toward the hard rocks inside us may work for a time or partially, but the hardness remains, and now, in addition to the original hurt, there is an added sense of being invalidated and shamed for the difficulty.  Such a rock, when hit, will perhaps yield water, but begrudgingly and inefficiently, through additional pain -- Moshe had to strike the rock twice to get water.  There is a certain irony here; we try to hit a rock to soften it when what it needs is a soft touch to help it melt, not harden further.

There is another way, and it is God’s way, a gentler way.  God instructs Moshe and Aharon -- vedibartem el hasela -- you should speak to the rock.   Not speak about the rock or against the rock, as the people later do against Moshe and God -- veyedaber ha’am be-Elokim uveMoshe (21:5), speaking be someone, “against” them -- but here instead the suggestion is to speak el, directly “to” the rock, as God speaks regularly to Moshe, panim el panim  (Ex 33:1!), face to face, intimately, tenderly, with respect and a sense of connectedness, a meeting of minds, a relational stance.  

What does speaking to the rock inside of us mean?  What words do we use?  God doesn’t tell Moshe what to say as the words themselves barely matter.   The important thing is the stance of respect and relationship, of opening to the connection itself, of relating, not attacking.  The energy is one of calm acceptance, of full partnership, rather than authoritarian force and punishment.   The words might be as simple as:  I hear you.  I see your pain.  I am here now with you. What do you need?   Or maybe there are no words, just a soft murmuring presence, the burbling sound of a flowing river that whispers a message of love and continuous company, of acceptance and understanding.  

Approached in this way, the rock softens of its own accord.  While Moshe had to force the rock to let forth water, to break its will, God predicts that when approached in this gentler relational way, the rock will naturally and freely give its waters -- venatan meimav  (20:8).   The situation is like the story of an argument between the sun and the wind over who can get a man’s jacket off faster.  The wind tries with great might to force the jacket off, blowing fiercely and pulling at it, causing the man to wrap the jacket around him even more tightly.  The sun, on the other hand, simply shines brightly and the man removes the jacket himself.   To speak gently and warmly to the rocks inside us is to melt their ice so that they naturally shift and take off their hard exteriors; no force is necessary; the rock softens on its own, mirroring our softness.  

Venatan meimav.  And it, the rock, will give its waters.  Now, feeling the tender company, now come the tears that needed to be shed -- held back for so long -- nourishing tears that open us up to giving and receiving not mei merivah, “waters of strife,” but ma’ayanei ha’yeshuah, everflowing fountains of redemption, waters of joy and love and healing.