Introducing the Team — Striking the Rock w/ Josh Bossé

Episode 30

• Notes on 30: Lead with Your Voice
• Marty proposed that Moshe killed two people the day that he struck the rock and that is why he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.
• People got really upset about this episode.
• It was simply a theory that Marty had.

What else?

• G-d is clear and says that Moshe didn’t trust G-d and didn’t demonstrate him as Holy but there isn’t a lot of clarity of how he did those things.
• Ramban says that the reasons Moshe deson’t make it to the Promised Land is one of the great mysteries of the Torah.
• Josh notices a pattern where the people do something wrong, Moshe deals with it, and the G-d introduces a new law to help prevent them from making the same mistake again. E.g. tzit tzit tassles.
  • Josh thinks something similar is happening with this story.
  • Problems that Josh noticed about the story:
    1. Why don’t the people mourn Mariam? This is a new, fresh group of people. This is not the same group of people from Exodus.
    2. The group makes a strange complaint to Moshe:
       • They want to have died with those from the Exodus.
       • The group doesn’t like Kadesh.
       • They also have a strange shopping list.
       • If water was the main issue, why was it last?
    3. Why does G-d have Moshe take the staff if he wasn’t supposed to strike the rock?
    4. Why was Moshe so angry? He has been very patient and defferential in the past but there is something different now.
  • Going through the problems one by one.
    1. Why don’t the people mourn Mariam?
       • She was very popular and loved by the women of Israel.
       • There wasn’t animosity because of nepotism because the people mourn for Aaron.
       • The people refused to move on and leave her behind when she was stricken with leprosy.
       • They clearly love her.
       • The answer is found in the answer to the second question.
    2. The comlpaints are about the specific location of Kadesh.
       • It’s in the text. They have been at Kadesh before (in the valley of Eshkol in the desert of Paran).
       • Kadesh is where the last generation tripped up and then had to wander the desert for another generation.
       • They are zealous to do G-d’s mission and enter the Promised Land.
    3. Why the staff?
       • The question is really, WHICH staff?
       • There is a lot of debate about which staff it was but it’s believed that it was the staff that bloomed that came out of the Korach Rebellion.
       • G-d instructed Moshe and Aaron to keep the staff as a reminder of rebellious behavior.
       • If you read the Korach rebellion closely, Moshe doesn’t get angry until the people REALLY push him in Numbers 16.
       • If the people are guilty of anything, it’s of being TOO zealous to do what G-d wants.
       • There doesn’t seem like a good reason for Moshe to be angry with the people. It does however seem reasonable that Moshe was angry because of his grief.
       • Mariba is mentioned in Numbers 20 when Aaron is “gathered to his people” which is the same word Moshe used when referring to the people as rebellious.
       • G-d seems to be turning Moshe’s words around him.
       • The people were not the rebellious one, it was Aaron and Moshe that were rebellious.
       • The staff produced almonds which implies haste because it’s one of the first crops of the year.
       • G-d seems to be implying to Aaron and Moshe that THEY are the rebels in this story by having them use the staff from G-d’s presence.
       • Similarities with Nadab and Abihu
         • This story reads very similarly the Aaron and Moshe story at Kadesh.
         • Aaron is even commanded that he cannot mourn his sons (like Aaron and Moshe aren’t able to mourn Mariam).
         • We’re told that there was something wrong with the fire as well as something wrong with the timing.
         • At the same time that Nadab and Abihu are bringing their own fire, G-d brings fire from the alter in the tent.
         • G-d shows his presence with fire.
         • G-d ordains and is pretty serious about parties.
         • For some ceremonies, the priest who ordains the party has to participate in the party by eating their own sacrifice.
         • There is no VIP section in the Kingdom.
       • The people know that Kadesh is not the Promised Land and they know that it’s time to move on.
       • It seems like everyone BUT Moshe knows that it’s time to move on and G-d seems to side, for once, with the people instead of Moshe.

Discussion Questions

• Dig into the midrash.
• How could this story have been different if Moshe had acted differently?
  • If you’re a leader, do NOT miss this question.
• When Moshe says “this rock” what is Moshe referring to? Is it Mariam’s headstone?
• Numbers is a book on leadership… This moment changes Moshe’s style of leadership for the rest of the book.