Parashat Hukat: Speech that Draws Water

God instructed Moshe to speak to the rock and it would bring forth water for the people. Instead, he hit the rock twice.

Maybe he did try speaking, but the speaking didn’t work. The Torah tells us that he gathered the people and, before hitting the rock, he spoke these words: Shimu na Hamorim, “Listen up, you rebels, are we going to get water from this rock?” This is speech. Perhaps this was the speech that Moshe thought would elicit water from the rock.

But it didn’t. It didn’t because only gentle loving speech brings forth water. Moshe’s speech is angry and dripping with sarcasm. He attacks the people at their very essence. He doesn’t just say, “You acted badly and rebelliously,” but you are rebels. These are words of despair and faithlessness in the possibility of change. They do not inspire, but degrade. They make the people feel badly about themselves. We will never be any good. We are, of our very essence, bad people.

Such words cannot bring forth water; they block it from flowing. There is water of life and creativity and spirit in every thing and every person in this world. God created them all through speech and speech is capable of bringing out their essence, their beauty, their power. But not such speech, not angry, hopeless speech.

What it takes is the speech of brachah, blessing. After God created the world with speech, He gave over the power of speech to humans, the power to praise God and recognize the beauty of His world through speech and the power to bless other human beings. This is the speech of song and the speech of love. It is the speech of Yaakov on his death bed who says, “May the angel who rescued me bless these children” and it is the speech song of the people of Israel at the Sea: “Who is like You, O Lord?”

Such speech does have the power to bring forth water. (Indeed, see a bit later in the parsha, where the people sing another water song, connected to a new water well they have dug – 21:17). In its joy and its love, such speech brings forth the hidden well-springs of water in each of us. Angry speech like Moshe’s does not accomplish its purpose and so necessarily leads to blows. The rock – and the people – will not bring forth water that way except by force. With a gentle loving speech that inspires, who knows what kind of water can come forth?